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Security against scammers

FollowingHim

Administrator
Staff member
Real Person
Male
New users can interact in many ways on the forum, but may find some restrictions with private messaging that are designed to deter scammers. All users who are interacting normally on the forum for a certain time period will have these restrictions automatically removed.

The internet is a lawless place. From time to time people attempt to use this forum deceptively, for various reasons. Usually this involves soliciting men and women by private message. Some do it for financial gain. Others may do it to "expose" polygynists in general, or one specific individual that they know in person, in some embarrassing or legally incriminating way. We do our best to try and protect our members, particularly new members who may be naive to this, but it is difficult. The private "conversations" on this forum are truly private, even the staff have absolutely no way of monitoring or viewing them at all, and we have no intention of ever changing this, as it is important for people to be able to talk in private. But as this is abused from time to time, I have just introduced some small restrictions that are designed to deter and reveal scammers, while letting our regular members continue to discuss matters in private.

On signup, a new forum member may interact on the public forum, comment on people's public profiles, use the chat, and have private conversations with other people. However they cannot initiate private conversations, they can only respond when contacted by somebody else. Nor can they view the entire list of forum members. This is to prevent a scammer signing up and immediately soliciting others by private message. They also cannot edit or delete their public posts - this is to ensure that a scammer cannot fish for contacts then delete their posts to cover their tracks.

New forum members can initiate a conversation with a particular individual by posting a message on that person's public profile. These messages are able to be seen by any logged-in forum member. If they need to speak privately, they can ask that person to start a private conversation with them.

Once someone starts to interact normally on the public forum, they will soon be automatically granted the ability to initiate private conversations, and edit / delete their posts. This will be granted so soon that most people probably wouldn't notice they had ever been restricted, the requirements are not onerous, and are completely automated - but they do mean that nobody can initiate private messages without first starting to interact with others publicly.

Any individual who is suspected of being a scammer may have these restrictions extended for a longer period.
 
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If anyone who has been interacting on the forum for a while finds they suddenly can't initiate private messages because of this, the forum software will have just been slow to realise you should be able to, the next time you make a post or someone likes one of your posts you should be granted the ability to initiate private messages again. If you have any problems, comment here or email me at samuel@biblicalfamilies.org
 
New users can interact in many ways on the forum, but may find some restrictions with private messaging that are designed to deter scammers. All users who are interacting normally on the forum for a certain time period will have these restrictions automatically removed.

The internet is a lawless place. From time to time people attempt to use this forum deceptively, for various reasons. Usually this involves soliciting men and women by private message. Some do it for financial gain. Others may do it to "expose" polygynists in general, or one specific individual that they know in person, in some embarrassing or legally incriminating way. We do our best to try and protect our members, particularly new members who may be naive to this, but it is difficult. The private "conversations" on this forum are truly private, even the staff have absolutely no way of monitoring or viewing them at all, and we have no intention of ever changing this, as it is important for people to be able to talk in private. But as this is abused from time to time, I have just introduced some small restrictions that are designed to deter and reveal scammers, while letting our regular members continue to discuss matters in private.

On signup, a new forum member may interact on the public forum, comment on people's public profiles, use the chat, and have private conversations with other people. However they cannot initiate private conversations, they can only respond when contacted by somebody else. Nor can they view the entire list of forum members. This is to prevent a scammer signing up and immediately soliciting others by private message. They also cannot edit or delete their public posts - this is to ensure that a scammer cannot fish for contacts then delete their posts to cover their tracks.

New forum members can initiate a conversation with a particular individual by posting a message on that person's public profile. These messages are able to be seen by any logged-in forum member. If they need to speak privately, they can ask that person to start a private conversation with them.

Once someone starts to interact normally on the public forum, they will soon be automatically granted the ability to initiate private conversations, and edit / delete their posts. This will be granted so soon that most people probably wouldn't notice they had ever been restricted, the requirements are not onerous, and are completely automated - but they do mean that nobody can initiate private messages without first starting to interact with others publicly.

Any individual who is suspected of being a scammer may have these restrictions extended for a longer period.
I appreciate your efforts in this matter!
 
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