An interesting idea George, thanks!
I have now set it up so that unverified e-mail accounts can post in the 'Prospective Students' forum, but not the other forums until they are e-mail verified.
However, the problem is that I can't automatically separate accounts that are @mcmaster.ca from other types of emails.
I've put a message on the registration page saying that if you are a prospective student, email
[email protected] om and I'll allow them to sign up without an @mcmaster.ca email but it's a manual process for me to do each time.
Two options we can look at doing:
1) Keep it @mcmaster.ca only to sign up, and they can post in the prospective student forum only until they verify their McMaster.ca email, then it lets them post to any forum.
2) Open up email to any email address, but require email verification before they can post in any forums. Once verified, they can post in the forums. This will at least require a troll to sign up new email accounts each time they register after their account is banned.
Old option: The way it used to be up until this most recent troll, is that we accepted all main types of email addresses (mcmaster.ca, gmail, yahoo, hotmail) and then allowed them to post to the forums without verification.
Which would you guys prefer? Right now it's set up as #1 option while we're on 'lockdown' from the recent trolling issue. But I think we're going to switch it to #2 soon.
The problem with #1 is that people who don't have a McMaster email (including alumni students, prospective students, landlords looking to post houses for rent, any small business owner in the Westdale area looking to post about an event or announcement, etc) can't post in the forums.