Pavel Chernitsky

As I said, we have experience with such a tool from when we were using VB, and of course it doesn't work on all cases, but most people, even the technical ones, slip up at least once and forget to delete the cache or cookies, and then they pop up on the radar. Regarding IP vs cookies, ip is a complete no go. since here in Israel smartphone acceptance is extremely high (like 96% or something) and mobile data is very cheap and basically unlimited, pretty much 100% of our users log in from a mobile phone as well as a pc (if not exclusively). So IPs are all over the place. So the only viable option is a cookie (or some other method I'm not aware of). Since Israel isn't a part of the EU, we don't actually have to abide by the GDPR, but even when we will, I'm sure about how many people give that "we use cookies" message a second thought. I mean of course, I'd love a 100% fail proof system, but I'm not a complete moron (contrary to what my wife says) and I'm fully aware that any system, no matter how smart and sophisticated, can be circumvented. And until someone figures out something perfect, I'll take what I can get.

I'm sorry, but that's just a ridiculous statement... firstly because I'm running an automotive community, secondly because I myself dabble in gaming a bit and know for a fact there are no more "gamer" trolls than any other random kind, and lastly because the tendency to troll has nothing to do with one's hobbies, and everything to do with their nature, mentality and upbringing. Also, you don't have to agree with the need for anything, but dumbing it down to basically "It shouldn't be a core part because some admins are dumb and will ban family members using the same computer, and gamer trolls will find a way to bypass it" is actually pretty insulting to me. should we not have any way to enforce rules or laws just because some people find ways around them? Should we ban the selling of kitchen knives because a moron once stabbed himself in foot with it? that's a very simplistic and "turn the other cheek" kind of thinking if I'm being honest. I think admins should be given the maximum amount of tools to help them deal with "law breakers" and make their jobs at keeping the communities they are in charge with as much within the communities guidelines as possible. I get what you're saying, that is an easy metric to look at, but I don't think it's the only - or even the best - one to consider. firstly, because that plugin is fairly expensive as far as marketplace plugins go for small one-man-show communities, and for larger communities who have an in-house dev (or dev team), they'll just have them write a similar plugin that perfectly fits the community's needs. Secondly, I'd say there are a fair few admins who just don't think of that option, I haven't until we've installed it on the previous forum software we used... Also, when I say "niche" I don't mean "small numbers" but "small role. If we're looking at it conceptually, a duplicate user detector is - as I see it - the basis for the community's entire rules/warning system, and you got to agree that's a pretty important chunk of the system (or of a community in general, virtual or IRL). When you don't have a way to enforce the "punishments" you've given, why give them at all?

@Morrigan I'll say it again - you DO NOT take any action based only one the fact that two people use the same computer. We've had dozens of members from the same families that were constantly popping off as duplicates and it was ok. BUT, when you ban a user, and 20 minutes later a NEW user is registered from the same device and starts acting abnormally, it SHOULD raise a flag, and you - as a community manager - need be aware of that so you can keep an eye open for that. It is NOT an automatic ban hammer, it IS a tool to help draw admins' attention, the community manager NEEDS TO use their brains before banning people flagged by the feature.

That's exactly true. What I said was - and I'm sorry if I'm not articulating myself properly, English isn't my first language - that 3rd party devs are a valuable "resource" so to speak for making different versions of things that already exist (think of it kind of like modding for games), or products that serve a fairly niche use case, while things with diverse use scenarios or things that are the essentially the basis for other systems or should be an integral part of said systems (explanation in the next paragraph), should be a core part of the software. I can't stress enough the fact that this is the first thing (duplicate user "alerter") I need and actually think IPS should bake in to the core suite. When it came to all the other non-standard things I needed, I turned to the marketplace no questions asked, because I knew it's either something fairly few people need, or was a different take on something that already existed. In this case, I think it should be an integral part of the software suite mainly because a true user identification tool (that's what it actually boils down to) is the basis for an effective warning system. If you don't have such a tool, that alerts you (alerts only, DOES NOT do anything else) to duplicate accounts, your entire warning system if pretty much useless. because the minute you ban/take action against any rule-violator, they just open a new account and go on as if nothing happened, and you have NO WAY of knowing that for sure. Like I said before, a duplicate user detector is the basis for an effective rule "enforcement" system, and in the current state of affairs, it's only useful for rule-abiding users. I mean, imagine getting pulled over by a cop for running a red light, and being told you're not allowed to drive anymore, only to be pulled over the next day, by the same cop, for running the same red light, and telling them "oh, so sir, I'm not Aiwa, I'm jeff, a totally different dude". having cops in that kind of a situation sound pretty pointless to me 😄 @Paul E. Actually, most of the things you mentioned, in my opinion,should be part of an addon and not baked into the core suite, since they are enhancements of a "feature" (can't think of another word to describe it) or quality of life improvements, and not a core functionality. In other words, with those features, finding a duplicate user is easier, but without them it's still possible. without a "those two people are using the device/might be the same person" notification, finding it is pretty much impossible with any level of certainty.

I agree, but I think that there are integral things and features that a software company should include in its product. 3rd party developers are a very important part of such a large scale product, but I don't think it's a good idea to solely rely on them for what needs to be a core part of the product. 3rd party devs can do different variants of existing things (themes, and various ways to show announcements are a prime example for that) or niche products that provide a solution for a very narrow and specific use case. Because, like we saw here, a 3rd party dev can decide to take their app down and that's it, if you need it, you're screwed. Or, they WILL eventually stop providing support or not be able to adapt their app/plugin for a new version. If I have something to fall back to (like, say, the default theme), it's manageable. If it takes away a major functionality that I cannot replicate even closely with the default tools, that's a big no no. Just to be clear, I'm saying any of that out of disrespect for 3rd party devs. I think they (you) are a vital part of any program and should be embraced. I'm talking from painful experience with VB and phpBB over the last 18 years where you would one day use a plugin and all your users love it, and the next day it's not supported because of incompatibility with the new version, and the dev is nowhere to be seen and not answering your emails, and your users hate you because "you took away a feature".

Thanks a lot for that. I'm sorry to hear about your predicament (that's the best word in English I can think of, and I'm not actually sure it's adequate...) and I'm sure you'll pull through and exit it better and stronger. DO NOT rule out professional help. Depression is a biological/medical condition and there are ways to just "fix" it with proper medication and/or psychological treatment. DO NET neglect it. I'm taking all the ideas suggested here into account, but for now I think I'll avoid creating a specific user group. I opened a thread asking people to link to deceased users' profiles or the threads announcing their passing, and just going through this thread and remembering the people was a chilling experience. I really would not like to go through it every time I look at the user group list...

Thanks. It was unavailable when I started the topic. Still, any plans on having such a functionality built in to the core suite?

Those are really good ideas. Thanks!

Yeah, it really does suck... So far I've found a way to edit the tagline (What I previously called title) and add a link to the death notice thread to the signature. I was thinking about a usergroup, but I want to see if there are other ideas, because having a "dead guys" user group kinda bums you out every time you go into the group menu... 😕

Hi all, Last night, one of the most prolific and known members of our community passed away and we decided we want to do something to commemorate their memory and give them a special "in memoriam" status, put a link to their death notice thread and any other idea you guys can think of? maybe a page on the profile that shows off their posts and pictures or something? or at least a way to customize their tag line or whatever the text under their avatar is called. Does anybody know of a built-in/purchasable tool that can do something like that?

Most of the things I came across are solvable, some things require more tinkering or creativity (or just knowing coding, I don't, so maybe some of those things are actually really simple) but after understanding the "how" of the translation system can be solved or worked around rather easily. An example for a thing I'm having the a lot of unsolvable trouble is the fact that english is a very "efficient" language in regards to pronouns. in relation to hebrew, the ratio is 8:1 - meaning there are 8 pronouns in Hebrew for every one in English. Two examples of this are: 1. "You" in english refers to four groups of people: singular male, singular female, plural male and plural female. Hebrew has a word for each of those. 2. English doesn't have a distinction between male and female verbs - "He reacted, She reacted, It reacted" as well. Hebrew has different variants for male and female, and none for the "Its" - who are treated as one or the other (Male or female). If I'm totally honest, I don't think the translation system needs that much work. what would be of massive help is a "how it works - tips and tricks" resource with diving deep into things like "where does the system take words from" (the %s thing) or the different customization options of, say, the pluralization system (like using {!#[1=message one][?=# messages]}" instead of {#[1=message][?=messages]} for languages the place the number of the item in different places depending on the number. If you guys want, I'm more than willing to work with you guys more closely on the translation system, or consult on the the relations between it and English, where they are similar and where they differ.

Firstly, apologies for any typos or for using the wrong names for things (you'll see what I mean in sec). English isn't my first language. OK, let's get to it. there is an issue I came across that affects translations and I would like to hear from you guys, if any of you came across something similar. We use Hebrew for our community site and we're doing the translating by ourselves using only the built in translator (not modifying the HTML/CSS/whatever else affects that kind of thing, I'm no programmer so I have no idea what it's called). There are some phrases that are build like so (I added the brackets here for reading domfort): [user_other_activity_reply] [Forums_forum_1]. The resulting text comes out as: [%2$s replied to %3$s's %1$s in] [Forum_1 name] Those are TWO keys - separated by a space - remember that space, it's gonna come back In normal human speak, on the front end, you'll see: "Mike replied to Pavel Chernitsky's topic in feedback and ideas" This, of course, make perfect sense for english and other languages that use separate words as a preposition (and thanks to Google for teaching me what it's called in English 😄). However, in languages that just use a single letter that is prefixed to the word without a space (resulting in - very roughly - a word like "inforum") like Hebrew (that I know of, pretty sure are are others) the resulting phrase comes out looking kinda dumb. Basically, the issue is that you cannot remove the space (told you it'll come back) between the "in" and the thing (forum/club/gallery/etc). I can think two fixes for that: 1. moving the "in" from the "user_other_activity_reply" key (%2$s replied to %3$s's %1$s in) to the "Forums_forum_1" key (Forum_1 name), thus resulting in making the admin able to decide whether or not they want to have a space between "in" and "forum" or not. 2. Adding a space to the end of the "user_other_activity_reply" key and making it's deletion possible. Did any of you come across such an issue? Can you think of another, maybe simpler, fix for that? And also, thanks for anyone who has read this far, I imagine it couldn't have been easy 🤣

Yes, THAT! Also, when clicking one notification and going to that content, other notifications should remain as unread. otherwise you have to open all of them at once in different tabs, and can't leave one or more notifications to handle later (i.e a user reported a post and you can't deal with it right now, or someone posted in a thread you're following and you want to read later). Right now, morons with bad memory like yours truly, are in danger of leaving something for later and then forgetting about it.

Any other input on that issue?

So here's the story: We are setting up a few premium membership subscription plans but a big chunk of out traffic are people who will visit the site one time or a few times during a certain time period and will probably won't return afterwards at all or at least for a long time. We've already set-up two automatically renewing subscriptions, and an open-amount donation. What we want to do are two things: 1. make a "one time pass" that will last a set amount of time and once the it's up it won't renew and revoke the privilege it gave (no ads). I've tried setting up a non-renewing subscription, but I can't find where to define an expiration period. I don't want to have a self-renewing subscription that won't process payment since I don't want to harass people with "Renew your subscription" spam, I just want it to be "buy - have for X days - end - never hear from us again". Hopefully I explained myself properly. 2. since we only have two subscription plans and one donation campaign (not including the above one), it already looks pretty scattered and "spread too thin" and I want to be able to "put" the one-time pass on the same page as one of those two. If throwing all of them into the same page is possible (not by using blocks, it looks kinda meh) it would be awesome. Thank you, Stay awesome.

There's no problem with any of those situations. Let me reiterate, I don't mean that this system should auto-ban or perform any action. It should notify the staff that "It looks like person 1 and person 2 are using the same computer", And if by chance one of those person has already been misbehaving/moderated/banned, you can - at least - keep your eyes open on the the second person. Without such a system, the entire warning system is nothing more that you asking problematic users very politely to play nice. But if they don't want to, they just open a new account. It's basically a rule-keeping system that only works on rule-keeping people. We have recently moved our community from VB to IPS, and we've had a good increase in traffic and registrations. However, we have been recently "under attack" by a few toxic trolls, who we have banned. Now we have new topics opened by newly registered members, some of which look borderline troll-y. How can our moderators know which of those - if any - are legitimate topics and which were opened by one of those trolls' new accounts? Currently, We have NO way of knowing (The ip tools are useless in a community our size, I have yet to see an ip that had was used by only one user).

Fairly few people know about the cookie thing, and we've had had a cookie-based tool on our previous platform and it worked very well.

Any thoughts on the matter from the @IPSStaff? (Here's another idea, allow tagging of user groups, but we can leave that for a future version) 🙂

Banning, blocking and moderating problematic users is all well and good, but if the user decides to open a new account and the site's admins can't detect it as a duplicate, all those tools are pretty useless. I saw that through the years there have been a few plugins developed by the community, but I think that this should be a built-in integral functionality of the suite. Also the plugins are currently not available for purchase so I'm salty 😄 What do you guys think? Should we have a built-in tool to help us find and intercept trolls and toxic users? Especially given how fairly simple is should be to implement (makes a cookie and then checks for it).

I'm not saying that the current situation is unacceptable or unmanageable. I could also just straight up ip-block all other countries or put up a site-wide announcement saying "Non-jews not welcome" 😂. But those are workarounds (and granted, can work in a bind) but they're all less than ideal and I'm just thinking about how to make the experience more seamless and pleasant for the users.

OK, but it would still royally suck to be able to enter your address and then not be able to complete the purchase 😄

Herein lies the problem. Moreover, doing that will only frustrate customers (who live in the "unchecked" countries) even more. Imagine trying to buy something, entering your address, possibly giving your credit card number, and only then realizing you can't actually get the item. I'd be livid.

ok, @opentype, first of all, you're f***g amazing. I don't know how that slipped by me, but thanks. BUT, not all is well. I'll have to look into this further, but I can see two issues: 1. It says that some payment methods won't work - including PayPal and 2checkout, and since those are the only two payment that IPS has and actually work in our country (IL), that means unchecking the boxes to break the commerce anyway... 2. Since this is a public thread, we might as well address sites that do want to sell physical item but aren't really keen on shipping them to Heard Island and McDonald Islands (Who are also, by the way, uninhabited 😄). EDIT: Tried your method, but it looks like when buying a subscription you are still required to enter a billing/shipping address.

So we've started setting up the commerce system and we came across one thing that kinda made me think. When a customer is purchasing something or making a donation, they are required to enter their billing address (even if there is no physical product to ship and the invoice is emailed). We probably won't have any physical products and definitely not planning on shipping worldwide. especially to some of the countries listed there, since they are known to be uninhabited (Like that one). On top of that, We are a non-english website, so we have to translate all the list (that's how I learned that some of the countries in the list are uninhabited. I didn't just randomly know that), and that feels really sisyphic. I contacted support to ask if there is an option to uncheck some/all countries or limit the billing/shipping option to just one country, but the answer was unfortunately "no". however, I was also advised to bring the issue up on this here forum. So, anyone agrees that it good be a good idea to let us limit the countries we ship/sell to or receive payment/donations from?

OK, so after a couple of days running the new rule and getting no complaints, I think we've collectively figured it out. -Like opentype suggested, I've completely removed the 150 post restriction. -Then, I set up a rule where every member who hits 150 posts (If I have to type "pieces of content" one more Imma kill myself) they automatically get added to a secondary group that gives them permission to post in the super-special-exclusive forum. -lastly, I went into a random member's profile in the ACP and clicked the content count drop down. - from there, I clicked "recount" and "Recount for all members". It took a bit of time to procces in the background (~140K members), which did not affect performance at all, and after that we were done - the secondary group grew by the exact amount it should have, and now all is well. Thank you all for your help!