Zoints Anonymous Posting - Improved privacy for members
 

Have you ever wanted to discuss something on a forum but never posted because you didn't want people to know it was you? To solve this problem, we created an anonymous posting hack.

Via the admin control panel, you can easily choose which forum(s) allows for anonymous posting.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2008/04/1.png


For anonymous enabled forums, your members then get this handly little checkbox (unchecked by default) when making a new thread or post.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2008/04/1.png


If they check the box, then their post is created under the account you setup and assign as the anonymous poster. I personally created an "anonymous" username, but you can create whatever you want.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2008/04/1.png


As forum owners, we all know that a few members will choose to screw around with this feature. Therefore we created an easy means to identify who created an anonymous thread/post should the need arise. Please be ethical and tell your members you can see who posted anonymously should the need arise. You can check the log by going here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2008/04/1.png


And the log looks something like this:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2008/04/1.png

Official support for this modification will take place at http://network.zoints.com in this forum.


Enjoy, click install, check out Zoints' other hacks, have a great day, and all that happy jive.

We always used this avatar for our anonymous account. You're welcome to use it if so desire:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2006/10/3.png

I had a similar hack with 3.07. Yours is better. It simply misses an option: On the front end, in forum listing, there should be a little sign that indicates anonymous posting possible in that forum.

If people are shy, they will not even go in newreply, so how would they know they can post anonyously?

Wouldn't adding "Anonymous Posting Enabled" to the forum description do the job? If not, can you provide a mockup of exactly what you mean? Thanks :)

Manually adding anonymous posting allowed would do the job, but is not dynamic. Would have to do so for every allowed forum, then remove it when you disable it.

The way I did it in 3.07 was:

1-Automatically <span style="float:right;"> a small icon with title of forum.

2-I had a set of status icon for that. When there was a new post made anonymously it would display.

Good point :) That would get very annoying very quickly.

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll see what we can come up with and add it to the next build.

Searched for it since a long Time. Great Hack !!! :)

Hi

Look at the highlighted code, please. What means the condition? If user == anonymous then checkox is checked? If yes, then the condition doesn't work for me. How can i test this, please?

If i check the box and use the preview the checkbox becomes unchecked


Regards, Stoebi

Shit ..... it conflicts with Doubleposting Preventing......

Demo :

http://www.politikstube.de/forum/sho...postcount=1147

redlabour i am using the prevent mod too and i am going to install this hack tonight but your post make me warn. can you describe the problem more? i cant understand anthing in the demo :/

If one User post anonymous and the second too then the Posting is merged as Doublepost.

DChapman - can you fix this ? One way is to disallow two anonymous postings one after another.

I am wondering about ability for real user to edit his anonymous post?

so whats the problem with this. this is what the doublepost acts. this is not a bug i think.

Two different peoples posts should not be merged. Although it is not a bug and that's the way it was designed it's still irritating :P

Excactly.

I think no - but i am not sure.

yes i see now and this a bad thing. Dchapman can you make a fix for this because i really want to use this mod.

Am I seeing correctly that... that is a 3.0.x modification? vBulletin 3.5.x+ has built in double posting prevention that this hack works fine with.

Or am I missing something?

At present time, they cannot edit the post. We *may* build that functionality in at a later time, but i'm not sure. I've used this mod on one of the largest forums in the world and can't remember people having much of a problem with it.

No it was still running with 3.6 and is merging Doubleposts and not only preventing them. ;)

And sorry - i never heard that Doubleposting Prevention is added by Default to vBulletin. :)

Here is the Link to the 3.6 Product to prevent Doubleposting.

where is the link ?

@Redlabour
Prevent doubleposting problem. IP check is missing for guests/anonymous poster.

@DCapman
Why I'am ignored? I see no logic in this condition, because all input checkboxes are unchecked by default.



Regards, Stoebi

You're not ignored. I have a message in with one of our engineers because i'm not sure either :) As soon as he gets back to me, myself or he will let you know. Apologies for the delay.

I believe that is for simply if you a previewing the post, it will keep the the Anonymous Checkbox checked.

Ah yes, that makes sense, thanks Danny! I remember now we had people checking the box, previewing the post, and then having the box uncheck during preview. That was bad... :D

Yes, you are right. I've used another user as anonymous before. Sorry.


@DChapman
Thank you very much for your answer :) Great work.


Regards, Stoebi

Are you sure you have the correct code placed? I just installed on my dev board and tested and it worked fine.

It works (the checkox keep checked), but with user Anonymous or anonymous only. Thank you :)

Regards, Stoebi

anonymous poster is not a guest, but an existing user.

Yes, if you added such an user, but it's not default. I've tested this hack with an existing user "blabla" before. The checkbox becomes unchecked if you use the preview then. Works perfect with an existing user "anonymous" only.

If members are using the anonymous account the post will be merged if prevent doubleposting is installed and activated. This behavior happens also when a guest has posted. If another guest answers, the post will be merged. The only way is to add an IP check. You want to implement this? Thanks in advance.


Regards, Stoebi

sometimes, discussion in anonymous thread becomes complicated. My idea is give user an option if they show some encrypted id in addition to anonymous id. That way, with identity anonymized, users can identify the same user's post and keep discussing. How about that?

this is not working correct on my 3.6.2 forum. I am making a post and click the "make anony post" the user avatar is the avatar of the anony user ok, the profile goes to it but the most important thing username is my username in showthread.php. i think It is conflicting with EWT Last Reply and Thread Starter Username Highlight mod.

thats ridiculous to be honest. if two anonymous people want to have a conversation they need to
1) use PM
or
2) realise they are on an internet forum, its got built-in anonymity

Another awesome "Zoints" release. :)

One thing I did notice was that you chose not to include automatic template edits in this release. Any reason?

I've gone ahead and added automatic template editing and re-exported the product. So, if anyone else is like me and prefers to have the plugin do everything for them (and make reverts and the like MUCH easier), here you go. :P

Question -
Do 'Zoints' releases need to have Zoints installed to run?

Nope.

thanks

Can someone please confirm that this is completely secure. Other Anon hacks out there display userids in the source, or other roundabout means for members to find out who the anon is. I want to make sure that no other member can find out who the anon poster is.

I like that it is out under the Zoints label, makes me more confident.

This changes the userid at the backend level. The only thing I can confidently tell you is that the originator's userid is not visible via a 'view source'. As for the overall security of the plugin, that's in the hands of vBulletin and PHP. :p

The only way to tell if a user is posting as anonymous is that the user is shown in the 'whos online' making a thread.

This isn't good if you want to restrict this feature to one forum (like a rant/rave forum)...is there a way around it?

I have the same issue.

I installed this to one forum ans tested it myself. It appeared to work ok until another user posted using this hack and it not only showed their sig, but also their username. (the anonymous avatar appeared though).

I am removing this hack until it's 100% private or I figure out why it's not working correctly.

BTW - I don't think I have either of the two mentioned hacks intalled.

Thanks