Questions about the new Forum software? Please post here.

[Douglas Meltzer]

If you have questions concerning messaging, uploading pictures, embedding video or any other software related issues, please post here and we'll completely ignore it. No, we'll do our best to solve the issue.

Doug

[Maurice Leakey]

Please note that my surname has been mis-spelt. Please correct to Leakey.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Maurice,

Done!

[Maurice Leakey]

Thank you, Doug. It's a difficult name as it is!

[Joe Caruso]

Please note that I'm NOT the Boss here - Shorty

[Joe Caruso]

And why am I a junior member and the "Shorty" wasn't included

[Douglas Meltzer]

As I mentioned to you in my email, only actual names are allowed to be used for registration. We all know you as Shorty, however that is the long standing rule.

As for the "Junior Member" designation, that is the software's default title which we may change in the near future.

Doug

[Mathew James]

Your the BEST Shorty!!

Dear Doug....Can we turn on signatures please? Under 'account' in our preferences, half way down is the radio button to show signature, but the button that should appear to add the signatures is turned off by default i believe.

Here is how to do: AdminCP > Usergroups > usergroup manager > [Edit Usergroup] - Go > Signature Permissions

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Cheers,
Matt 📽

[Douglas Meltzer]

Matt,

I'm thrilled your familiar with this! Hope to take care of this shortly.

Doug

[Paul Adsett]

Doug, why is it necessary to provide birth dates to register on the new forum? Could that not be a security issue for members?

[Steve Klare]

It's probably generic Discussion Forum boilerplate intended to keep underage users off more...mature discussion boards. (Of course, a certain teenager I know is on Facebook registered at his age plus 10 years!)

In user settings, it is possible to control how (or whether) the member's birth date is displayed.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Paul,

Steve is correct. You can choose not to display your DOB. This was also a part of the Grand Old Forum's registration process. It looked like this:

[Brad Miller]

Hi Matthew - Regarding signatures I absolutely cannot stand them. So many people come up with some cutesy saying that gets eye-rolling after reading it a thousand times, or they put annoying animated gifs that are a reading distraction, or they simply write a novel and it just bloats up the pages. That is why they are very much intentionally disabled. I believe however there is space for you to add whatever info it is you feel you may need to put in a signature in your profile.

Paul - The forum's registration thing is something I just haven't had a chance to delve into. It is quite simply the default settings. As you've no doubt noticed I had to create a logo with the words "Please read the top thread in 'General Yak' forum titled 'REGISTERING' before you register" to attract people's attention to registering with their real names and not "MovieLover69" since I haven't found a way to customize the text during the registration process. Perhaps Matthew, who appears to be familiar with this forum's software, could help with some tips on that. Regardless, the birthday thing I THINK is twofold, first to make sure you are at least 13 years old (internet rules) and I think there is likely some way to use a "calendar" feature to post events and congratulate people on their birthdays...but again I just haven't had the time to figure it all out. Douglas agreed the best thing was to simply lock the old forum before we had a complete failure of it and get moving on this, even if we are a little rough getting going. As has been noted feel free to check that box to hide your birthday in your profile if you want.

[Maurice Leakey]

It's nice to sign off with a proper signature. It completes your posting. If Brad or Doug disagree with any fanciful name/expression they have the administrators' right to delete it.

[Mathew James]

Hi Brad,
There is a setting in the ACP(admin control panel), under vbulletin options, under ‘require date of birth’ is the user profiles with the option to turn off(default) or On , for a birth date, but please note, this does NOT turn off the requirement for a birth date, but rather it only changes if you require them to enter a valid birthday. If set to yes, members cannot enter 1/1/1800 as their birthday. If set to No, they can.
The reason for the birthdate is it's the COPPA compliance setting. If the forum is set to comply with COPPA, then it will always prompt the user for their birthday first. This is because if they are under 13, they must follow different registration procedures.
AdminCP -> User Registration Options -> COPPA Registration System
If you have it set to the second (Enable COPPA) or last (Deny Registration for < 13 years) option, then users will be prompted to enter their birth date first.
If you're not advertising yourself to children under the age of 13, you can turn COPPA off and Require Birthday the birthday won't be requested at registration.

Having said this, Steve has already correctly addressed this issue with “In user settings, it is possible to control how (or whether) the member's birth date is displayed.” So we can simply turn this off if there is concern.
As an admin of 2 websites and 1 forum, I can honestly say that trying to keep up with changes and security is cumbersome and stoopid, especially when we have better things to do with our time 😊 We tip our hats in thanx to Brad and Doug for even attempting it on our behalf 😊
However, it is the world in which we live, and so we can work together to try to keep the members safe. These hackers are getting pretty good now…They have beaten my forums early capcha solutions a few times before I locked it down…for now! On another website years ago, I even had someone inject code(hidden deep in the server infrastructure) which could process credit card transactions on my server, without people knowing where they were located, but I digress…many example of rogue behavior I could give. Thankfully figured it out in time!
Thanx all!

ps: I will not say anything beyond what Brad says about signatures. He is the admin! Can i just mention that I would be happy with a RULE created stating how you would like the signatures, and anyone not complying are dealt with individually. Just one idea if you are open to 'safe' signatures.

Here is my signature from the archive forum(ahhh, isn't the little projector cute!):
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Cheers,
Matt 📽