hotmail

Posted by: Paul Stephenson on 03 December 2001

A week ago we made several changes to the forum, we removed the possibilty to change usernames after registration, removed automatic registration and also declined to accept several types of (free) email addresses's. These email servers like hotmail have been the normal route for folks to hide from fellow contributors their true identity.
We have some contributors who have registered 3 or 4 times with different user names (surprise surprise) we have been deleting these and have banned hotmail email addresses for the time being.
So if you wish to keep posting and you have a hotmail address do not attempt to update your profile as you will get your rights to post removed.

Should you have any problems please email us and we will sort the problem.

Posted on: 04 December 2001 by Simon Crosland

Paul,

You said that you have declined several free email services. Could you tell us which ones?

I use my Yahoo! account for all situations where the email address could become public, such as this forum and when I need to give an email address to a company.

I also have work and personal addresses which I do not publicise. By this device I have (so far) completely avoided getting SPAM at my work or personal addresses - it all goes to the Yahoo! account, and they even very helpfully filter it straight into a junk mail folder :-)

Remeber also, that with people changing "free" ISP frequently (some surveys put it at several times a year), it is often more useful to have a stable email address that is not connected with your ISP or workplace. Yahoo! and Hotmail solve that problem well too.

I understand the need to keep control (I also moderate mailing lists and discussion forums - fora?) but there are other tricks that can be employed in the registration process rather than banning certainly email providers completely. Email me offline if you want to compare what we do.

Cheers,
Simon

Posted on: 04 December 2001 by rp

This might be a problem for me too. I plan on getting rid of my present ISP - recent price hikes and the spam is reaching critical mass. I intend to keep my new ISP email address under tight control this time, no commercial use and certainly no net postings at all, anywhere. I was going to set up hotmail or yahoo etc accounts for all that - which is what they're best for anyway, that and something that my married friends all seem to have them for.

Posted on: 04 December 2001 by Stuart M

Having changed ISP's many time, I find that using a mail direction service is teh best (I.e you send emayto me@Myaddress.whatever and it reroutes to my real email address.

That way I change my real email address my public email address remains the same. There are several free sites that do this or some for a small charge.

Can be a pain to setup/diagnose faults but worth it overall for reduced hastle.

Posted on: 04 December 2001 by Andy Kirby

quote:
just out of curiosity, how can you tell what people have registered multiple times?

You can check to see what the IP address is for each mail or forum post, the addresses tend to be pretty static. Same IP = Same Computer, not always the same person though.

Posted on: 04 December 2001 by Chris Brandon

quote:
you'd have to contact the system administrator and get it from him...something most sysadmins wouldn't give out.

Correct !!

Unless of course the request was made in an official capacity eg the Police ....and even then there would be "red tape" to go through.

Regards

Chris

Posted on: 06 December 2001 by Arye_Gur

And you didn't think about people like me who are using 3 computers with 3 different IP’s, not to mention the fact that I have no control on the IP number
At my work – this can be change for many reasons by the net administrator.
Arye