In the past this has resulted in some fairly undesirable characters trying to promote obnoxious websites and dubious services. These have only been visible to the Administrators of the board and one ISP in Latvia (I think) has had all access removed. We have had repeated attempts to post inappropriate content
When setting up the BB the NPS committee felt that anonymous postings would not help the overall tenor of the BB so the initial concept was to insist that those wishing to register as a member of the Bulletin Board should use their own names as usernames. This proved an administrative nightmare when persons of goodwill registered as members under a pseudonym as would be considered normal on a bulletin board.
The current policy is as follows:
- Anyone may register with any username.
- There is a field on the Registration Form labelled "Full Name". This must be filled in with a credible name.
- The applicant will receive an e-mail to which they must respond before they can post. Applicants who do not respond are classified as inactive and will be automatically removed after seven days.
- Anyone posting with a username which is not their own name should sign their posts so we know who is posting.
- A new member is registered as part of a special group called "Newly registered users". This means that their first post is 'moderated'. This means that an moderator will check that the post is on-topic, the contributor has identified themself and that it does not convene the rules of the BB which everyone saw when they signed up. If the post is approved, the member is automatically removed from the "Newly registered users" group.
- Any attempt by a newly registered user to post off-topic will result in their immediate deletion.
- Repeated attempts will result in banning, the raising of an abuse complaint with their ISP and if necessary, banning of the ISP.
Comments welcome
Barry Say