Unregistered member has Logged in...

[mywaytoo]

I have a new member who has clearly Logged in without Registering. Everything looks normal, but she is listed as Unregistered... Oh, just noticed that People in the Forum count is one less than expected... I guess that she is not included in that count?

Would it be better if new members HAD to register BEFORE they were allowed to Log in?

[GregChapman]

As I understand it that is normal. She hasn't yet responded to the confirmation email.

[mywaytoo]

Strange...  

When 'we' do things, we know what to do and the order in which to do things. This lady, it seems to me, has gone straight to 'Log in'... and with the same outcome...

So what exactly does the Registration process do?

[GregChapman]

mywaytoo wrote

When 'we' do things, we know what to do and the order in which to do things. This lady, it seems to me, has gone straight to 'Log in'... and with the same outcome...

So what exactly does the Registration process do?

I don't think it was "Login" she went to but "Register". I believe some people assume when they see a "Register" link that they must go there to see the content of the forum. In some forums that will be a requirement, but not yours.

She may have been a casual browser and will never return. Maybe she was thinking of posting a message, got though the registration process, but then decided not to post, or mistyped her email address so didn't get the confirmation email, or didn't understand the need to check her email and confirm the registration before posting. I guess you'll never know.

What registration does will vary, depending on the permissions you have set, but with yours, if the email address is confirmed, I assume it gives you the right to post in the forum or one or more sub-forums. (I haven't double checked but it is possible that the Nabble defaults vary for different applications too.)

[mywaytoo]

I put people in a Members' Group which allows them to post on the forum... until then they can all read everything, but cannot post.

I could actually ask her, because she 'liked' me on Facebook, but that's a bit naff really...

I have a mailing list (not Nabbles) that I want to send information to shortly, so I must know for sure before then... or I could have a few 100 Unregistered...  

[mywaytoo]

Whilst googling Nabble's Free Support, I was nosey and noticed that other forums have mainly Unregistered users who can post... Jenkins, Cakephp, zend..., Grails... Yet on Nabble's Forum (this forum) we have all registered...

If the purpose of registering is to confirm the user's email address, then surely it should be compulsory? I can't find anywhere on my Forum's permissions that only allows users who have registered...

[GregChapman]

mywaytoo wrote

If the purpose of registering is to confirm the user's email address, then surely it should be compulsory? I can't find anywhere on my Forum's permissions that only allows users who have registered...

It's all depends on whether you need to contact your posters privately. Users of the different applications may have very different requirements.

For example, I have a blog at: http://www.gregafloat.plus.com/blog/index.html (though I use the Nabble "News" application as I prefer the more compact appearance that closely matches the articles I used to post on the site before I used Nabble) where I haven't altered any of the default permissions and "anyone" can post comments. I can't imagine that any reply that I, or others, may want to make would be anything but a public comment. As private replies aren't required, until I find I the application gets spam, or other abuse, I plan to keep it this way, as without the need for registration it is a far more likely that people will post comments. (In the early stages of any problem developing I shall just delete offending posts without explanation. Why get into the fruitless business of explaining yourself to the offensive? They won't understand anyway!)

I pointed out in a post to Camo, in his early days here, about the default user types ("Groups") that Nabble provides, how their permissions differ and the implications of the default settings:
http://nabble-support.1.n2.nabble.com/Log-In-Log-Out-Issue-td6275886.html#a6282828

I mention there that on the Free and Premium forums Nabble do exactly the opposite of what I might have expected. My instinct would be to allow the top level application to have the most general access, with greater restrictions the deeper you go, but on this forum, it is the top level forum that has the most restrictions on it.

[mywaytoo]

Greg... I can't quite follow everything that you are saying there...

Can I reword my problem?
I want to force everyone, who is going to post, to enter their valid email address.
I want to know that that email address is their email address.
I'm going to send knitting patterns, or URLs for pdf files, to that email address, so I want to know that it is the correct one.

Arrrh... It could be OK as is, provided that I were to have a means of getting unregistered users to register if they are to be sent a knitting pattern, perhaps manually would be OK...

Ponder on it... Sorry to be a pain...

[Camo]

Anne, I would have thought that if your users want these patterns and pdfs,  and you require them to provide an email address so they can download etc, they will use one from which they can do so, one way or another.
Unsolicited emails on the other hand, even from your forum baring 'gifts', will not be so brightly entertained, you should always offer "opt in/out" to any email 'campaign', nobody wants mail they didn't subscribe to.
Some users like to use disposable email clients like yopmail for example, because they dont require a password to retreive mail. Such clients prevent spam from going to the persons 'real email', which they may want to keep private deliberately.
If they can retreive these pdf's then they can click a register link in another email, but if you require them to register on your site before you 'give away' these widgets, you wont encourage them to do so by virtual blackmail if they are not interested in joining anyway. They will just look elsewhere.
I require members to be registered to post because I dont have the time to moderate the extra traffic load (spam) that not requiring it would create.
But people do only what interest them, my classifieds are going well, the forum not so, more of my clients are interested in the classifieds than chatting online.

[GregChapman]

Hi Anne,

mywaytoo wrote

I want to force everyone, who is going to post, to enter their valid email address.
I want to know that that email address is their email address.
I'm going to send knitting patterns, or URLs for pdf files, to that email address, so I want to know that it is the correct one.

Arrrh... It could be OK as is, provided that I were to have a means of getting unregistered users to register if they are to be sent a knitting pattern, perhaps manually would be OK...

You prevent "Anyone" from posting by removing the "Create_topic" and "Reply" permissions for that group. You allow those that register (i.e. supply and confirm their email address) to post by adding those two permissions to the "Authenticated" group. On the basis of your description that should be your "as is" state.

Unless some of those who register (who are placed in the authenticated group automatically) are to have greater privileges, you can leave the default "Member" group unused. If you do have registered users who require additional permissions you will need to add them to the "Member" group manually, when they meet the criteria.

However, you can do nothing about those who supply an email address but then fail to respond to the "confirmation email" that Nabble generates. They will remain on your list as "Unregistered". Furthermore I can imagine that the computer/internet naive or those mistyping their email address may get into trouble because I read that Confirmation Emails expire and while waiting for a response Nabble locks the username used, so those that fail to pick up that email immediately and only collect their email occasionally may have problems in getting registered.

Others may make a mistake and re-register immediately under a different username, intending it to be temporary , only to be told that they can't then change the username used as an emergency measure can't be changed (because it was locked) to the one they would prefer, as it's already taken. There are many reasons why a user may remain unregistered - apart from having second thoughts between registering and confirming their email.

(Having said all this I am working on the basis that "Authenticated" and "Registered" are interchangeable terms - experience seems to confirm this! However, I just checked one of my forums and I see I have a couple of users listed as "Unregistered" although they are in the "Authenticated" group and both appear to have a valid addresses. One of these users has a standard username of someone I recognise, the other appears to be one of those auto-generated things in the form: ml-node+1234567-123456789-123456 with an email address to match. Some things about Nabble remain a mystery to me!)

[GregChapman]

GregChapman wrote

(Having said all this I am working on the basis that "Authenticated" and "Registered" are interchangeable terms - experience seems to confirm this!

I do wonder if the case of the real "Unregistered" but "Authenticated" user is a bug in the script for that expiring confirmation email business. As for the "ml-node" one - that remains a mystery!

[GregChapman]

GregChapman wrote

I do wonder if the case of the real "Unregistered" but "Authenticated" user is a bug in the script for that expiring confirmation email business. As for the "ml-node" one - that remains a mystery!

More research:
I see that this message says:

Anyone: All users belong to this group, including unregistered users.

Authenticated: Users whose email is available in the database. Basically, registered users and people who posted to mailing lists (archives only).

Members: Default group. You should define the permissions for this group.

Administrators: Users with special privileges that can control your application.

So authenticated doesn't quite mean what the term implies, only that an address has been supplied.

I guess it all comes down to that "universal back end" again and different meanings being required for different purposes.

For an mail list, it's pretty pointless submitting a invalid address so an address, almost by definition, will be genuine and therefore "authenticated". However, for a forum, a false address could be supplied and if this alone was accepted as "authenticated" it would mean the forum would effectively remain open for "Anyone".

Therefore I suspect that within applications that are not mail lists/mail list archives the Permissions screen column headed "Authenticated" should be headed "Registered", and will only grant those permissions to those that have confirmed their address by clicking the link in the confirmation email.

This is why in my first message in this little cluster I claim that authenticated and registered are interchangeable - I was only thinking in terms of the Permissions screen. This is consistent with my belief that my "real user" never did respond to the confirmation email. The other auto-generated user address still remains a mystery!

[Camo]

Too bad theres more 'mystery' than 'documentation' eh Greg!

(too clear an opening for that comment!)

What I dont understand, is how Nabble has been going (according to my best Googling) about 6yrs, and the current version isnt the first one, why was this version rolled out without documentation?
All those 'Old Nabble" users were left in S### by the change, they struggled to understand the changes and how their apps were effected, and now Nabbles doing it again!

Why even tell users your making it 'bigger N better', when it might be months and documentation might be months after that.
Now were all excited about the mysterious Templets and we cant even understand the version we've got yet!

Do the 'Bigger N Better' stuff behind the scenes, produce documentation after testing, THEN, roll it out.
Meanwhile have your users adept with the current software (Documentation!) so that they can appreciate its functions and understand how the new functions will improve matters.

Free is great, but a new and more confusing version without solid documentation every time, wont win you
longtime loyalty, its like politicians promises, well promise you this (soon, its always soon), it wont be what we promised or what you thought we promised and you wont know what to do with it, you'll have to work it out by trial and error, but we'll offer 'free support' from others users mostly, who dont have a clue either, oh, and we want you to vote for us.

Perhaps you should offer your users an "opt out' from upgrades rather than force it. Some have enough difficulty working out this versions 'quirks' and might be happy to stick with what is working now, rather than find themselves in need of the rather unfulfilling 'free support' all over again.

Perhaps documentation will only be offered to paying users (premium support), if the software is free, make em pay to learn how to use it?
All that effort to make software worth voting for, has to be paid for somehow.
Im beginning to think I might be better off with some documented open source software hosted on my own server, Im just not that confident about stability anymore, and Im likeing the fact that Im relying on nabble both in terms of stability and uptime, less and less.

I need to be in control of my website, in control of its functions and longevity. I've lost a forum (free hosted) before today, after 4yrs of hard work, when they suddenly decided 'it wasnt working' and shut down the servers, not having it happen again!
You just Cannot rely on others, no matter what they promise, thats the bottom line.

The more often I visit Here, the more I see paralleled with that other 'Free host'.
And this isnt my website either, I have to garantee 'no problems', I cant do that, If Nabble cant.
Im waiting on the promised release of templet acess just to see what it might be able to do, though I expect, nothing that I cant Do with Open source thats controlled fully by me, no limitations. No 'free support' required.

Its pretty basic stuff functionally, only being free and the novelty of being 'embeddable' makes it worth using over any similar competitor..
At the end of the day, I dont want my users confused, I want them to understand and even enjoy using any software on my website and I want them to know its always going to be there.

Im building and making changes on this website on behalf of the owner, over the next few weeks and If the templets 'dont happen' or they dont significantly boost my confidence, and I cannot aquire this software opensource, then Ill consider canning the software.
My classifieds are not really doing as well as they should be, im not certain the Forum App is the best format for it (pity theres not a 'classifieds' app) and the forum hasn't attracted anything but confusion from users so far, despite my own efforts at documentation.

The whole registered/authenticated thing, emails and auto post to thread, just confuses people.
all the bells n whistles in the world dont make software user freindly.

Its good Nabble, but Its NOT, 'user friendly' .

[mywaytoo]

GregChapman wrote

GregChapman wrote

I do wonder if the case of the real "Unregistered" but "Authenticated" user is a bug in the script for that expiring confirmation email business. As for the "ml-node" one - that remains a mystery!

Anne... I reckon that it must be a bug of some description... perhaps at the Requirement's stage. Things cannot be both A and B...

Greg... Therefore I suspect that within applications that are not mail lists/mail list archives the Permissions screen column headed "Authenticated" should be headed "Registered", and will only grant those permissions to those that have confirmed their address by clicking the link in the confirmation email.

Anne... Yes Greg... I think I agree with that... It is whilst Registering that users have their email addresses authenticated... The process is Registering, and the outcome is Authenticated, or not. And it is up to Admins to transfer this outcome to Authenticated after having received the Confirmation email.

Greg... This is why in my first message in this little cluster I claim that authenticated and registered are interchangeable - I was only thinking in terms of the Permissions screen. This is consistent with my belief that my "real user" never did respond to the confirmation email. The other auto-generated user address still remains a mystery!

Perhaps this issue should be raised with Nabble?