Visitor Messages Removal from Profiles (Yes / No / Don't Know)
 

Basically, the problem we're having, as in the Moderators of this forum, is too many visitor messages are being spammed.

Last night I removed over 419 spam visitor messages out of 13,499 messages, and I haven't even scratched the surface. Prowler did similar, 150 or so, and even then neither me nor prowler have even made a dent in any of it yet. Our time is needed elsewhere and we simply do not have time to sift through the massive amount of Visitor Messages. Would be great if everyone reported them so we could act, but that simply doesn't happen enough + a lot of these spammers are only spamming the visitor messages and are slipping through the net without detection.

So the word is, do we really need those visitor messages at all, after all why not PM instead, it's private and more secure.

I guess there'll be arguments as to why we should keep them, and arguments against, but we, and RCK, would really like your opinions on this.

So here it is, a Poll to see.

EDIT: If the outcome is to get rid of visitor messages, I would imagine RCK would provide an announcement for all to check and copy any visitor messages of any importance before they are switched off and purged, and, give you all time to complete it too.

I have used those maybe 3-4 times many years ago, just to discover nobody is checking them (including me) and in my point of view those visitor messages are redundant. I rarely go to my own profile and there is no indication of a new VM.

I'm sure there is some kind of notification, can't remember what it is though, or where it would be either :crazy

Thanks for replying Predseda :great

I have also added a "Don't Know" option to the poll for obvious reasons

I suppose there was a notification last time as I got a VM. But just two in over ten years, both spammish so not too important for basic users.

Visitor messages can be set to private so they are only visible to registered members of EAB. This should be the default setting and would fix the spamming problem.

Yes that is indeed true, but nowhere on my test site can I find where to change the default option to private, any ideas as I'm a little rusty atm?

EDIT: Ah, it's OK I found it :)

EDIT 2: Yes this will work, only for Moderators and who's in your friends lists, not all registered users that haven't befriended you beforehand I'm afraid. Seems pretty pointless to me IMHO

The only one I had was a spam message in some alien language. I don't think they would be missed so I voted no.

Must admit, my last VM was in Apr 2014 and that too was spam (sorry Prowler :D).

In all honesty I can't really see why we still use them, it's more of a show of popularity than anything else and doesn't really serve any purpose other than for spammers. My preference would be to PM people, especially when needing medical help with herpes :D

Dito (sorry DH) :cheese

https://www.imageupload.co.uk/images.../Untitled1.png

What a fortuity. Today I noticed visitor messages for the very first time. 2 glorious VM's. :D However, I thought about for what it is good but failed. So, remove VM.

Begone with them. I Never understood the point.
IS it BB trying to be Fakebook?

Wow!

I was expecting the odd "No" or even "Don't Know", suppose we'd better wait for Prowler to upset the trend :cheese

I don't even remember how to access mine, I thought they were on my user profile? I might have just deleted them all.

Yes, click on your username and then the "Visitor Messages" tab Akira ;)

You've probably already disabled it in your UserCP. If there's no "Visitor Message" tab (3 tab along from "About Me" in your profile then it'll be disabled :)

Have none, and prolly won't be needing any :laughing

Yup, must have. No idea where to enable/disable it though!

UserCP/Edit Options/ under Messaging & Notification, there you'll see it right at the bottom of that section;)

Well, I believe in democracy, so I've voted. :great

You know my thoughts. I haven't changed my mind, but it looks like I'm backing a loser despite that. :crying

Aww! Prowler Man, you've gone and upset the apple cart :lol