Reason to log in invisibly

[Waxhead]

Yep I see your problem! - That's some of the downsides by modifying other software. The positive thing is that while you are modding you can always mod the registration process by adding a second page with some info or whatever before registration. Also you can modify the registration page - this should really confuse the spamscripts and you woud not have to clean up your mailbox so often

but back to the original topic: You was curious of the motives for people to hiding themself. I'm not sure but I can imagine that if for example you are appearing offline in msn for example and at the same time are showing as online at a forum this might be a bit unplesant in case someone you know (well) is at the forum at the same time, and was actually hoping to reach you at msn or whatever just 3 seconds ago.

I still think that hiding in the forum is (mostly) a pointless feature. Since most of the users here seems like friendly,honest and open people with a good sense of humor. I would assume that most of them don't care if others notice that they "sniff around" a little bit

Despite this I actually (after som rethinking) think you should at least consider writing this functionallity in your framework in case such a feature should (for some strange reason) be required at a later stage. Can save you from rewritng lots of code!

[Sam_Zen]

There is a long thread on the Total Commander Forum (also phpBB) about the spambots. Unfortunately it's in the moderators-section of that forum, so I can't give a link to the thread.

I got the impression, that they have come to the conclusion that a watertight 100 % solution doesn't exist.
So it becomes more a matter of making some primary precautions to stop some of it, and the rest of the garbage has to be removed manually. By reporting spam by the moderators to the Admin, so he can block the IP.
Visual recognition doesn't add much to this, I'm afraid. Big spammers appear to hire cheap students to control the process.

By the way, I have so far quite nice experiences with a PHP-forum-tool from http://www.simplemachines.org/

[LPChip]

The big advantage in writing your entire system is that first of all, spammers won't search for it, which will make it spam proof for a while.

Next thing is, the code I have so far is OOP which allows me to easilly add/remove features, and its written so I can extend earlier written code easilly. Adding a feature like this later won't be much of a problem, as it will be an upgrade to the user properties, and one to the "who's online" feature.

Note that I want to avoid using an existing forum software at this time, because I want it integrated into the entire system. Having an external forum requires hacking in it for usermanagement etc, with 2 control panels and stuff like that.

[Karmann]

I agree with the most of you who say that when your here, your HeRe! And this is a peaceful place. You can't do much in invisi mode anyway. And I wholly agree with Soundcrafter. If you post, your gonna be seen. heh. Whats the point?
Moderators definately need to be able to tell who's on. No matter what.

[LPChip]

Moderators definately need to be able to tell who's on. No matter what.

Moderators and admins can already see who are logged in when they're in invisible mode.

Based on all the feedback I've gotten here, I think the best thing to do is delay this feature for a later moment. Since its OOP based, I can add it lateron without much hassle.