MyBB Community Forums

I'm not sure all of your suggestions should be taken on board.

I think the only one I can agree with is the uppercase/lowercase point. At a glance at least, it makes sense.

As for the period in the username - many people may not know about this and have created and use their account thinking it is vital to them continuing to receive emails. If MyBB just strips it out (with or without warning) users may be concerned.

For the + in emails, my brother uses this as a way of filtering emails easily. For example "[email protected]" will have the "Forums" label applied, and will bypass his inbox so he can get a good night's sleep without having to worry about adding every single forum's contact email address into his filters.

Ryan,

The idea would be to continue to send emails and such to the address as the user provided it, but store a standardized form in a different db field so that we can compare this standard form. For a spammer to bypass our current system they just need to change the position of periods or change the alias after the plus.

I can have unlimited emails @paulhedman.com. There are thousands of free disposable email providers. You're not going to be able to prevent duplicate account by email... if you want that, an IP ban is the most effective.

(2013-01-02, 02:38 AM)Paul H. Wrote: [ -> ]an IP ban is the most effective.

Incorrect. IP != end user. People really should know this by now.

(2013-01-04, 10:43 PM)Yumi Wrote: [ -> ]

(2013-01-02, 02:38 AM)Paul H. Wrote: [ -> ]an IP ban is the most effective.

Incorrect. IP != end user. People really should know this by now.

I didn't say it was always effective, but it is more effective than just banning an email. Blocking periods and plus signs in emails won't do any good.

hellban is the best ban

(2013-01-05, 02:05 AM)brad-t Wrote: [ -> ]hellban is the best ban

Outdated and buggy, Miserable Member is the new hellban

(2013-01-05, 12:31 AM)Paul H. Wrote: [ -> ]but it is more effective than just banning an email

And what leads you to that opinion? Clicking a button to switch proxy is trivial to do.
Blocking IPs also potentially blocks legitimate users, whilst email blocking will rarely result in false-positives, meaning that IP blocks can in fact be counter-intuitive.

The whole topic of the thread is that people can use gmail addresses like [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] to make duplicate accounts.

My statement was that trying to prevent this really would be too much of a pain and would be ineffective anyways.

I don't disagree, but please don't use it as an opportunity to spread misinformation by suggesting that IP banning is any more effective.