1 Topic by redneck (edited by redneck 2007-11-16 16:15)

  • Registered: 2006-05-12
  • Posts: 28

Topic: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

Folks,

I am in the process of setting up a general interest forum that will be completely unmoderated.  Because I do not want to have to watch the forum for vandalism 24/7, I need to build into it some safeguards.  I would like to discuss some of these ideas here before finalizing my choices and then hiring someone to modify PunBB to work the way I want it to work.

Here are my initial ideas and plans:

1. The forum will allow registered and unregistered posts.  For the unregistered posts, a visual captcha test will be used to keep out spambots, which is the biggest problem I have encountered in other unmoderated forums.

2. There will be a minimum time limit of about 30 seconds or so between posts to keep out the spambots.

3. [edited] I would like to implement a "Make This Post Anonymous?" check box in the posting screen so that a registered user can make an anonymous post, without the captcha test.

4. Reply nesting needs to be fixed so that only one reply is nested in a post.  This needs to be done cleanly, so that only the most recent reply can be seen even in the posting screen (ie, don't hack the post after the fact to remove the unwanted nested replies).

5. Images will be off in the main unmoderated forum, but I would like to be able to enable images in other registered-user-only forums.  So I need a way to configure individual forums (or categories) for registered user posts only and for images.

6. I understand there can be database performance issues with overlong posts and overly long threads.  I propose a post size limit of 6,000 characters (the size of a typical AP news story, not that I would ever advocate anyone violate the AP's copyrights).  I also propose an arbitrary maximum thread size of, say, 200 posts.  Once a thread reached this size limit it would be automatically locked.

7. To prevent ASCII impersonations, usernames will be limited to a subset of characters, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, plus the space, period and comma.

8. To improve performance, I would like a way to archive threads after a certain period of time, so that they can no longer be bumped, but they can still appear in search results.

9. Automatic weekly (or daily) database backup.

I would welcome your comments, reactions and suggestions regarding the above.  As I said, once I nail these requirements down, I will probably go to Punlancer or something to find someone to help me implement this.

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

1. There is a mod for that I believe
2. I wrote a modification that allows you to set a flood timeout for Guests. I have heard from one person who has told me it doesn't work, but as far as I can see/tell the mod should work properly. If you have any issues with it,   feel free to let me know
3. There is no "Make this post anonymous" box in a vanilla version of PunBB.
4. You mean quote nesting? I think you can set the maximum depth in parser.php (or it might be a pun_config variable you can set in the admin panel, I forget which).
5. That would be a custom modification, I haven't seen anything like that
6. For the maximum post size, you can change edit.php and post.php: there is already a maximum length check. For the maximum topic size, modify post.php to update the topic to be closed if the number of posts exceeds 200.
7. That affects profile.php, register.php, and post.php (I think that's every place)
8. Cron job
9. Cron job

  • Registered: 2006-05-12
  • Posts: 28

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

Thank you for your comments.

I edited #3 according to your note.  I guess I have been hanging around on non-standard PunBB sites too long.

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

3. OK, as an administrator do you want to be able to see who the anonymous user is?

  • Registered: 2006-05-12
  • Posts: 28

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

Smartys wrote:

3. OK, as an administrator do you want to be able to see who the anonymous user is?

No, don't care.

As an administrator, there will be no deletions, no bans, no moderation of any kind.

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

OK
Then you have two options:
1. create a user with username "Anonymous" and in post.php, if the box is checked, make the poster name "Anonymous" and the poster_id the ID of the anonymous user you created
2. in post.php, if the box is checked, make the poster name "Anonymous" and the poster_id 1 (the guest user)

  • Registered: 2006-05-12
  • Posts: 28

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

What is the usual method for combating spam flooding bots?  What is the timeout based on?  Session?  IP address?  Cookie?

  • From: Victoria, Australia
  • Registered: 2007-01-10
  • Posts: 15

Re: Proposal for an unmoderated forum

Each method has advantages and disadvantages.

Cookies:

Advantages
* Easy to set, and keep track of
* Little server overhead

Disadvantage
* Easily modified, unset, and ignored by user / spam bot
* What happens if the user doesn't support cookies? (I know rare, but it happens)

Sessions:
Advantages:
* Easy to use
* Cannot be changed by user

Disadvantages:
* PHP seems to store the Session ID in a cookie meaning we have the same problem as we do with cookies.
* Disappears when we close the browser (I think - personally don't use sessions at all)

IP Address (with Database):
Advantages:
* Generally Consistent
* Does not count on the user being able to store data between page views (all server side)

Disadvantages:
* Can be changed using a proxy
* If database is not cleaned when needed - results in a big table
* Usually not static

I personally would go the IP address method.

Christopher Clarke

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