Member utilities - Why Greg wrote it

22 December, 2009

Gaahh Spammers! Bane of our lives. So after listening to me whinge (endlessly apparently) Greg asked me what I wanted. So I told him…

We’ve been moderating forums for a while – after this long you get to know the profiles you’re probably going to want to look at. Some of them are obvious – anything randomly generated will get you banned immediately. A user name of ‘student loans’ is going to get you banned before you’ve had time to post, but some of them are just based on experience – user names with a number on the end coupled with a gmail or yahoo account? I’m going to check your profile and watch you like a hawk. Some start off with an empty profile and post something that makes sense, then the next time you look they’ve added the word ‘webcam’ to their signature. If you don’t go back and check regularly, you end up with a hyperlink to a dodgy bloke in a mankini before you can say ‘goodness me! I’m off to bleach my eyes’

Keeping on top of this takes time, and naturally costs clients money – and why should it? – they’re trying to run a forum for their members, not a dumping ground for spammers. I wanted a way to check profiles and posts using the CP, and because some of the forums we look after are high traffic, I wanted to be able to block ban spam signs ups quicky and efficiently.

So Greg wrote Member Utilities. At the end of each day I can log in view members, check the profiles and posts of new members (and any exisiting members I’ve been keeping an eye on) all via the CP. If they’ve added spam links to their profile (the current ‘hot’ ones are fitnesstips, tax attorney, payday loans and gold prices) I just expand their profile from the CP and ban everyone with spam in their biog, at the same time banning their IP address and the email addy they used to sign up, in just two clicks – all of them at once. It’s saved a lot of time. Before Member Utilities I was spotting them in the CP then flicking to the front of the site, searching for their user name, checking their post and their profile and banning them one by one.

So – there you have it – why sometimes having a moaning git for a partner, having the patience of a saint and doing anything for a quiet life can make the world a bit better for the rest of the EE community.

If you’re having similar problems and would like a simple solution, then Member utilities is available to buy here

Rachael posted this in Extensions, ExpressionEngine, We Like

Comments

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.