Email Validation Check

Sergeant Joined: Aug 31, 2003 Posts: 127

I have a large user community and atleast once a month I would like to be able to run a script to validate email address and if none are validated I would like to have the option to delete this user from the database. Is this at all possible?? Would be nice if there was a nice little module that would do this..

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:54 pm

This would be a very nice addition. I'll make this topic a sticky to keep it up top the Forum and see if we can't get any takers on setting this type of thing up for Nuke.

mikem

Sergeant Joined: Aug 31, 2003 Posts: 127

Yeah it wuold be a nice addition and thanks for making a sticky. I think all the module would have to do is run a check on the emails through the DNS I believe. Then again I am not a guru like the rest of ya's.

Sergeant Joined: Aug 31, 2003 Posts: 127

GUess no one knows.... O wellz!....

Captain Joined: Sep 16, 2003 Posts: 380

Using email address verification to validate accounts is probably not a good idea. Most security wise email admins either turn off the verify (VRFY) option on their SMTP server or in some cases set it to respond positive to all requests. This is done as a SPAM prevention measure to keep mass emailers from connecting to servers and using verify to mine for valid addresses.

So, though it is possible and fairly easy to write such a script, the results would not be reliable.

Just my 2 cents,

gschoper
(former corporate sendmail hack)

Sergeant Joined: Aug 31, 2003 Posts: 127

ok thanks.... but I know I have a few emails in there that aren't good and Iwould like removed... But so many to sort through.

Captain Joined: Sep 16, 2003 Posts: 380

Just a thought:

Would it make sense to create a script that either:

A. automatically purges any accounts that have not been used (based on user_lastvisit field in nuke_users) in X number of days(months,years, etc.)

B. sends an email to users who haven't used their accounts in X time with a link "re-activate" their account or have it deleted.

Option A is easy, option B would require a little bit of thought to implement.

gschoper

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:47 pm

Since both of the ideas suggested by gschoper are similar to some of the coding I use for the Approve_Membership 2.0 module, I will have a go at doing this. Possible specification would be as follows.

1 Admin Module

2 Options for purge time settings (delete those not used in X days or Y days etc).

3. Simple click button to purge.

4 purged users sent reactivation email (48 hrs to answer cos they wont be expecting it)

5 purged users moved from users to users_temp table.

6 Extra flag in users_temp table to signify purged users.

7 Display list of purged users in admin with date purged and option to delete altogether.

Any more ideas welcome before I start on this. I'll leave it a couple of days before starting in order to get as much feedback as possible.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:38 am

i started on one tonite as kind of a 'feasability test' (see if i could do it)
so far i've got it looking at lastvisit and subtracting 1 month and returning a list (i will add an option to specify the amount of months, days, or years)

thats how far i got.
heres what im planning so far:

admin specifies search parameters:
1 month since last visit, email contains '@hotmail.com', user hasn't added their aim id, users sig is greater than x bytes (i'll write a fancy function that adds image sizes+text Twisted Evil

), user has dead avatar Very Happy

, etc
nuke returns a list matching criteria with a checkbox next to it (links to each user profiles provided)
admin checks off all the users in need of attention and submits form
nuke returns an 'actions list'
admin decides if these users should be deleted, notified or both

Quote:

4 purged users sent reactivation email (48 hrs to answer cos they wont be expecting it)

5 purged users moved from users to users_temp table.

6 Extra flag in users_temp table to signify purged users.

i LOVE #4 -the 48 hour part
i also LOVE #5
but #6 in unneeded IMO -i would only change a db structure when absolutly needed. i would just set check_num to whatever was sent out in the email (maybe add a P to it to or something)

also, should an option be included to delete all the users:
forum posts
private messages
stories
sessions
comments
group memberships
contacts (nuke_contactbook used in webmail)

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:04 am

This would be great. I too have a large member base of over 167 000. I know probably half are no longer valid or have been inactive for some time. I envision something similar to the PHP-Nuke 6.7 activation email and process. Send email to all accounts with a 're-activation' email. If the re-activation link is not clicked on in X time-period, user-account is deleted - or perhaps dumped into a 'frozen' table in case reactivation is necessary later.

This would likely require far less work, as it could leverage the existing process for new activations, just modified to delete accounts rather than activate them.

I like your system though, especially if it could be automated. But I'd be happy with something that could be triggered manually...

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 10:19 am

Hmmmmmm!! I think I would be purged on all of disgruntled tech's criteria except for the last visit one.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:06 pm

arnoldkrg wrote:

Hmmmmmm!! I think I would be purged on all of disgruntled tech's criteria except for the last visit one.

yeah i just put the aim ID and sig in there as ideas sigs can get out of hand when remote sigs are used and the aim id was just an example (would be useful for clan sites / corporate intranet sites)

i'm gonna try and do this as an addon to the existing admin panel so that it doesnt modify any of nukes files or db structures

also does anyone know how phpbb handles a deleted user's posts?

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 4:40 pm

I don't think they're deleted at all. But you probably wouldn't want to delete those posts, as it would break the continuity of thread posts.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 8:04 pm

hamesh wrote:

I don't think they're deleted at all. But you probably wouldn't want to delete those posts, as it would break the continuity of thread posts.

but i'd like to allow the option to dedlete the posts -especially if phpbb doesn't display them anyways

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 9:23 pm

heres what i have so far:

step 1:

step 2:

p.s. email and url are reverse in the pic -its fixed now Embarassed