Markus

As we all know, there are a plethora of places where you can get a free email addresses. This means that it is very easy to get a new address for, well, whatever you want to do. In some situations this isn't a good thing, for example, if you manage a forum and you don't spam users appearing. An easy way to handle things would be to have a list of domains you don't allow registrations from, and you'd include places like hotmail, gmail, freemail, etc...

Thus you would need a "real" as it were, email address. Some may complain as they will say they don't have such an email address and rely on gmail.

However, I thought that these days most ISPs would provide you with at least one email address, sometimes even allowing you unlimited addresss, thus you could use this "real" address, rather than a free one. Is my assumption here correct?

sti-04!!

I have a few hotmails, some gmails & 1 from my ISP so yes Markus in my case your assumption is correct.

HankScorpio

What about people like students who might not have an ISP, only gmail/hotmail and want to keep personal stuff off the uni network?
Kids as well.
Or people with partners who have one ISP address.

Markus

Some good answers there. I think it shows that exceptions may need to be made in circumstances. I guess what you could do is to say that all free accounts except gmail cannot be used, as it's now possible for anyone to get a gmail account.

stevem2k

empirically, if you block yahoo/msn/hotmail addresses for signups that resolves 90% of the 'issues'

Markus

As long as it's stated you need a "real" email or gmail then I think this should cover things. If people register with other free email systems, you simply block those domains.

Sonic'

Good question really

I have a Telewest email address with some aliases (5 I think it used to be) but I dont think I have ever logged into it

I have another ISP one, again never logged into it

I have another ISP one, but that is work

I have Yahoo & gmail and hotmail accounts, and a few others that have accumulated over the years

BUT other than my work one, I only use my Yahoo one

Any forums I was a member of, always ended up getting registered using my works email addy, but as I have changed jobs I have lost registrations because I never changed them

PeteBrant

I never use ISP email accounts - I don't want to have to advise everyone of a change of address should I change ISP.

If a forum or site blocked me using it based on my msn email account, i simply wouldn't use that site/forum.

Markus

Another good point about the ISP based address there. I can see how annoying it would be to go to register to find out that, for example, hotmail accounts are not allowed, and to have to create a gmail one, but one could argue that if it prevents spam/annoying users, then perhaps it's worth it.

KiwiGTI

I've lived in 6 countries and had at least 10 different ISPs so they are just not an option for me, or many people in the same situation.

I've had my Hotmail address for 10 years now and that's the one everyone knows. (Also got Yahoo and Gmail ones too, but that was really just to reserve my name)

PeteBrant

Irrelevant, because I wouldn't join the site in the first place to find out. I would see the "does not accept MSN addresses" note and think "**** that"

Persistant nuisance users can be blocked based on IP address range.

Sonic'

Blocking by IP Address Range isn't a good option really

Markus

Yes you can prevent registration based on an IP address, or a range of addresses, but that presents issues within itself. For example, say someone was using demon and you blocked the range that their address fell into, that would prevent registrations from anyone using demon as an ISP. Ok, you say, block just their IP, well, you can do that, but unless they have a static IP that's not going to help either, as typically the addresses will be dynamic and your block will end up blocking someone else.
Now if the block supported a dns name as well as IP then that might be more useful as I know over here isp's state they have static addresses, when in fact they mean the dns name is static but the address is not, so you could ban via the dns name.

We then get onto the thorny subject of people using proxies and anonymizers to mask their IP address. Along the same lines as my thought on email addresses, who, apart from corporate or educational users are required or need to use a proxy or an anonymizer?

dba

I use Gmail so I can access it easily because I travel a lot,I have no perception of it being 'not suitable',I suspect 90% of home users feel the same.You need to get out of 'bbs world' where everyone is aware of these things.Not everyone is.If you want everyone to have pop3 then its no different to charging a subscription,you might as well.

As for getting a pop3 from the ISP,have you tried to use the one supplied by Sky? tens of thousands of home users who can't or won't fiddle around with there internet mail account settings are just settling for web based mail addresses.They don't care that boards get spammed do they?

Anyway,thats what moderators are for.

Markus

Part of the reason for the topic of discussion is really down to automatic vs manual efforts to prevent spam or other unwanted users. I see the registration limitations as being a nice automatic way to restricting things. Ok it's not fully automatic as you may need to add a few domains now and then, but it's not a bad start.

We're then onto the manual part of things, which is where the mods/admin team come into play. You need a good team who are vigillant and very active to keep an eye on things. If they are paid then I'm sure they'd be very good at it, but I don't know many mods who are paid and thus you are relying on people doing it when the have a spare moment, and everyone has a life outside of the internet, so things can and will get missed. And if one mod does not bother to do something, then others could wonder why they should do anything and so they also sit back.

HankScorpio

The thing is, when I sign up for anything that I feel may be temporary, I'll either use a throwaway address on one of my domains that I can then setup to bounce or use one of the many disposable addresses available on the internet.
I very rarely sign up with my "real" address but anyone looking would be none the wiser.

A good verification system would sort out just spammers wouldn't it? Might be better than blanket no to popular domains, that might cut your numbers as others have said.

All IMHO obviously