New Changes To Memberships & New User Validation

[mooniac58]

Hello all,

After a rough couple months of spam-bot invasions I have decided to make some critical changes to the way new users to the community are validated and how Supporter level memberships work.  Here are the key changes:

• When a new account is created here it will be placed in a group called Unverified Members.  This group can browse the site but cannot create any new content.  To upgrade this account to a Verified Member you have two options: a) pay a $2 fee for instant validation which is good for the life of the account or b) contact me  @mooniac58 with a picture/scan of your valid ID to prove you are who you say you are.
• The old manual $10 minimum donation for upgrade to Supporter level has been replaced with a $25/year automatic subscription system that will renew every year on its own unless you cancel it.  No more waiting for me manually upgrade your account, etc.
• Those that purchase the $2 instant validation will get a $2 credit towards their first year of Supporter level access...so $23 for the first year and $25 thereafter. 
• Generic Donations: Separate from the membership plans, users can still donate arbitrary amounts to support the site using the new donations page.  
• Those that donated prior to today with the old system will continue to have Supporter access until 12 months from your last donation as long as that was $10 or more.

These are the current membership levels for members:

• Unverified Members - New accounts, can browse site, cannot create content or message others.
• Verified Members - Either paid the $2 fee or proved in another way that they are a real person.  Can post new content but not in classified forums.  Limited to 200MB total storage for attachments, photos and other files.
• Supporter Members - Signed up for $25/year subscription.  Do not see advertisements on site. Able to post non-commercial topics on the classified forums.  Storage limit of 1GB.  
• Sponsor Members - These accounts have paid a fee to have a limited number of commercial posts on the forums (usually 1 per month limit).

Some final notes:

• While I am confident new spam-bots are not being registered on the site, I am quite sure that they have dormant accounts that were created in the past that still exist undetected.  For this reason we have and will see brief uprisings where they rise up and make a bunch of spam posts.  We will ban each of these as they occur and wipe the content.  I don't expect much of this and the past few days have been clear skies here.
• If you created an account prior to August 5, 2025 and did the normal email based activation then you are in the Verified Member group.  No one was downgraded during this process and you don't need to do anything to validate your account.  Please do not do the $2 validation process (I am still working on hiding this option for everyone except unvalidated accounts in the site).
• I will be making small changes here and there to try and make it more clear how new users validate their accounts.  For now I hope newly registered members find their way to this topic to get the instructions.  Eventually I hope to figure out how to customize the site more to guide new members through the process better.

And lastly a big thanks to everyone who has supported this community over the past 17 years! 

Craig

[dkkim73]

Craig, 

Very solid plan and thank you for your stewardship of this great resource.

A thought: is there any way to limit visibility of existing member info (stuff on profile, tail number, etc) when viewed by unverified members? Just a thought in that spam accounts could be used to get info for later spearphishing.  A few members have described scams where the perp was more knowledgeable. 

Minor attack vector, I hope, but worth a thought. 

Thanks, 

David

[mooniac58]

23 minutes ago, dkkim73 said:

Craig, 

Very solid plan and thank you for your stewardship of this great resource.

A thought: is there any way to limit visibility of existing member info (stuff on profile, tail number, etc) when viewed by unverified members? Just a thought in that spam accounts could be used to get info for later spearphishing.  A few members have described scams where the perp was more knowledgeable. 

Minor attack vector, I hope, but worth a thought. 

Thanks, 

David

I could dig around and see if there are options for me to do that within the forum software.

[Paul Thomas]

Good work on the spam.

I've seen other forums have a new member subsection. It's a place for people to introduce themselves and it lends itself to be a place to share rules, donation posts, etc.

[Mooney in Oz]

7 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

And lastly a big thanks to everyone who has supported this community over the past 17 years! 

Craig

A big thanks to you, Craig for creating and operating this site for the benefit and enjoyment of us Mooney owners.

[Hank]

Thank you, Craig! Just ran through the new process as a non-paypal-user. Fingers crossed, let's see how it goes.

EDIT--it took effect before I could finish with the brief reply above! Well done! @mooniac58  Quick, easy and looking just like it did this morning, no ads.

[carusoam]

Only 17 years?

feels like I just got here!

I’m looking forward to following @Hank’s success!

best regards,

-a-

[KeithN92KD]

This is the pop-up add that Was confusing as you first navigate this site. With the request for photo, profile questions,  sustaining membership possibly  and this pops in. They got me to click. Almost as if they knew I was Newbie but didn't know it yet. 

[hoot777]

Tried to upgrade to supporter this morning.  Ended up in an endless do loop while trying to provide credit card info. I gave up 

[Fly Boomer]

3 hours ago, hoot777 said:

Tried to upgrade to supporter this morning.  Ended up in an endless do loop while trying to provide credit card info. I gave up 

Let's let @mooniac58 know.  Perhaps he can help.  We like supporters.

[Jackk]

What happens to the personal information after submitted?

 

 Personally I’ve found it easier to scroll past a add or spam than deal with compromised personal data.

[mooniac58]

1 hour ago, Jackk said:

What happens to the personal information after submitted?

 

 Personally I’ve found it easier to scroll past a add or spam than deal with compromised personal data.

We don't save much of the personal information on our end - just email, name and address.  The rest of the sensitive stuff is saved by PayPal.

[Jackk]

21 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

We don't save much of the personal information on our end - just email, name and address.  The rest of the sensitive stuff is saved by PayPal.

Home address?

[mooniac58]

6 hours ago, Jackk said:

Home address?

It looks like this forum software stores the billing address and phone number related to the PayPal transaction.  No other data is stored on this end.