Login on the forum page

[jsteele]

I actually figured out how to get the login box on a forum page. However, I also discovered that that led to an increase in spammers. Similarly, having forum threads on the website's home page significantly increased the amount of spam. It appears that the spiders used by spammers generally don't expect to be able to post anonymously. So, they hunt around for a login box. Then, then find themselves on the home page and don't seem to find their way back to the forums. As simple as it sounds, it's probably the most effective spam defense I have.

[jsteele]

I haven't seen that service, though I've played around with OpenID. Our login situation is difficult because we have two different systems, the forum and the website portal, and have to keep the session alive in both of them. Also, when I set up this version of the website, an important goal was to synchronize the accounts with the mailing list accounts (at that time, the mailing list was much more popular). I wanted mailing list users to be able to login with their mailing list credentials rather than being forced to create a separate account. So, I'm really juggling three systems. Now, I'm in the situation where it would be easier to start from scratch then to try to modify what we have. If I were to do it over, I would probably include Facebook Connect. But, given how few people actually login, this is way down on my list of priorities.