Request for more flexible e-mail address choices for new acc

[BahnKnakyu]

Hello.

I've already had this happen to three of my friends - their ISPs will not provide a "real" e-mail address, so they've been forced to resort to things like hotmail, google, and yahoo for their primary sources of e-mail. However, this has barred them from getting onto PSO-World, and I feel that the "lamers" you guys may be trying to protect yourself against by banning these addresses from verification purposes for new accounts isn't as effective as it probably was a few years ago, considering how small the PSO population is at the moment. Is it possible you guys could lift the ban on these "easy e-mail" addresses for new accounts? I believe at this point they may be doing more harm than good. The friends whom had this "forbidden e-mail" address problem I've helped get around with by directing them to an e-mail forwarding service (which I won't name in fear of having that too added to the forbidden e-mail list), but I don't really want to have to direct any new friends who wish to use this site to that service if it's totally unnecessary.

Thanks for your consideration!

[KodiaX987]

You should've seen this when some idiot flooded the entire set of boards for 4 pages with a dozen different accounts for an entire week. I would've asked to you then if "easy E-mail addresses" should be allowed.

[Ryna]

The email registration restrictions were recently relaxed. People that don't have "real emails" should be able to join PSO-World more easily now.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ryna on 2006-05-04 14:32 ]</font>

[EJ]

On 2006-05-04 05:08, KodiaX987 wrote:
You should've seen this when some idiot flooded the entire set of boards for 4 pages with a dozen different accounts for an entire week. I would've asked to you then if "easy E-mail addresses" should be allowed.


QFT!

Ugh...don't remind me of that time =.=

[BahnKnakyu]

On 2006-05-04 05:08, KodiaX987 wrote:
You should've seen this when some idiot flooded the entire set of boards for 4 pages with a dozen different accounts for an entire week. I would've asked to you then if "easy E-mail addresses" should be allowed.


Actually, I am a firm believer of allowing people to use whatever e-mail accounts they want (then again, I dislike any form of mandatory registration to post or participate in a site). This troll you speak of - how long ago was this? I assume this was awhile ago (since your account information shows you're a Veteran). How likely is such an attack to happen now with the smaller PSO community? Yes, PSU is bringing back a lot of people, but I wouldn't be quick to say that it's going to bring the PS* community back to the state it was a few years ago.

A blanket ban on the "easy E-mail addresses" is like using a hammer to smash a mosquito, you'll be taking care of the problem, but it's probably overkill and hurts newcomers to the site in the process.

Ryna: Thanks for the new information, I'll pass it along to the people who have been having difficulty with web registration. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[KodiaX987]

I wouldn't say that so quickly. After a while in the chatroom, we ended up auto-banning all anonymous people from AOL because we got absolutely nothing but trolls and idiots from there.

And the strategy behind banning "easy" E-Mails is because of the ways one can identify you on a website. There's three ways:

-User name
-E-Mail address
-IP address

Naturally, if you kick someone off, he can simply sign ban in under another name and wreak havoc. So simply requesting a nickname and a password is not enough for most. An E-Mail address will be required for verification. This way, if you kick him off again, you can make it so your place won't allow anyone back having registered with that particular E-Mail.

The problem is that places like Hotmail and Yahoo offer free E-Mail addresses. So, if someone gets kicked out, he can simply make himself a new E-Mail. Sounds hard to believe but some people will actually spend days doing nothing but trolling forums and making new E-Mail addressed everytime they get banned. It's unbelievable and yet it's true.

Third and last, the IP Address. This is an address that it assigned to you when you get on the Internet. The problem is that dial-up and DSL users have dynamic IP addresses. What does it mean? That IP changes everytime they re-connect! So if I'm a dial-up user and I get IP-banned, I can disconnect, reconnect, and come back.

Therefore, the only actual way of really making sure a banned user doesn't get back is to put a stop to free E-Mail addresses. By forcing a user to use the address provided by his ISP, it becomes much harder for him to try to get back after he's banned.