Disable Private Messages?

dteare

I wanted to get everyone's feedback on this before I pull the trigger:



I'm getting really tired of spammers abusing the PM feature of this forum and am thinking about just turning off the PM feature entirely.



The other issue with PMs is many users have gotten confused and/or angry when they PM admins and don't get a response. We have so many inboxes to check that the PM inbox is often not checked for months at a time.



Is anyone [b]relying[/b] on this feature? I know it is being used by a few people but is it really that important? If so, what is the use case? I'm just wondering if it is worth the time and effort we waste supporting it.



Thanks!

1Jeff

Hi Dave!



The only reason I've used it is for communicating with other team members.. I've also used it for keeping up on what I've missed when I disappear for a spell. We forum team members can rely on email and mod squad, so I'm not sure the PM system is something that we *need* but it does provide that "sense" of community I guess. I don't think the general populous of our members use it. We only have ~1500 active members according to vB anyways, are you seeing a lot of usage of the system besides spam? What about CAPTCHA (which could be removed for users who explicitly request it)? That might be too much work if the PM feature isn't in heavy use.

thightower

Dave I left a reply in the mod area.

DBrown

Hmm...I haven't received any spam by IM, but I have received several important messages...including a job offer. :)



It's the only way I know of to communicate with forum participants when it's not strictly forum-related business. I met Tommy Hightower that way, and have traded messages with a few others, over the months.



It's your call, of course! :)

thightower

Hmm



1P seems to be growing by leaps and bounds lately.



Dave maybe you should shed a little of the responsibility for maintaing forums, questions, name changes , pm's etc etc. This would let you do more coding etc and let the other tasks fall down the ladder. I am sure more than a few of us would be willing to help maintain this feature etc. I know I would. Hey I am pro-bono because I love 1P so much. Go ahead add a little to my plate. :smile: As David said the choice is yours.

dteare

Thanks Tommy. What you say makes a lot of sense but I don't want to support a feature that is not being used. From what I can tell PMs are used more by spammers than anything else.



David's comment made me LOL as I did indeed rely on PMs to contact him. Since I'm an admin, however, I could have emailed him :)



Since I posted this thread I haven't had any spam reports to full my passion so I'll just leave it for now. We'll see how I feel when the next spammer comes along…

Lewys

Hope this is OK to post.



Have you guys looked at: [url]http://www.stopforumspam.com/[/url]

Useful site, you can also download a blacklist of domains/IP addresses and add those to the board.



You could also/instead setup a PM flood limit. 1 PM every 5 minutes and no more than 10 PM's in an hour, something like that; of your choosing.



:-)

Nik

Thanks, Lewys!

Ben

Personally i'd be ok with disabling it, and I'll put my email address out there if people need to contact me

protagonistic

No problems here with the feature being disabled. I hate spam and can certainly sympathize with you on the matter.

Ned

Please leave the PM channel in place.



As for the spammers, enabling Verify Email Address in Registration (vBulletin Options/User Registration Options) will likely take care of the problem as many spammers don't bother. You'll stil have a semi-registered spammer to deal with but he can't send PMs. I can't recall [I]ever[/I] having a problem with PM spam.



vBulletin Options/Private Messaging Options/Throttle Check Period could be useful too. Set that and then specify a small number for the Junior Member usergroup in Usergroup Manager/Private Message Permissions/Message Throttle Quantity.



Also in Usergroup Manager/Private Message Permissions, Maximum Recipients to Send PMs at a time could be set to disallow "broadcasting", if that's your problem. A value of 5 seems about right, big enough not to hamper normal communications.



I don't recall if you have Verify Email Address in use right now. If you don't, try that alone & don't use the other adjustments unless you need to.



[Just noticed the forum's on vB 4.0.1. The locations I mention are true in 3.8.5, and may vary slightly.]

Nik

[quote name='Ned']As for the spammers, enabling Verify Email Address in Registration (vBulletin Options/User Registration Options) will likely take care of the problem as many spammers don't bother. You'll stil have a semi-registered spammer to deal with but he can't send PMs. I can't recall [I]ever[/I] having a problem with PM spam.[/quote]

Thanks for the suggestion! We already have this in place, but unfortunately it doesn't really seem to deter the spammers.



Another thing about PMs is that when they are used as a support channel, it really isn't the best use of everyone's time. We've had situations in which a customer has PM'd anyone who's a moderator or admin, saying the same thing to everyone. This results in several members of the team all answering the same questions and also keeps the discussion away from the public forums, where other customers may also benefit from it.



As Dave said, for now we are leaving things alone, and we appreciate your input. I just wanted to add some reasons why we may disable PMs in the future.