A Thought

[SnakEyez02]

Just looking at IPB for a minute I had a few ideas cross my mind. Let me know what you think about them:

1. IPB already tracks when users are posting. Could there possibly be a way, in future releases, maybe to automatically prune these inactive accounts. For example, if a user does not post in a year, there account becomes inactive and must be re-validated (as if they just registered for instance). Then these accounts could be placed into a log, and, if administration deems it necessary, they can delete inactive accounts from this log.

2. You know how there is a setting in IPB to force people on bad log-in attempts to wait a period of time before trying again. Just out of curiosity, was there a reason this protection was never implemented on the administration login?

3. Password complexity. A nice feature would be an option in the settings to force certain types of passwords which would be eligible for registration. For example, users passwords must contain a letter and a number, or maybe at least 1 capital, 1 lowercase, and a number, or any crazy combination like that which would force stronger passwords.

4. And I know I have asked for this before, but I thought it would be good to bring this up again. Maybe support for iCal type files to allow calendar's being synchronized. I believe Vista's Windows Calendar uses the same format so maybe since Vista has this feature and Mac users have this feature it might help if the calendar could be managed locally then synchronized online via a file upload.

5. Finally, in an attempt to improve skinning something that would be nice would be an option from the skins drop-down menu (where you select the default), to change the skin to act as if it were uploaded brand new. So by this I mean it wouldn't show anything as being changed. This way, if the main skin gets updated, it is easier to apply them to custom skins. Also it would allow skin developers to know what files were changed since the last update.

[BlackDrag]

Hi

4. Don't use so much the calendar but it is a really good idea... :cool:

:lol:

[Louis M.]

I really am for ical support!!!

[Mark]

1. This gets suggested a lot.. but why would you want to do that? All it would gain would be they'd be a few posts lurking around with that horrible "unregistered" bit that comes up when you delete someone's account and you'd get a few angry members asking why they can't log in.

2. Because in the ACP you can unlock manually. Now if they were locked out of the ACP, I could deliberatly lock all the admins out of their accounts and go spam crazy and they'd be able to do nothing about it. As it stands, if someone does that they can just open the ACP, unlock their accounts and bring out the banning stick ;)

3. I personally hate sites that do that. But I can see why someone might want that, and it's not too difficult to add...

4. The calendar hasn't had an update for... God only knows how long. Granted there isn't too much that can be done with it, but it does need some loving - like how many times do you go into the calendar and say "Where the hell is the 'Add event' button?" I do it every time...

5. Yes yes yes yes yes! It would be nice to have more than one master skin to revert templates to... like in the IP. Board Pro skin, if I click revert I want to revert it to the default for the IP. Board Pro skin - not the Classic Blue skin!

[bfarber]

1) Eh

2) The account locking does apply to the ACP too. If you try to login to the ACP x number of times incorrectly, you get locked from being able to login to the ACP (just like the board). I just tested it by logging in with my account to the ACP incorrectly 3 times and got

Your account has been locked due to the number of failed login attempts made

3) Not a bad feature, though one I wouldn't use. Might be useful if it could be applied per-group (to force admins to have good passwords)

4) I like this idea

5) This is a limitation in how skins are currently handled that should be rectified in v3

[SnakEyez02]

1. This gets suggested a lot.. but why would you want to do that? All it would gain would be they'd be a few posts lurking around with that horrible "unregistered" bit that comes up when you delete someone's account and you'd get a few angry members asking why they can't log in.

2. Because in the ACP you can unlock manually. Now if they were locked out of the ACP, I could deliberatly lock all the admins out of their accounts and go spam crazy and they'd be able to do nothing about it. As it stands, if someone does that they can just open the ACP, unlock their accounts and bring out the banning stick ;)

3. I personally

hate

sites that do that. But I can see why someone might want that, and it's not too difficult to add...

4. The calendar hasn't had an update for... God only knows how long. Granted there isn't too much that can be done with it, but it does need some loving - like how many times do you go into the calendar and say "Where the hell is the 'Add event' button?" I do it every time...

5. Yes yes yes yes yes! It would be nice to have more than one master skin to revert templates to... like in the IP. Board Pro skin, if I click revert I want to revert it to the default for the IP. Board Pro skin - not the Classic Blue skin!

1. It could be used as a retention tool. If people aren't posting, it would be good to remind them they are a member to get more activity going, it doesn't necessarily mean that they need to be deleted because a few lines deleted from a database wouldn't help much in overall size, nor searching speed.

2. My suggestion here would have been strictly IP related, because I have seen some people spam to try and get in. I found the IPs but it would be helpful if there was an automated tool so I didn't have to check. Still probably not a good idea though seeing the comment you made.

3. I know some people hate this, but I think even something as easy as a number and a letter with a minimum length would be good enough. I've seen some systems, most notably CPanel, where hosts have put into place using combinations of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, a special symbol and it cannot be, or resemble a dictionary word. That is a bit overboard.

4. Exactly my point. I know this has been requested before and I personally like using iCal and wouldn't mind uploading to keep the calendar up-to-date.

5. Thank you for agreeing with me here. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. I have a custom skin, but it's hard to know what I updated every time to make minor fixes for IE7 or something stupid. Knowing what is the original is always good without having to upload the skin again.

[Mark]

1. You can use bulk mail (I think) to send EMails to people who have made less than x amount of posts or haven't posted in x amount of time

2. (In reply to bfarber) Oh my mistake, is it a seperate function from the board's failed login system?

3/4/5. Wow, not often bfarber likes ideas ;)

[bfarber]

The function is separated slightly from the regular board login, because the ACP login is slightly separated. Same code though.

You'd be surprised at how often I do like ideas (usually when I don't reply), however I also don't make the general decisions as to what is added. ;)

[Luke]

The iCal sync idea is a wonderful idea.

Forcing people to have 1 letter and 1 number in their passwords, etc... I HATE that with a passion. You should NEVER force someone to create a new password, especially when they use certain passwords for certain types of gateways... If their password doesn't work, they aren't going to like you. Some sites I just wouln't register on just because they do this. I hate having to memorize a dozen and a half passwords. I use more than one, but I don't use a different password for every single thing - I'd go crazy.

Instead tell the person how strong their password is and indicate it with a color, green through red. I've seen this on a few places, and I absolutely love it. It makes people more aware of how weak or strong their password is, and gives them the opportunity to change it. But the most important thing is, it doesn't force you to do it. Who ever came up with the bright idea to force someone to do it should be... lets just not go there... The person who came up with the idea of telling someone how strong their password is and not force that advice upon them should be given a medal.

[Mark]

You'd be surprised at how often I do like ideas (usually when I don't reply), however I also don't make the general decisions as to what is added. ;)

They might not notice if you just "slipped" some stuff in ;)

Instead tell the person how strong their password is and indicate it with a color, green through red. I've seen this on a few places, and I absolutely love it. It makes people more aware of how weak or strong their password is, and gives them the opportunity to change it. But the most important thing is, it doesn't force you to do it. Who ever came up with the bright idea to force someone to do it should be... lets just not go there... The person who came up with the idea of telling someone how strong their password is and not force that advice upon them should be given a medal.

I agree, gotta love the bar ;)

[Louis M.]

I think stronger passwords for certain groups is a good idea as it was suggested previously.

Skinning changes are a pain in the rear right now. I am seriously frustrated after updates trying to get things back in order again.

[Tiina]

4. And I know I have asked for this before, but I thought it would be good to bring this up again. Maybe support for iCal type files to allow calendar's being synchronized. I believe Vista's Windows Calendar uses the same format so maybe since Vista has this feature and Mac users have this feature it might help if the calendar could be managed locally then synchronized online via a file upload.

Yes, yes and yes! Would be really nice to be able to subscribe public .ics calendars to IPB forum calendar or import or export .ics files. Something I've been looking and waiting for some time.