Ask New User to Provide URL for Account on Other Social Network

March 6, 2021

Now that I am in the process of having the iOS and Android apps built for my website, unlike most of my current members who I know from Facebook, I anticipate that I will have a lot of new users who I will know absolutely nothing about. So approving their CSNet membership requests will be a very questionable endeavor, because it potentially opens the door to possible scammers, spammers, pedophiles, etc.

One way to alleviate this uncertainty is by adding an option on the "Registration Settings" page in the AdminCP, so that we phpFox admins can add a new user question.

For example, in my case, I would add the following question/requirement:

"Please provide the URL for your account on another social network in which you participate so that we can learn more about you before approving your CSNet membership request."

The new user would see this question when they sign up, and they would have to enter the URL of one of their accounts on another social network. The phpFox admin can then visit that URL to learn more about that person, BEFORE they approve that person's membership on their phpFox site.

Topics: new user question, feature request, membership, register, registration, user question

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metro

March 10, 2021

If I am reading this correctly, I would suggest that this could be accomplished by using forced custom fields AND approve members on signup.- https://www.phpfox.com/features/administration/custom-fields/

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Bill Kochman

March 10, 2021

metro

Thanks Metro. I'll look into it to see if that meets my needs.

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JohnJr

March 10, 2021

I think that will work...but if I was a dedicated spammer I would just grab anyone facebook URL and copy their profile image and I would you really know.

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Bill Kochman

March 10, 2021

JohnJr

I think that will work...but if I was a dedicated spammer I would just grab anyone facebook URL and copy their profile image and I would you really know.

The question is, John, ARE you a dedicated spammer?

:laughing: :open_mouth: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Yes, I agree. Any smart person could potentially find a way around it. I just feel very uncomfortable approving accounts for hundreds or thousands of people who may sign up with the Christian Social Network, who I know absolutely nothing about. There are already a few who have signed up who I already question. My suspicion about them raises even higher when I send them an email, and they don't even respond.

I don't have this problem with my Facebook friends, because I already know them, and I have usually been friends with them for a number of years, so they get immediate membership approval. But these others ...

Last update on March 10, 2021 by Bill Kochman.

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JohnJr

March 10, 2021

I like to use symbols/images because anyone can look up a word but it is much more difficult to look up an image.

If I owned a golf website I would ask "With only a single word answer, what comes to mind?

If they didn't respond Divot or Grass then they would be rejected.

Now for your site, it may be a little harder :)

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Bill Kochman

March 10, 2021

John, I an not a golfer, so I can only guess at what that thing might possibly be. Is it used to take golf tees out of the ground? 😳

Regarding words or images, if you are talking about the anti-spam phrases which are used during the sign-up process, I was actually using both. In fact, even my phrases were animated GIFs to make it more difficult for bots to be able to read them.

Sadly, when I upgraded from 4.8.3 to 4.8.4, something caused the anti-spam mechanism to break, so that the images are no longer appearing during sign-up. As a result, new users are unable to answer the question, and so the phpFox script throws an error.

Si, for now, I have disabled the anti-spam feature during sign-up. In fact, I haven't even reported the problem to the phpFox staff yet, because I've been too busy, or just too tired.

Anyway, what I am asking for in this thread is not a new way to test new members to make sure they are real people. After all, we can already do that. Rather, what I want is a link to some other social network in which they participate, so I can learn more about them.

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