Proposal to remove feature - 'email this post to'

[Raven<Nabble>]

We are aware of a spam issue. I believe it's coming from the 'Email this post to' feature. It has been proposed that this feature be removed. Does anyone object to this? Does anyone need or use this feature?

[Gary Lewis]

I think that is a good idea.  I've not had spam, but my members don't use that feature, so am happy for it to be taken out.

[GregChapman]

I am not aware of anyone that uses this feature, and reckon that most users will find a browser's with a "Share" or "Email page" facility so I think it would not be a great loss.

Thanks too for asking. It was a huge frustration when the "Star posts" feature was scrapped without warning by Hugo. I used it to store all my FAQ responses. Now it's much more difficult to direct people to worthwhile topics.

[NS]

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[GregChapman]

NS wrote

The 'email this post to' feature is one of the unique features that makes nabble ahead and different from every other forum apps online..

One must ask the question, is there a good reason why no one else does it?
My response earlier was based on the notion that it would help reduce the spam that I see on some forums. (Currently I am deleting about a dozen posts a day from Nabble Support and have been for a few months.) But thinking about it I now realise that the facility is the ideal way for a spammer to get their posts sent to millions of others without using their own server. Once or twice I have been aware that some Spam blocker services have black listed all mail from a nabble.com address and the "Email to" feature may have been behind it.

Many users still make use of it. The proposed removal should be an option for forum owners and not for all.

There may be forums where "many users still make use of it" but I suspect that these are in an extremely small minority. Forums are intended for a community with a common interest that people opt to join. For a forum poster to include those outside that community, almost by definition, is against the principle of a forum.

If the idea of copying a forum post to outsiders is to gain publicity for the forum, so they are encouraged to join, then the appropriate method is to approach Nabble to install the Invitation email feature. (I do have a wish list item for that - that the forum "Description" field is included in the invitation message, so the recipient has a little more clue about the forum - if there cannot be an option for the administrator to add a short description of/explanation about the forum.)

Perhaps an Anti-Flood System can be introduced to check spams..

Now there I do agree with you. If there's not a feature to limit the number of addresses accepted in the "Email to" field of, say, five then it should be added.

Just my thoughts!

[Raven<Nabble>]

We would leave it as an option if it only affected individual forums. The problem is that when spam comes from our email server, our email server gets classified as a source of spam and then all forums are affected. So we have to remove this feature.