Which default and contact email address would be appropriate?

[bennylava]

I'm trying to figure out if it's a good idea to use my personal email address as the "default email address" in Xenforo. It says that emails "will be sent from" that address. Since I don't have a commercial email service, is it a good idea to put my personal email address there? Maybe yahoo.com wouldn't like me sending out a bunch of business related emails from a personal email account. Might look like I'm some kind of spammer/scammer.

There is also the matter of the "Contact email address". Sounds like any attempt to contact me via the board, would go to that email. Same question - Would it be a good idea to use my personal email address for this? I'd like to avoid paying for some email service for right now. Until I get the board up and running, and making a little money.

Thank you

 

[Paul B]

If you don't have email available for your domain (@domain.com), just set up a new Gmail account, something like <domain>@gmail.com, or <contact-domain>@gmail.com.

 

[TPerry]

Personally... if it's an email account you regularly use.. no.
You can easily set up a free GMail account (but you will have daily sending limits for it) and if I remember correctly, XF now has a new "login" for Google use for email accounts.

 

[bennylava]

Thanks, those posts answered my question.

May as well ask - What are your thoughts on sending emails to users? If I let every forum and every little thing I'm interested in send me emails, I would get hundreds per day. And I wouldn't read any of them. Getting spammed by something you signed up for is annoying. And kinda disrespectful too.

Most forums say: I'm glad you were interested in my forum, so here's 40 emails a week about it. That's what most of these forums do until you turn it off. How about 1 per week? How many emails is the right amount? Where you're not pestering your users.

 

[TPerry]

May as well ask - What are your thoughts on sending emails to users

By default, all that I can disable for the users are set so that they have to opt-in for them.

 

[bennylava]

By default...

Why do we even need to link an email to the site? Why can't all user questions just be sent to the Administrator's DM inbox? It would make things easier. Less outside sites to visit, less usernames and passwords to keep track of.

You could leave the "contact us" the same. They think they're sending an email to someone, but it's just putting a message in the Admin's inbox.

 

[Mendalla]

I have a "donotreply" set up under our domain to be the "From:" address on things like email notifications but messages from the Contact Us form go to an admin GMail.

Why can't all user questions just be sent to the Administrator's DM inbox? It would make things easier. Less outside sites to visit, less usernames and passwords to keep track of.

I would still want an email notification to go somewhere since the admin DM inbox is not monitored. It's our superadmin account and we only log in with it when promoting or demoting admins or occasionally for other admin tasks. No one logs in regularly. Whereas at least two of us have the admin GMail setup on our phones so we get the messages.

 

[bennylava]

I would still want an email notification to go somewhere since the admin DM inbox is not monitored. It's our superadmin account and we only log in with it when promoting or demoting admins or occasionally for other admin tasks. No one logs in regularly. Whereas at least two of us have the admin GMail setup on our phones so we get the messages.

Since I'm just starting up, I'm the only one "working here". So I'm the admin, and I've never heard of a superadmin. Why would you need to promote admins? Why can't you just be the admin, and everyone else is a moderator?

 

[80sDude]

Since I'm just starting up, I'm the only one "working here". So I'm the admin, and I've never heard of a superadmin. Why would you need to promote admins? Why can't you just be the admin, and everyone else is a moderator?

Way back in the days when I had a large vbulletin forum I was the only admin. I only had moderator it was also easy for me to handle. There’s forums that are just to large for one person to admin themselves so they’ll hire admins.

 

[Mendalla]

Since I'm just starting up, I'm the only one "working here". So I'm the admin, and I've never heard of a superadmin. Why would you need to promote admins? Why can't you just be the admin, and everyone else is a moderator?

In Xenforo, there are two levels of administrator.

A regular admin can do most admin tasks, including making someone a moderator and removing those rights.

A "superadmin" has the additional ability to make someone an admin and remove those rights when they are no longer an admin. So if you had another person that you wanted to be an administrator, you would need to be logged in as a "superadmin" to make them one. Might have other additional rights but I don't recall just now. That's certainly the one I have used the most.

And best practice to have a backup admin. What happens if something goes awry while you're on holiday? On Wondercafe2, we started with three and currently have two including me (I'm mostly backup now, with the other admin being the official "admin").

BTW, in IT, best practice is not to do admin work under your regular work account. More risk of it being compromised. On WC2, I have my regular forum account and then a second account that has my admin rights. And that's not a "superadmin". We have a separate "superadmin" account for the rare times we need one.

 

[Mendalla]

There’s forums that are just to large for one person to admin themselves so they’ll hire admins.

Depends on the forum. We have always had 2-3 admins, all of them volunteers from the community who had the necessary background. If the two of us who are left ever go, then they might have to pay someone when admin-level work is needed.

 

[Suzanne O]

Mate,

get your cpanel that your host uses to create one for you and use that.
It could be board@yourdomain.com
or something else.

 

[TPerry]

Since I'm just starting up, I'm the only one "working here". So I'm the admin, and I've never heard of a superadmin. Why would you need to promote admins? Why can't you just be the admin, and everyone else is a moderator?

You can... I have no moderators currently and a separate Super Admin account that I do not use for normal every day activities and then my normal user/admin account.

Why do we even need to link an email to the site? Why can't all user questions just be sent to the Administrator's DM inbox? It would make things easier. Less outside sites to visit, less usernames and passwords to keep track of.

Errr... maybe because if you send email confirmations you have to have a valid account to use? And most prefer that account to not get caught in the spam traps that using a generic hotmail/gmail account would do? And then you don't want to use your everyday email for it?
You can turn all email off via your config.php, but then you have to use an alternative verification method.

 

[bennylava]

BTW, in IT, best practice is not to do admin work under your regular work account. More risk of it being compromised. On WC2, I have my regular forum account and then a second account that has my admin rights. And that's not a "superadmin". We have a separate "superadmin" account for the rare times we need one.

Thank you for the reply! I'm a newb when it comes to running a forum, as I'm sure you can tell. So to clarify this part, you're saying that I shouldn't make posts and talk to members as my main administrator account? Because that advertises to all the scammers that it's the account you'd want to mess with. Sound about right?

 

[Mendalla]

Thank you for the reply! I'm a newb when it comes to running a forum, as I'm sure you can tell. So to clarify this part, you're saying that I shouldn't make posts and talk to members as my main administrator account? Because that advertises to all the scammers that it's the account you'd want to mess with. Sound about right?

And an account being used regularly just offers more opportunities for it to be compromised vs. an account that is only used occasionally and not in a public way. If you do use your regular posting account for admin, make sure the password is unique (ie. not the same as any other site passwords you have like your FB) and complex, and enable 2FA. Ditto for securing the standalone admin account if you do go that route.

 

[bennylava]

And an account being used regularly just offers more opportunities for it to be compromised vs. an account that is only used occasionally and not in a public way. If you do use your regular posting account for admin, make sure the password is unique (ie. not the same as any other site passwords you have like your FB) and complex, and enable 2FA. Ditto for securing the standalone admin account if you do go that route.

Would you say that you rely heavily on google analytics? Or are they unnecessary? I noticed there's a field in the xenforo program where you can enter your analytics web property ID to have the Analytics HTML automatically added to your public facing pages.

But I'm not sure how useful that really is for a message board.

 

[Mendalla]

Would you say that you rely heavily on google analytics? Or are they unnecessary? I noticed there's a field in the xenforo program where you can enter your analytics web property ID to have the Analytics HTML automatically added to your public facing pages.

But I'm not sure how useful that really is for a message board.

I use them to see how many guests I have and to get general stats on my visitors. However, since we are not a business, just a fairly small, casual community, there's not much call for me to get really serious with my analytics, even the ones from XF itself. For the ones that are generating revenue from ads, though, having those analytics can be fairly important, or so I understand.

 

[bennylava]

Looks like google differs from Xenforo in terminology. In Xenforo, you set up analytics by entering your "property ID". But google only supplies "Measurement ID" and "Stream ID" and some tag code. There's also a "Google tag" on the google analytics website. It's all pretty convoluted. Anyone happen to know which of these numbers I'm supposed to enter into Xenforo?

I've tried them all, and none will pass the test of showing my activity on the site. My google analytics page just says it has yet to record any activity.

 

[Suzanne O]

Looks like google differs from Xenforo in terminology. In Xenforo, you set up analytics by entering your "property ID". But google only supplies "Measurement ID" and "Stream ID" and some tag code. There's also a "Google tag" on the google analytics website. It's all pretty convoluted. Anyone happen to know which of these numbers I'm supposed to enter into Xenforo?

I've tried them all, and none will pass the test of showing my activity on the site. My google analytics page just says it has yet to record any activity.

Don't enter them.
just your email address is needed.

 

[TPerry]

Looks like google differs from Xenforo in terminology. In Xenforo, you set up analytics by entering your "property ID". But google only supplies "Measurement ID" and "Stream ID" and some tag code. There's also a "Google tag" on the google analytics website. It's all pretty convoluted. Anyone happen to know which of these numbers I'm supposed to enter into Xenforo?

Pretty sure it's the Property ID that you need to use.
Suggestion... install the below add-on and use it and follow it's instructions for setup. Does most of it for you. Also collects a lot more data for you that you don't have to manually set up.

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My google analytics page just says it has yet to record any activity.

It's not instant... it will take a few days to collect data before it shows it.