NCRS Technical Board Upgrade

[John W.]

The NCRS Technical Discussion Board has just undergone an upgrade. There are a few new features that you will need to know about.

• The script now offers a "blind e-mail" capability. This lets you send e-mail to posters, *without* making the posters' e-mail address public. Instead of displaying e-mail addresses with posts and profiles, the script simply displays "send e-mail" links, which lead to forms from which e-mail can be sent through the script. This feature will further discourage e-mail harvesters that search the web for e-mail addresses to add to their SPAM lists.
  
• Users can now update the e-mail addresses on their profiles. The script simply generates a new password and sends it to the updated e-mail address, thus validating the update in precisely the same manner in which it validated the original entry. (The script-generated passwords have been simplified, by the way, so that they include only upper-case alphabetical characters. There'll be no more confusion between "1" and "l" or between "O" and "0.")
  
• Profiles can no longer share e-mail addresses. You will not be able to create multiple profiles.
  
• You may now choose whether or not to use frames when viewing the NTDB. The "add frames" and "remove frames" options appear in the navigation bar on the index page, making it very easy to switch back and forth between formats.
  
• If a message doesn't have any follow-ups, it will now *really* be deleted if the poster decides to delete it. The "message deleted by poster" replacement message will only be used if it's actually necessary to maintain a thread's integrity.
  
• A major change is the addition of "pagination" to the index listing. The pagination is variable, and is based on a visitor's settings. If you have not made any changes in your (Preferences) each page will display messages within the last 5 days. If your preferences set the forum to display messages posted within the past two weeks, for example, the main index page will show just that, as it always has, and subsequent pages will show messages posted in successive two-week increments. The "pagination link" is at the bottom of the index page.
  
• A "Mark All Messages Read" option has been added to the top Menubar.

[Rod Dame]

Re: NCRS Technical Board Upgrade

And you thought my cookies were confused before now

[george romano]

Quit playin wit yer cookies! *NM*

[Art A.]

Re: NCRS Technical Board Upgrade

John, I have a question about the new "blind e-mail" upgrade---do you or does anyone at The NCRS Technical Discussion Board administration see or have any access to the e-mail that is being sent to the poster?

Art

[John W.]

Re: NCRS Technical Board Upgrade

Art,

No, nothing has changed from the previous setup in that regard. Is there a reason that you ask?

The reason for the change is to keep the e-mail address harvesters from invading the board and adding every e-mail address on the board to their mailing list. Now they just don't see any e-mail addresses to harvest.

The way the board was setup made it unlikely that they could have harvested the addresses anyway, but this is just a lot better security.

I know I get way to much SPAM, and anything I can do to slow down what I or anyone else gets is worth the effort.

[Art A.]

Re: NCRS Technical Board Upgrade

John,I had just responded to a poster via your new system and it occurred to me that it was being routed to him thru your server. It also occurred to me that I was sending a personal message that I didn't want ANYONE else to see and I was not sure if it was being viewed or modified by someone at the ncrs.

Let me see if I have this perfectly clear. My inquiry was--- "(I have a question about the new "blind e-mail" upgrade---do you or does anyone at The NCRS Technical Discussion Board administration see or have any access to the e-mail that is being sent to the poster? )"and your reply was---"No, nothing has changed from the previous setup in that regard" -----does that mean that the ncrs does NOT have any access to nor would modify said e-mail in any shape or form, other that acting as a routing agent, with your new system?
Please be very specific in your response to the above inquiry as I think your answer may have a huge impact for those using your new system.

I understood the reason----"The reason for the change is to keep the e-mail address harvesters from invading the board and adding every e-mail address on the board to their mailing list. Now they just don't see any e-mail addresses to harvest."----However, in the past when responding to a poster via their e-mail address, you were routed to an standard e-mail type format. With your new system the person sending the e-mail and does not see anything other than the ncrs format, which does not give the sender a good fuzzy feeling.

Art

[John W.]

Re: NCRS Technical Board Upgrade

Art,

Nothing changed as to anyone having anything to do with this site or any other site for that matter having the ability to read, edit, or delete any e-mail. Before the update when you clicked on an e-mail link your PC or MAC intercepted that call and provided an e-mail envelope that was then sent out through your ISP with your e-mail address as the sender.

The upgraded way is that the NCRS server supplies a form that you fill in with the message information and your e-mail address. It is sent out from our server within a few seconds after you click send. As do most things in life this can pose a problem. Some ISP's check all incoming e-mail for SPAM. Since your e-mail will have originated from the ncrs.org domain, but your return address is that of your ISP it may get flagged. I haven't seen this happen from the discussion board, but I have had returned mail from some of the other mail forms on the site.

This problem is just one of the growing pains of trying to get mail from point A to point B and filter out as much of the SPAM as possible. My ISP filters mail and I get a lot that is flagged as SPAM that is not.

To make sure that I am clear, your question was "do you or does anyone at The NCRS Technical Discussion Board administration see or have any access to the e-mail that is being sent to the poster?" The answer: "No". "Nothing has changed from the previous setup in that regard" We didn't couldn't before, and don't can't now. This is not a license for nasty grams though! If there are complaints from the recipient about mail or content a person could loose their right to use the NCRS Technical Forum.