New GUU Registration Process

[ChrisCavalier]

As some members may have noticed, there have been a number of posts made recently by banned members, registering under new aliases, for the sole purpose of trying to create trouble on the site. Needless to say, the content of these posts show why these people were banned from the site in the first place.

Along those lines, we have also received and saved private emails from these same banned members that are synonymous in content and character to the posts made on the site. I am personally considering posting some of the emails we received with the names of the senders so our members can see the character of the ones who sent them. Further, it has been suggested to me to send the emails we received to the employers of those who sent them so the employers can see the character of their employees for themselves. That is a very interesting thought that might be worth considering.

More importantly, our greater desire is to eliminate these types of posts on the site which we know must be annoying to the rest of the members. As such, we will soon be implementing a new registration system that will require any new registrants to provide detailed contact information which we will verify before they are allowed to post on the site. Although this will require an extra step in the registration process, we think this will help prevent these annoying posts that are intended to disrupt the harmony of the forum.

We will let everyone know when the new registration process is in place (our developers are working on it now) and we look forward to implementing the new process that will require greater accountability for posters.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Chris

[Mulligans]

A very good idea! I would not recommend forwarding info to the employers. Nothing good can come out of that!

Jeff

[Tallyman77]

As some members may have noticed, there have been a number of posts made recently by banned members, registering under new aliases, for the sole purpose of trying to create trouble on the site. Needless to say, the content of these posts show why these people were banned from the site in the first place.

Along those lines, we have also received and saved private emails from these same banned members that are synonymous in content and character to the posts made on the site. I am personally considering posting some of the emails we received with the names of the senders so our members can see the character of the ones who sent them. Further, it has been suggested to me to send the emails we received to the employers of those who sent them so the employers can see the character of their employees for themselves. That is a very interesting thought that might be worth considering.

More importantly, our greater desire is to eliminate these types of posts on the site which we know must be annoying to the rest of the members. As such, we will soon be implementing a new registration system that will require any new registrants to provide detailed contact information which we will verify before they are allowed to post on the site. Although this will require an extra step in the registration process, we think this will help prevent these annoying posts that are intended to disrupt the harmony of the forum.

We will let everyone know when the new registration process is in place (our developers are working on it now) and we look forward to implementing the new process that will require greater accountability for posters.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Chris
Chris.......I am in total agreement with you on the new registration process and I am for anything you have to do to keep the good harmony going in the forum. :)

-Walt

Evergreen7777@att.net

[yankees506]

Great! im tired of seeing "our newest member" being a profain and silly attempt at a slight, some fool(s) have nothing better to do. GO GUU

[jobathenut]

I think sending thier emails to thier employers is WAY over the line.And i for one would be very dissapointed if this forum lowered themselves to that level.There is no reason for it.People say things on here all the time that they would'nt in "real life".So i have to disagree with you on that.As sending a email to a forum is no way to measure someones charector.I have sent you emails disagreeing with you,does that make me a bad guy just cause i dont like what you did.You can still love the forum and not like what has been done on here towards you.

[LWMM]

Ensuring that those who register are actually who they say they are sounds great, and is what a forum administrator ought to do. However, forwarding emails to members' employers seems petty and out of line. While a number of posts by banned members have been obnoxious and rightfully deleted, it is nevertheless the job of forum administrators and moderators to moderate what is posted in a forum, not the employers of individual members.

[MLB_Authentic]

I think you need to be very careful when considering messing with someone's employment. It is one thing to post such emails here, but when you start messing with someone's livelihood, or the way they make a living and support their families, people can do some really crazy things. Real life things that are much different than the message board world. If you think they have questionable character here, imagine what they might do if you cause them to lose their employment or way of life.

Just something to ponder.

[ChrisCavalier]

I think you need to be very careful when considering messing with someone's employment. It is one thing to post such emails here, but when you start messing with someone's livelihood, or the way they make a living and support their families, people can do some really crazy things.
Hello MLB,

Out of curiousity, what makes you think these people are not trying to mess with my livlihood and others involved with GUU by posting false and slanderous comments? If so, wouldn't contacting their employers be a fair response? Not saying I will do it, just curious as to why you think their actions are any different.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

-Chris

[lakeerie92]

Hello MLB,

Out of curiousity, what makes you think these people are not trying to mess with my livlihood and others involved with GUU by posting false and slanderous comments? If so, wouldn't contacting their employers be a fair response? Not saying I will do it, just curious as to why you think their actions are any different.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

-Chris

I know this question wasn't addressed to me, but if you do that then you are taking yourself down to their level. Right now we all know the posts are BS, but putting yourself on their level only lends some truth to everything they say. You just have to take the high road. A more detailed registration process should solve the problem and end it. You would lose more people and respect by emailing his employers which is far more detrimental to your livelihood than to just move on.

[sox83cubs84]

I think you need to be very careful when considering messing with someone's employment. It is one thing to post such emails here, but when you start messing with someone's livelihood, or the way they make a living and support their families, people can do some really crazy things. Real life things that are much different than the message board world. If you think they have questionable character here, imagine what they might do if you cause them to lose their employment or way of life.

Just something to ponder.

I second this, as I had the same chance to get someone in hot water on their job, and was fortunately talked out of it. One mid-1990s Wrigley Ballhawk (not ballhawknet) was going out of his way to create misery for me. He worked for a street construction crew, and was visiting Wrigley on the sly to shag baseballs when he was on the clock. After a day of more verbal abuse from him, I noted the phone number of his company on his parked truck, and wrote it down, with my intent being to call in and turn him in for goldbricking. I mentioned my intent to one of the old-timers on the street (Rich Buhrke), and, fortunately, he yanked me back to normalcy. As it happened, less than a year later, this guy ceased his verbal abuse, and we've gotten along just fine ever since, although he is no longer an active ballhawk.

Work is work...it is not the hobby (or ballhawking).

Dave Miedema

[ChrisCavalier]

I know this question wasn't addressed to me, but if you do that then you are taking yourself down to their level. Right now we all know the posts are BS, but putting yourself on their level only lends some truth to everything they say. You just have to take the high road. A more detailed registration process should solve the problem and end it. You would lose more people and respect by emailing his employers which is far more detrimental to your livelihood than to just move on.
Hello Russell,

Thank you for your thoughts. There are two points where we will probably have to agree to disagree. They are:

1) I disagree that making their actions known would be reducing to their level. If you look at it, these people are the ones who have made the false claims attempting to create some form of controversy and disrupt things on the site. If we were to respond as proposed, there is not one claim we would be making about them, only sharing the things they have done. While I understand you might feel differently, I think those are two very different things.

2) I also disagree that it would be lending truth to what they say. The issue here is that their actions are disrupting the harmony of where we conduct business and creates a distraction for our members. While there is no truth to what is being said, it still disrupts things when they post what they do. That is the issue here.

To be clear, my intent is to take the high road as you suggested. We will see if the new registration process works in eliminating the problem. However, if this issue does somehow continue I will simply not stand by and allow people to try to disrupt the livelihoods of those involved with GUU or the harmony that should be enjoyed by our members.

Thanks again for all the feedback and we look forward to implementing the new system as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Chris

[emann]

Chris-

In addition to reviewing new board members before they can post, you might also want to have the new registrants be on a sort of probation period where they can't start new threads until they've made a certain number of comments by other members.

I've seen this done on other forums (sometimes as many as 50 comments must be made before you can start your own thread). It would obviously prevent someone from just registering a fake name and posting a thread.

[ChrisCavalier]

Chris-

In addition to reviewing new board members before they can post, you might also want to have the new registrants be on a sort of probation period where they can't start new threads until they've made a certain number of comments by other members.

I've seen this done on other forums (sometimes as many as 50 comments must be made before you can start your own thread). It would obviously prevent someone from just registering a fake name and posting a thread.
Hello John,

Thank you for the suggestion. That is a very interesting idea. Let me bring this up with the developers. If we don't implement that immmediately, it is certainly something worth considering if any issues continue.

Thanks again to everyone for your input.

-Chris

[eisenreich8]

They bought their tickets,

They knew what they were getting into,

I say, let 'em crash.


Airplane! (1980)

[coxfan]

I've had years of administrative experience in I had to deal with periodic legal issues as part of the job.These experiences have taught me that it's far easier to file frivolous lawsuits than people realize, and even the most frivoluous suit is expensive to defend even when it has no foundation. Furthermore, the fact that the Internet's world-wide may allow suits to be filed in any jurisdiction where the plaintiff may live, even if it's hundreds of miles from the defendant.

So I suggest that you: 1) Never contact anyone's employer; or 2) never publish the real name of a person you suspect of creating a problem.

[trsent]

I've had years of administrative experience in I had to deal with periodic legal issues as part of the job.These experiences have taught me that it's far easier to file frivolous lawsuits than people realize, and even the most frivoluous suit is expensive to defend even when it has no foundation. Furthermore, the fact that the Internet's world-wide may allow suits to be filed in any jurisdiction where the plaintiff may live, even if it's hundreds of miles from the defendant.

So I suggest that you: 1) Never contact anyone's employer; or 2) never publish the real name of a person you suspect of creating a problem.

I think Chris' idea is if people are posting from their work computers, then their employers should be notified. I'm pretty sure this is what he meant.

I also know that to join this forum your real name must be used and available to all. If someone is using a fake name, I find no issue for their real names to be posted.

[lakeerie92]

Hello Russell,

Thank you for your thoughts. There are two points where we will probably have to agree to disagree. They are:

1) I disagree that making their actions known would be reducing to their level. If you look at it, these people are the ones who have made the false claims attempting to create some form of controversy and disrupt things on the site. If we were to respond as proposed, there is not one claim we would be making about them, only sharing the things they have done. While I understand you might feel differently, I think those are two very different things.

2) I also disagree that it would be lending truth to what they say. The issue here is that their actions are disrupting the harmony of where we conduct business and creates a distraction for our members. While there is no truth to what is being said, it still disrupts things when they post what they do. That is the issue here.

To be clear, my intent is to take the high road as you suggested. We will see if the new registration process works in eliminating the problem. However, if this issue does somehow continue I will simply not stand by and allow people to try to disrupt the livelihoods of those involved with GUU or the harmony that should be enjoyed by our members.

Thanks again for all the feedback and we look forward to implementing the new system as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Chris

I hope it eliminates the problem also. I also hope that the person or persons involved with this saw the thread and realize that they have impressed no one and take this warning shot to heart.

[yankees506]

I dont know what any of this is all about and honestly i dont care, if you hate chris, cool, if you wish guu did not exist, fine. Just stop imposing this attack on our site, many of us here dont know chris and dont care what he has done to you. We are not sheep, we are just collectors who enjoy this forum. Your "network" has created a really annoying problem for this forum posting silly user names like pinkpantiewhomever and "f-all you guu-(female private part)" make it impossible for any young future collectors to enjoy this site, i have no qualms with you, chris, your drones, or anyone else. Im just tired of this madness, its really sad that someone can attack people they dont know :eek:

[metsbats]

Hello MLB,

Out of curiousity, what makes you think these people are not trying to mess with my livlihood and others involved with GUU by posting false and slanderous comments? If so, wouldn't contacting their employers be a fair response? Not saying I will do it, just curious as to why you think their actions are any different.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

-Chris


With the attention local and Federal Authorities have been giving to the recent rash of cyber-bullying it's amazing certain people whose identities are known would even continue to leave threatening and harassing posts on a public forum. Every post is never deleted (only from public view) so the perpertrator is leaving a nice audit trail of evidence that can be used in criminal prosecution. Putting the new registration in not only protects the forum and it's members from these posts but will protect these bullies from themselves because it's really their own livlihoods and reputations (personal and yes professional) that they are putting on the line everytime they choose to make one of these posts.

[chakes89]

This new process seems like a good idea but what about the people that already have multiple user names on here.

I don't know of anyone personally but it's almost impossible to say that there aren't at least a few people out there with multiple user names.

And just to clarify, my post from the other day about having 13 user names was just a joke. Hence the :D at the end of the post. :)

[legaleagle92481]

Will existing members be required to reregister?

[trsent]

As such, we will soon be implementing a new registration system that will require any new registrants to provide detailed contact information which we will verify before they are allowed to post on the site. Although this will require an extra step in the registration process, we think this will help prevent these annoying posts that are intended to disrupt the harmony of the forum.



Will existing members be required to reregister?

The first post in this thread answers your question.