Please take care when posting or responding off forum

Ahh I'll keep an eye out for that, I'm a bit mad so I sometimes forget if I've sent something you see.....

Thank you,

Russ

I think we need to balance usability with security.

Anyone wanting to get hold of advertisers email addresses only have to copy the response to themselves, so there's no point hiding it.

We don't suffer from levels of abuse that would merit greater policing of posts, bear in mind that the Mods are largely volunteers or me and Diane trying to fit a bit in around the edges of hand-crafting wonderful magazines!

I am a member of some forums where you have to fill in a Captcha AND answer a security question every time you post. They aren't very busy and I don't post much - can you see why?

With moderators who are active users and established users willing to report their worried to moderators (see that 'report' flag at bottom right, I don't think it's complacent to say we should be able to nip problems in the bud.

Neil

I think your absolutely right, & suspect no one here would like to see that level of security, and I'm not even sure what that is achieving, but with the greatest respect I would like to humbly point out that the concept of restricted access based on a minimum number of posts or post*months is specifically aimed to have almost no affect on usability. This is especially the case for active members who aren't just signing up so they can post free add's or buy/sell stock - this isn't freebay (aka Gumtree)

The only people who would be inconvenienced are those attempting to sign up purely to access wanted and free adds with no interest in taking part or even just openly discussing thoughts/plans with like minded or more educated/experienced folk on here. - and it will also catch out those wrong doers or just make their life harder.

I tend to agree with Russ B that access to free classified adverts (browsing or placing) on the website could be a reward for actively taking part in the Forum, this would all but eliminate the most determined interloper, making any additional security arrangements unnecessary.

I'm hopefully here for the long term as I get stuck back in to model engineering after some very stop-start activity during my working years.

Regards

CotswoldsPhil

The problem with that is there would be virtually no adverts, I've just looked through all the for sale adverts and only recognise two names from the forum and only one of those is a frequent poster.

J

Edited By JasonB on 07/10/2014 16:41:20

So, if a person doesn't care for discussion groups (not everyone shares your enthusiasm) that makes him persona non grata for anything else on the site? So what, a person only comes here for the sale/want ads? Is he/she to be marginalised because of it? Who was it that decided that the forums are the major raison d'etre for the entire site that should be embraced by anyone coming here?

I frankly see nothing wrong with someone coming here just for the ads. Of course, a respondent's forum posting record might give added confidence in him as a seller purchaser but don't see why those without such a record should be denied. That said, it wouldn't hurt for the seller or buyer's record (if any) to be posted along with his other credentials when placing or replying to an ad (could be done voluntarily or by the system) .... sort of like the way eBay feedback is supposed to work (but doesn't).

Now if everone bothered to fill in a profile when they joined it is then a simple matter to click on their name in the advert which will then show you how many posts they have made and from their you can view their posts to see what sort of member they may be. Might save a few rants

J

What about the fraudulent ones who are main reason for this whole thread??

Posted by Bandersnatch on 07/10/2014 17:04:07:

No not at all, and I hope I didn't imply that? I wanted to sympathise with the quieter audience. That said, it's not like they're going to keel over and die if they can't post an Advert/Wanted or respond to one.

I wouldn't want to marginalise anyone but you can't bake a cake without cracking a few eggs - not everyone will be happy, but perhaps it wouldn't kill the genuine buyers and sellers to just pop up and say hello.

Posted by JasonB on 07/10/2014 17:21:49:

Now if everone bothered to fill in a profile when they joined it is then a simple matter to click on their name in the advert which will then show you how many posts they have made and from their you can view their posts to see what sort of member they may be. Might save a few rants

So perhaps filling out the profile could be the trigger for allowing response to, or listing of, wanted/for sales.

Edited By Russ B on 07/10/2014 17:41:46

Would not make a lot of difference as anyone can fill in a profile and write what they like so you would have no idea if they were a badie or not.

Could make it subscribers only, much like you had to buy a mag in the old days to read the classifieds or get the form to send in one yourself.

J

JasonB

Fair enough, there is obviously no easy answer. I wouldn't like to see it exclusive online - IMO it's not a bad idea, but the best place for an exclusive classifieds for the mag subscribers, by the mag subscribers - is in the mag that way it targets the audience with absolute accuracy.

I can see now this is a very complicated issue but I still think cakes and eggs about this. If everyone is happy, then that would be "perfect" and perfection is unrealistic in any situation.

Minimal levels of interference and security are obviously very desirable. I'd hypothesise that security, no matter what form, is an inconvenience, when it's no longer an inconvenience (no matter how small!), it is no longer secure.

What about them? Everyone has to be tarred with the same brush - or at least unduly restricted - because of a few bad eggs? If you subscribe to the theory that every problem has to be fixed 100%, regardless of the fallout (on the innocent) ....sure.

Or you can point out the problem and say "caveat emptor" .... as in so many cases in real life that we all have to deal with. Pretty much what Neil did with this thread. The warning is salutary (thanks Neil!) but I can't believe that many here actually need "protecting" from it by draconian measures.

Edited By Bandersnatch on 07/10/2014 22:10:56

Who rattled your cage eh?

Im not tarring everyone with the same brush and I think I and others have specifically been trying to think of things that don't affect people,

you've made some good points but in an aggressive way, and now your taking my comments completely out of contex and to extremes that are just ridiculous, you just seem to be here to kick up a fuss and make a scene, and well, you've got top marks in my opinion, thanks for the input all the same though, everyone has a different way of communicating and this is obviously yours.

You remind me of CaptinCaveman each time you've kicked up, it brings a little smile to my face, perhaps many are to old, or to young to remeber him but it amuses me.

Russ, please believe me my postings were intended to be serious comments - although, obviously, an opposing viewpoint. I'm sorry you couldn't accept them that way. Some people are a little more direct than others; some people are a little more sensitive than others. In any event, I seem to have hit a nerve, for which I apologise.

Bandersnatch firstly thanks for the apology, and don't worry, I did accept and understand your comments, the only nerve that was hit was not by you making your point, but the way you inversed the objective of mine - slightly maliciously by turning my proposal in to a negative extreme (and one that it was specifically aiming to avoid)

For my very own direct response back at you earlier, I do apologies and I would reiterate that I wasn't rubbishing your idea, purely trying to better explain the specific object of my own (that being increased security, thus making it harder or economically inconvenient for scammer to linger around here- while specifically NOT causing obstruction or inconvenience to any genuine members be them active or not)

It's easy to fall into the potential trap of making personal information email / telephone numbers available to undesirables. I did not include any email address in my advert but instead decided to use a "mafia phone" (Neil's term) to control what data was published. I still managed, however, to provide an email address 3 times by responding to Wanted adverts via email. (dumb or what)

This discussion has caused me to think further about my experience with my classified sale and how it might have been improved in terms of privacy, without adding any of the restrictions discussed so far. The key is Personal Messaging, it's already part of the website and hides email details very effectively whilst making contact simple and effective. Making PM the sole method of contact for adverts would help mitigate any perceived risk. Once an advertiser is happy with a contact, then email / telephone numbers could be exchanged to progress the transaction.

CotswoldsPhil

I've been thinking about all this security stuff, and I think anyone who wanted to know who I am, or where I live, or what tools and machines I own could easily. If they were to read all my posts and adverts, see my hobbies ie. pubs,bikes etc., all that needs doing is trawl round a few pubs in my area and ask a few questions. My point being that you can't stay secret for long, unless you work hard at it. After all that's how the secret services get a lot of their information. Knowing my email address means nothing,I get lots of spam just from auto fishing (or whatever the term is )

G'day.

My ISP allows multiple email addresses. I registered about 10 of them.

One is for private, family and friends use only and they are requested not to pass it on.

The others are used for answering adverts etc. Is is quite informative to discover which companies on-sell the email info to 3rd parties!

Any repeated spam to one of the spare email addresses simply requires that that address is deleted from the ISP list and another substituted.

Messy - yes; Paranoid - probably; But it does allow one to keep on top of the situation.

It's a bit like having a spare credit card account for online trading. Just sufficient funds are placed into the account for each trade.

* Danny M *

Has it worked so far.

The reason I ask is because I tried essentially the same thing. I have my own domain so I can create whatever email addresses I wish. I created a "prime" address for limited family/friends use and worked hard at protecting it - but it still got breached eventually.

To work (if in fact, it ever can in today's environment) it requires considerable care. For example, if anyone includes you as a cc (not bcc) on emails to others, it's breached right there. If any of the family/friends gets some malware on their computer that harvests email addresses - there's a breach. Even using one of your other, non-secure, email addresses and signing (say) Danny to it will have spam robots generating emails for every possible combination of Dannyxxx... (one thing to consider when assigning the prime address). And they have other tricks

I have the same idea as Danny M, multiple email accounts. Mine are all with Hotmail which, may or may not be the best place. I have with some degree of success cut down the spam considerably by using numbers and characters in my email addresses. Instead of using, [email protected], try #[email protected], I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how few spam messages you get. Agreed it doesn't help the recipient recognize you but most times we don't send emails to strangers. Some other type of contact usually precedes the email.

As to the issue of dealing with the baddies out there might I suggest having to use your account number to post ads on the web site. It will only pose a problem for those who are occasional visitors or are just looking for another victim.

Alex

Just a thought on privacy, a good many on the forum will remember when land line were through a manual exchange, and a number of parties on each line into the exchange (in my own case 10 on our line), To call you crank the magneto in a morse code pattern, ours was K _ . _, that was a signal that sounded in the other 9 households, and if anyone wanted to listen in they could. Compare that with the modern cell phone, and land line. I know it's a bit OT, but privacy has always been a problem with communications.

Ian S C