[Wolfgang Hoeschele]

Hello,

I have been trying to get help regarding the WangGuard plugin from the WordPress group on that software, but have been frustrated by being told this is supposedly not a WangGuard issue but a Buddypress issue (although as I understand it Wangguard is specifically designed for Buddypress). Anyway, I hope that maybe I can get some answers here, since Commons in a Box does use Buddypress, and many of you probably use WangGuard to protect against sploggers.

The point is that WangGuard apparently classifies people as spammers if they don’t respond right away to the confirmation email that is sent them once they complete the first step of the registration process. So my first question is:

1) How much time do users have to respond to the confirmation email before they get classified as spammers?

Next, even after we have reversed the span designation as administrators, users are still having difficulty registering with our site. Helene mentioned this in an email to this forum. I’m still puzzled by the answers. So, my second question is:

2) What are we as administrators supposed to tell users whose “spam” classifications we have reversed, as to how they are to register on our site?

There is a third thing which I don’t quite understand, is that some (but not all) users are listed on the administrators’ WangGuard list of registered users long (in many case several days) before they become visible on the generally available list of members. So, my third question is:

3) Why do some members appear on the generally available list of registered users only long after they have appeared on the list available to administrators?

I would really like clarification on these issues, because I do not want to learn all this through trial and error with users who are likely to get as frustrated as I about this whole thing. It’s not the way to start off membership in a social network.

All the best,

Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Hoeschele]

Hello!

I haven’t gotten any responses to this post.

Although this problem hasn’t recurred since the time I wrote this post, I still don’t know what I am to do if this happens again. I would really like some help about this, because it does not seem to be forthcoming from anyone.

Does anybody here use WangGuard on their site?

 

[Ray]

Hi Wolfgang,

You might want to ask this question on the WangGuard forums since all three questions seem to be WangGuard-related. You could also try the BuddyPress forums at buddypress.org to see if anyone has similar issues regarding WangGuard and BP.

I myself have not used WangGuard, so I’m afraid I cannot help.

[Wolfgang Hoeschele]

Hi Ray,

Well, I thought that this is what WangGuard people would be able to answer, which is why I FIRST wrote there. But they CLAIM it’s not a WangGuard issue. I don’t understand that, but they claim it’s a problem of Commons in a Box.

I myself am not a software person. I feel that I’m being given a runaround.

Has anybody on this forum installed WangGuard? Do they have any similar experiences with it?

[MySchoolStuff]

Hi Wolgang

I use WangGaurd without any problems, but maybe I am missing something.

Please could you supply a link to the WangGaurd forum where you discussed the issues with them so I can get my head around this.

[Yestin Rowse]

Hi Wolfgang,

I’ve had some of these problems with WangGuard. It said that someone was a splogger, they were not so I approved the person and they are now a user in the WangGuard dashboard options. But for some reason they have not come up as a user on the actual site.

[Wolfgang Hoeschele]

Hello Yestin and MySchoolStuff,

The forum is here: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/reversing-spam-designations-on-wangguard. Opening it now, I found that there are two posts that I was not even aware that had been posted (I never got an email about them; I suppose if your own post wasn’t the very last one you don’t get any email notification from there about a new post…). Anyway, Jose Conti there says that the pink color doesn’t indicate any problem, but only somebody who has not yet activated their account. So I suppose one should just ignore it.

I think WangGuard should have something to explain what the pink color means, because this is really confusing (and it took a lot of back and forth before Jose Conti actually provided that explanation). I still have the problem that one user who was designated with pink appears never to have received a confirmation email, but then from my end I can’t tell whether she just missed an email that was in fact sent.

[MySchoolStuff]

Hi Wolgang

 

I agree with WangGaurd. The users are being marked as spammers, and not sploggers, so it would not be a WangGaurd issue.

Are you running any other spam-checking software?

I have registered with my site and am delaying clicking the activation link to see if I am marked as a spammer. I will report back in a few days on whether I am marked as a spammer.

[MySchoolStuff]

Hi Wolgang

I registered on my site using a second email address and waited 5 days to activate the account. I can confirm that the account was not tagged as a splogger by WangGaurd, nor as a spammer by WordPress.

[Wolfgang Hoeschele]

Thanks for doing that test!

I have by now installed the plugin “unconfirmed” to help with people who haven’t successfully signed in, though I haven’t had an occasion to use it yet.

The system seems to be working now, though I’d really like some better documentation on it so that users of the software don’t get confused and worried.

[Yestin Rowse]

I have just installed the plugin ‘unconfirmed’ as well. Have you tried using unconfirmed yet Wolfgang and is there a way of confirming a user that I had trouble activating already?

[Wolfgang Hoeschele]

Hi Yestin,

Yes, I have had the occasion to use “unconfirmed” on several people. One can use it to resend the confirmation email (though if the user’s spam filter blocks it and the user doesn’t know how to find blocked messages, this doesn’t help). One can also activate the user directly. I did this on one person, and then she logged in successfully.

The way to do it is that on the dashboard, there’s a tab for “Users” under which you select “unconfirmed;” if there are people listed there, underneath their names you can find the options of either resending confirmation email or activating them directly.

[Yestin Rowse]

Thank you Wolfgang!

[MySchoolStuff]

The ‘unconfirmed’ plugin was a great share. Very useful. Thank you @wolgang

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