[2.0.11] Active members Only

Post by **Extensions Robot** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 1:09 am

MOD Name: Active members Only
Author: defender-uk
MOD Description: as v1.1.1

MOD Version: 1.1.1 (Updated 12/09/04)

Download File: active_members_only_1.1.1.mod
mods overview page: View
File Size: 2352 Bytes

Security Score: 0

wGEric · Post by **wGEric** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 9:55 pm

MOD Validated/Released

Notes:
Simple MOD that makes it so only active members are shown in the memberlist.

defender-uk · Post by **defender-uk** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 7:35 pm

Just a little background to this simple mod.

My forums where being used by people who created a number of inactive user accounts just to have the www address used.

Google when looking at the memberlist would find these www links and would go off and index them, adding more points to their site (inbound links).

So to stop this I created this simple mod.

[EDIT] Code removed as v1.1.0 has this included.

dEf.

krut · Post by **krut** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:06 am

This unethical practice has been diving me nuts for months now. Just today in fact I removed over 100 of such accounts.

In addition to this I would like to see somone come up with a way that if an account is not activated within 24 hours, that such inactive account could be automatically removed.

Thats for this mod though, you freaking rock!!!!

krut · Post by **krut** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:19 am

P.S. How about for an encore, doing a mod that will also hide Inactive mebers profiles. When a new user applies mebers can click on their name to see their profiles. I'm assuming that search engines and spiders will find their way to the profile pages as well, so in retrospect, this only solves half the problem.

... still a great mod though... loving it.

cwcollector · Post by **cwcollector** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 7:51 am

I have the same question, would this work for profiles. I have a very large group of drug test breakers, and porn sites that now using my site to be there free for all link page. I have noticed that come of my members click on the new member to check it out and osten follow the link/ Most email me to say I have been spammed with a link, some don't. I would like to stopp this practice.

defender-uk · Post by **defender-uk** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:55 am

The newest member bit is in my post above.

It's currently not approved by the phpBB mod team, but I don't think it will have any other effect on the board.

If your users can't see the profile (as they have not posted, and the user will not be displayed on the index, they will not know to access it, unless they guess the user_id and then and get in that way

I'll look at expanding the mod so that it covers the areas I can think about

dEf.

Joe Belmaati · Post by **Joe Belmaati** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 2:30 pm

Why not just disallow /memberlist.php in robots.txt?

krut · Post by **krut** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 3:51 pm

because doing that would penalise the legitimate members.

Active participating members should have the privilage of having that link on the forum and benefit from the the search engine crawling etc....

Also if spammers see that their signing up has no impact, it will discourage them from continuing to do this.

Joe Belmaati · Post by **Joe Belmaati** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 3:58 pm

That's a very legitimate point. Thank you.

morpheus2matrix · Post by **morpheus2matrix** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 8:08 pm

MOD Updated to version 1.1.0
See first post for Download Link

tanrek · Post by **tanrek** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:12 am

krut wrote: because doing that would penalise the legitimate members.

I am trying another way:

- robots.txt disallows memberlist.php

This does not necessarily penalise members because their webadress is also visible within their postings (at least if you use the subSilver templates).

- New members can NOT add a webadress to their profile until their account was activated (using  etc in the profile_add_body.tpl).

Up to now it works fine.

defender-uk · Post by **defender-uk** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 12:58 pm

tanrek wrote:
krut wrote:because doing that would penalise the legitimate members.

I am trying another way:

- robots.txt disallows memberlist.php

That's all well and good, but not all search engines use the robots.txt file, so some will still index it

This fix stops all known search engines from indexing inactive members, it also stop people from viewing the profile of the inactive members, and thus your members will not find links to sites you have no control over.

It's a simple fix, and those that want it can use it

Joe Belmaati · Post by **Joe Belmaati** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 1:47 pm

Bots that don't adhere to robots.txt are mean spirited and should be taken seriously. What I am doing is that I have created a link to a file in a disallowed directory hidden in a 1 pixel transparent gif on select pages as well as created a dummy directory that I have disallowed in robots.txt

When the bad bot follows the link it will get trapped in a perl script that will write to my htaccess file = instant banning from my entire site. I have seen more imaginative solutions such as re-directing the bad bots to a page containing lists of email addresses from known spammers. The good bots will not follow the link and will not get banned, and the spammers will be spamming themselves.

krut · Post by **krut** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 2:20 pm

Well the ideal situation would be to have a system where the user is rewarded for participation. For example after x numbers posts they can gain x number of features...

for now I think this works just peachy

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