Wow, thanks for allowing me...

[Jeff Lapointe]

Greetings all active members!

Jeff Lapointe here. Family man who enjoys rocking the boat.
Not because it scares others but because it scares me. I love
to thrill seek depending on the thrill. I'm not stupid but others
may say otherwise. I like it that way. I really don't try too hard
because I am a firm believer of the 'work smarter not harder'
mentality.

All that being said I was really surprised to see the number of
recent members added to the Coulter Smithing Forums. Wow!
Doug? I can see what you meant in the e-mail reply and I hope
sifting through this bunch "including me" doesn't prove too
difficult.

Again, thanks for the opportunity to participate.

In case anyone wonders, I am a computer security specialist
with an extensive background in encryption/decryption and
stegonography. I have a strong grasp of the current ODI model
and can get around the Info Hwy pretty well. I'm glad to help
others solve problems, as well, feel free to use me.

[johnf]

Jeff
Welcome
But what are we going to do with you? You are supposed to use your real name as your member name.
Handles get too hard for the moderators to select from humanoid or spambot or heavens forbid Troll

Might have to get Doug to add an extra field for real name as opposed to screen name

[Donovan Ready]

He can just change the username from the ACP, simple as pie.

[Doug Coulter]

I'll see about doing that Donovan, if this antiquated board software will let me - I hadn't noticed that function before, but I don't spend much time as admin either.
Just so it's clear, we use real names here. We are friends - friends don't hide behind handles (some are easier to remember than others, but as this membership grows, it'll just be impossible).
Anyone can claim to be the "real" qwertyuiop for example, and take any of your ideas or eye-pee for themselves, while there are laws about impersonating real persons and identity theft that often get enforced.
Many here are serious contributors of new, important stuff, and deserve credit and the rights of prior art for what they do. A handle can't claim that legally at all.

So I hope I'm making a case for "it's for your own good". Because it is, and it's one of the things that makes this place unique. Anonymity is for trolls, which we ditch faster than an eyeblink. If you've got something constructive to say, why not get the credit for it? If not, why be a member, lurking is fine, and most of our traffic is lurkers as is, which is fine. If you've got nothing to say, then don't say it.

Hopefully this is enough for people to see where I'm coming from on this. We are casting a net for the all too rare genious, and as an experiment I opened registration to some questionable handles just to see if one of them might be for real - there are too few real serious minds out there to risk missing a bunch of them - a bunch barely exists on the entire planet, after all, which should be obvious to anyone who lives a real life or even just reads the news. That's who we want - the real guys, not the fakers.

Edit - it worked. It's going to be a real pita to do it for the hundred plus newbs here, and Jeff - it may also have changed your login (PHPBB experts here know if it does?). I didn't change whatever password you used.

[Donovan Ready]

Yes, it changes the login name. Even with this version there are lots of things that can facilitate administration of members.

I've been using PHPBB3 since version 3.0.1, and have forgotten some details on the older versions, but you can do almost anything you need to do as an admin. An SQL interface is good for doing weekly cleanup and optimization of tables, too.

[Jeff Lapointe]

Well, I was successful in determining my new username. The control panel had said I needed to verify my current password to change username or password. Unfortunately I could not change the username myself. Thanks for all the help in getting me right with the community guidelines.

[Doug Coulter]

Well, welcome back as yourself Jeff. Glad it worked. Now for those other 150 or so. I suppose if they don't post in the next couple weeks, we'll just wipe them. I guess some thought there was something secret going on here you had to join to see...Nope. We've only had to kill one spammer so far...I guess we got lucky.

[Jeff Lapointe]

Certainly glad I wasn't a part of that other 150.