UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 7 Development How Do I? Registering a new user and their junk email settings

I noticed that mail from my board ends up in the junk email box of a web based mail server like hotmail unless a user puts it on the allow list.This can be a problem for new users who dont check their junk email box. Which file can I put a message into saying "If you do not recieve an email shortly be sure and check your junk email folder and allow balh blah blah"

*edit* I think I found it

/threadsdirectory/languages/*/default/newuser.php

$ubbt_lang['NEW_USER2'] = "Enter the following information to register a User. Initial passwords are randomly generated (unless specified otherwise), so a valid email address is required so this can be mailed to you.[:"blue"]If you do not receive it shortly be sure to check your junk email folder and choose to accept email from us[/]";

Yes, hotmail, yahoomail and even aol will generally route all non-human generated email as spam. Alot of boards disallow the hotmail/yahoo combo. Unfortunately, you still need to allow AOL addresses... but advisign them about checking the junk/spam folder is a good idea.

Ya it looks like even with that little quip I added about checking the junk email folder people still miss it,not bothering to read the fine print.I think I may have to make it a big flashing banner. LOOK in your JUNK BOX

Yeah, you could add <font size='+3' color='red'> into the string.

I think this is an important issue, this should go into the main production version of wwwthreads.

I get lots of complaints that the confirmation email never arrives, so we lost a maior percentage of our readers' new registrations!!!!!!! Others we lose once they lose their passwords and cannot get a new one!!


emails for password requests would get lost too.

Anyone can tell me where to make a change so there will be a notification there too (I know, I am lazy).

Any other opportunities where email gets lost and we should mention something??




I wonder how other boards do this. This is a general problem, not just our specific problem.


"If you do not receive it shortly be sure to check your junk email folder and choose to accept email from us"



Who would know what it means: accept email from us???? I think the text should be well elaborated. It should already mention which email should go onto the whitelist. And in a way that this email will change as soon as we change the board email address. Where are the experts that tell me the exact variable names and help my laziness again

Of course, spammers will soon start to use our email address as sender. Especially those spammers who harvest email addresses from our boards!!

Don't know if this helps, but some email providers will treat your messages as spam if you don't have Reverse DNS set up properly on your server.

I tried to register on my own board.

Problems:
[:"red"]
"We cannot proceed. All required fields have not been filled in"
[/]


It took me a while to find out that I had to click "I agree". Not user friendly! Lots of people would fail here and give up. I almost gave up after failing 3 times. I am a nerd, so I managed in the end. What does it cost to program "You must agree to our rules or else we cannot sign you up. Please return to click on 'I agree' "

Seems this has been programmed by nerds for nerds. Not for the simple plain folk.


When I tried to log in, the following happened

[:"red"]
"The email for this account has not yet been verified.

Please use your back button to return to the previous page."
[/]


again, here an explanation of spam filters is appropriate. A very detailed howto explaining spam filters. Plus an option to request a resending of the confirmation email. Plus advice on how to contact the administrator, if all else fails.


============
here is another example for user friendliness that is missing in our software here
[:"red"]You're currently browsing DaniWeb as a guest. Please register if you would like to reply to this thread. [/]

Instead we get mysterious greyed out "post" and "reply" buttons.

[]Conrad said:
Don't know if this helps, but some email providers will treat your messages as spam if you don't have Reverse DNS set up properly on your server. [/]

oh, and if the board return address is a yahoo address then it is another aggravation, because the sender ip is not Yahoo!

I think when we used an address from our own domain, things worked better. I think we did not have much spam filter problems

But how are other people doing? are we the only ones with this problem?? You do not verify email? Did you ever try to sign up to your own board using yahoo or aol email addresses??


Pls explain the reverse DNS. does it have to resolve to the sender domain? or just resolve to something, whatever?

Basically all emails to a certain domain name (email prowider) were being rejected and bounced back. Fortunately they included the reason for not delivering those emails: RevDNS. According to their anti-spam policy RevDNS must be set up correctly or else you are treated as a spammer.

Normal DNS is when an IP number can be translated into a regular address like ubbdev.com, so I assume that RevDNS is when you can take a name and transform it into an IP number. They probably check to see if the IP your message is coming from matches up with the domain name of your email address. Or so I assume... I don't know how it was setup as I simply emaild my web host and they took care of it.

It was easy to single out the problem itself as the registration queue was getting bigger and bigger and almost all those on it had an email address from the same internet portal. So if you see something similar then you quickly know what's up.

[]mario3 said:
I think this is an important issue, this should go into the main production version of wwwthreads.
[/]

Threads is EOL - there won't be anymore major version. See the anouncement at ubbcentral. You might want to make this suggestion to them for their new UBB product at www.ubbcentral.com