Disabling the Feedback User Profile Activation E-Mail

[donrasky]

QUESTION

Is there a way to disable or to not require the "Feedback User Profile Activation" E-Mail while STILL allowing or requiring user registration.

DESIRED RESULT

We would like to require users to register before leaving comments in the help while simultaneously disabling and/or eliminating the requirement for the user to respond to the "Feedback User Profile Activation" E-Mail.

DESIRED WORKFLOW

1. User clicks Add Comment icon to add comments.

2. User sees "Create Feedback Service Profile" dialog box and enters the required and/or optional Feedback Service Profile information.

3. User is NOW registered and does NOT need to respond to a "Feedback User Profile Activation" E-Mail and does NOT receive a "Feedback User Profile Activation" E-Mail.

NOTE: We are using Feedback Server and Feedback Explorer 3. We host FeedbackServer on our own servers.

[RamonS]

Do you really want the world to be able to spam your system using nothing more than a cheap bot? While the desired change may make things easier for users it will make things more difficult for you. Be prepared to be exposed to endless DDoS attacks that render your entire system useless. Might as well turn it off. Aside from that, how many fake Gucci bag and triple X web sites do you want to have associated with your organisation? Just wondering if you know what you are asking for.
Might be OK in an exclusive intranet setting tho....

[donrasky]

What I am asking for isn't so much the point of the matter. Options that reflect what the people I serve would like see is more to the point. Also, I'm not sure just how many XXX Ads read the help.

Still, thank you for raising some legitimate points.

[LTinker68]

What I am asking for isn't so much the point of the matter. Options that reflect what the people I serve would like see is more to the point. Also, I'm not sure just how many XXX Ads read the help.

True, but you have to weigh that against the security concerns of your network. It might be an inconvenience to have to use the emails, but spammers will find your help system (unless you're on a self-contained network). We MVPs frequently delete spam posts from this forum. There might be a gap of a month or two between submissions, but then we could go a month where we get a slew of them and the forum admins then delete their accounts. The email step won't necessarily stop them, but it might cut back on some of them.

[donrasky]

Fair points all....

Thanks in part to the input we received we are leaving the current registration process enabled both for internal and external users posting to the help.

Our senior UX designer raised what seems to be a very good point and perhaps a good feature request.

If the feedback profile registration dialog included a Confirmation of Registration section, as required to register for these forums, this would seem to eliminate the need for a confirmation E-Mail being sent to the user to complete the registration and activation of their user profile.

Beau-feature-request-08-31-11.png

[LTinker68]

You can certainly submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. I'm not sure what's involved in that type of pictorial confirmation option. That is, if it's something that can be licensed by MadCap to use for your output, or if they'd add an option where you'd get the licensing yourself and then tie it into the Feedback Server, similar to getting your own TFS license but being able to use it with Flare. So definitely submit the feature request (you could add a link back to your post above as an example of what you're asking for).

Although your suggestion should be an option in Feedback, especially if MadCap can't extend the license to users. If they can't, then some users might not want to pay for that type of licensing and/or would prefer email confirmation.

[RamonS]

What I am asking for isn't so much the point of the matter. Options that reflect what the people I serve would like see is more to the point. Also, I'm not sure just how many XXX Ads read the help.

Still, thank you for raising some legitimate points.

Well, one would think the same about a MadCap Peer-to-Peer forum, but I remove such sleazy or scammy posts almost every other day from here. The folks who post stuff like that don't read anything, they only abuse easy registration procedures in the hope that some dimwit clicks on the links and buys their stuff...or downloads a virus or worm.
The CAPTCHA only takes care of most bots in a rather effective manner, but it fails to protect against humans doing nasty stuff. That test is only intended to "tell computers and humans apart", but it will not prevent what computers or humans do after passing the test.
In an Intranet you can log IPs and with a date and time stamp be rather certain from which system such a message came. It doesn't mean that the typical user of that box is the culprit, but it gives some more clues and some more things to go by. But even in that setting I find it a bad idea.
The problem with making this an option is that folks will use it. I always think that design should prevent harm, not encourage it.