03-09-2004 06:19									#1
	PLUS: Email Forwarding Get a bigger avatar today!

(Caveat: I don't lurk in this forum, so apologies if i'm repeating something from months ago)

I'm a PBEM player, as a decent number of 'Poly members are, and we ran into an interesting (tho not technically Poly related) problem the other day: in this thread you will see the problem.

Basically, not everyone has perfectly happy email 100% of the time (in fact several players here had problems), and some people change theirs rather quickly without time to tell others immediately. All of these things involve a bit of a delay, and sometimes cause pretty serious problems in the advancing of games. People can post saves, but that gets tiresome.

Where 'Poly comes in: It would be really cool if 'Poly had, as a PLUS option, an "email forwarding" service (or heck, an actual email account, but that might be a bigger bag than MarkG wants to open). Basically, in your Profile, you set your primary email address. Then, people can send emails to "username@apolyton.net" or something similar. That email gets forwarded to your primary email service without it ever sitting in an Apolyton inbox. What it solves are several problems:
1. Apolyton.net isn't on any spammer lists (I hope), so your email gets through fine (and you can even set a filter to allow all @apolyton.net mail)
2. You can change your email address in your profile and then still get your turns (and your other Civ related email) on time.
3. You don't have to post your real email address online, thus reducing the chance of spam
4. You don't even have to post your email address at all -- ie, if I know that Wittlich comes after me and I don't have his email addy, I can just send it to Wittlich@apolyton.net, and it'll get there A-OK. Makes starting games faster.
5. It's easy to filter game turns into a folder -- just filter all incoming from @apolyton.net into one folder!

Admittedly this might increase server load a little (heck, might a lot, i have no idea what email server load would look like), but it's not going to be substantially different than posting a save (which is the option now for troublesome things), and would probably increase PLUS subscriptions (perhaps paying for better servers!) You'd not need additional storage space (or much, anyways) because it would automatically forward immediately -- or heck you could set it to forward at the next "lull" in server processing cycles slash network traffic (I presume these happen at a minimum every 10 minutes, which is a reasonable time for turn forwarding; if you want to play faster, then of course you set up direct sending w/o going through 'Poly).

Anyways ... Thoughts?? Has this been suggested before???

Thanks!

-Snoopy 369

	03-09-2004 06:59									#2
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Great Idea and I voted BTW.

I was VERY tempted to vote Snoop Dawg

	03-09-2004 07:38									#3
	Got spare money?

YES! I too believe that this would be a BIG benifit to Plus members and would also increase the Plus membership itself.

	03-09-2004 08:15									#4
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Hi snoopy369.

Email alias availability for "ApolytonPLUS" members has been discussed before and is indeed a planned service to be added in the future. One detail that is worthwhile to note is that the email aliases would not be "@apolyton.net" but rather "@apolyton.com" with, I will now add, perhaps other domains to choose from as well.

-----------
Dan; Apolyton CS

	03-09-2004 08:32									#5
	Got spare money?

aww, apolyton.net is much cooler ^^ but apolyton.com would be fine too. (Although @Civ.anything would be niftier than that

Good to hear, though. Hope it is added soon

	03-09-2004 09:02									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Nay.

	03-09-2004 13:23									#7
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I probably wouldn't use it, but I couldn't find the Banana option

	03-09-2004 16:19									#8
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Adagio I probably wouldn't use it, but I couldn't find the Banana option

Aww, you should vote Snoop Dawg! then (I'm not quite sure i understand where Banana comes from? I presume there's more to it than just a funny poll option ...)

	03-09-2004 17:32									#9
	Suffering from ads?

I'm already a PLUS user, and more features are always better.

	03-09-2004 19:59									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I would definitely use this.

	03-09-2004 21:11									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Yes, I would sign up for PLUS just to get it 0 0%

this is really increasing the chance-to-be-done-soon number

	03-09-2004 22:08									#12
	Get a bigger avatar today!

There should be a "I won't resubscribe without it" option.

	04-09-2004 00:58									#13
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I would switch to a lifetime membership if we had this.

	04-09-2004 07:49									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by MarkG quote: Yes, I would sign up for PLUS just to get it 0 0% this is really increasing the chance-to-be-done-soon number

Now 6.67% of your voting population would sign up ... and with the 44% that already are signed up (but perhaps like bigfree would improve their subscription to get it? Hmm?) makes over half of the population either paying subscribers that you better keep happy, or people who will pay ... I say TOMORROW!

	04-09-2004 11:46									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Actually, the only people who see this thread are people who actually visit the Community Forum....I know it is shocking that someone would not visit the Community forum.......but face it people, only a small percentage visits (or even knows it exists) the Community Forum.


My suggestion is this: Markos, can you "advertise" the latest poll being made concerning an email option to the "general Apolyton Populace"? I'm thinking that this way the poll will move from just being a "community forum" poll to an "Apolyton-wide poll."

	04-09-2004 14:11									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

An email alias would come in handy, so add my name to the list.

And I would consider upgrading my subscription to a lifetime one as well. I'll let that be a Christmas present.

	04-09-2004 19:53									#17
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I like it, but how would we stop bots from crawling for an address like MrWhereItsAt@apolyton.com/net or whatever? Then a spam mail sent to that addy would forward to our accounts - and since it came via apolyton.com/net it would escape filtering! All we could do (unless someone has a clever techy solution) is avoid saying the full address, and just say

send this to myusername@apolyton.com

	04-09-2004 20:30									#18
	Inflate your Upload Space

I like the idea. I don't do any PBEM but I would be proud to have a myusername@apolyton.com address. I can see how this would be very useful.

This could be the next step in 'Poly's internet domination! I can visualize the day when people will "Poly" something instead of "Google" it! Soon thereafter Mark and Dan will rule the world!!

...Sorry....got a little carried away. It would be a great idea though.

	04-09-2004 21:23									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt I like it, but how would we stop bots from crawling for an address like MrWhereItsAt@apolyton.com/net or whatever? Then a spam mail sent to that addy would forward to our accounts - and since it came via apolyton.com/net it would escape filtering!

Nonsense. First of all ACS uses SpamAssassin on its server, which means that all incoming e-mail is scanned and scored in accordance to the scanning rules of the antispam software. If it passes, the message is moved into the inbox of the e-mail account. Now the system used for the apolyton.com domain (and others, except apolyton.net) would mean that all users of the e-mail forwarding service have an e-mail account with the appropriate name, but they are all set to forward their messages to the e-mail account of choice. Thus they do pass the server and spam is dropped out, while wanted messages pass and retain the address of the sender. E-mail forwarding done by an e-mail server is different from when you forward it in an e-mail client. So no - no sender information is changed and no spam will pass. Unless SpamAssassin isn't used, which would be better, as then I wouldn't have to worry about e-mail dropping out, despite it shouldn't have.

	04-09-2004 21:26									#20
	Tired of ads?

Oh, and forgot to mention, that I don't have any use for a service like this. But if it exists, I would pick it up, despite I wouldn't find any real use for it.

	04-09-2004 22:05									#21
	Full PM-box? Change here!

actually, we do spam and virus scanning installed on our server, but mails are still delivered, properly tagged (virus mails are stripped of their attachments of course). with a simple subject filter each user can do whatever he wants with it (delete it, move it to a different folder, etc)

	04-09-2004 22:41									#22
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt I like it, but how would we stop bots from crawling for an address like MrWhereItsAt@apolyton.com/net or whatever? Then a spam mail sent to that addy would forward to our accounts - and since it came via apolyton.com/net it would escape filtering! All we could do (unless someone has a clever techy solution) is avoid saying the full address, and just say send this to myusername@apolyton.com

You wouldn't even have to do that. You could just say "send the turn to my poly address" or even ...


... nothing, and i'd just see MWIA as the next player, and automatically know to send it to "mrwhereitsat@poly.com" or whatever. (You'd have to have your namebadge active, is all.)

	04-09-2004 23:44									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

let me state once again that the address you have listed in your apolyton profile is NEVER seen by anyone on the site (except admins of course).

please can use the email link with still NOT knowing your email (until you reply to their email of course)

	05-09-2004 00:57									#24
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by MarkG let me state once again that the address you have listed in your apolyton profile is NEVER seen by anyone on the site (except admins of course).

Which brings up the point... Ming is in advertising

	05-09-2004 06:44									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

But then, he knows how much the average Polytubbie earns. Why bother advertising to us?

	05-09-2004 06:49									#26
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: But then, he knows how much the average Polytubbie earns. Why bother advertising to us?

Considering some of the posters here, that could be worthwhile.

I mean, look at how well Markos is doing with Polyplus.

	05-09-2004 13:10									#27
	Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt I like it, but how would we stop bots from crawling for an address like MrWhereItsAt@apolyton.com/net or whatever? Then a spam mail sent to that addy would forward to our accounts - and since it came via apolyton.com/net it would escape filtering! All we could do (unless someone has a clever techy solution) is avoid saying the full address, and just say send this to myusername@apolyton.com

Just never write it out completely. If you write username@poly anyone knowing the addresses exists would know how to send you an mail, and bots would not.

	05-09-2004 18:01									#28
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Well, I voted no, since I was thinking the same thing as MWIA. We'd have to take the same precaution as other email addresses with the poly one, if we don't want any spam emails being forwarded to the main email address.

I realize now though, we don't really need to spell out our poly email at all. We could just say "send it to my poly email", and the sender will know the address is your username and ".poly.com". So this IS a good idea after all.

	06-09-2004 01:13									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Yup...Snowflake says it best.

Monk

	06-09-2004 02:24									#30
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Well, all these spam concerns are quite unnecessary, as I already pointed out and Markos confirmed. Didn't know about the mail viral scanning.