Passworded Forum

[Mort]

This is really tedious.

I constantly get prompted about if I want to view the unsecured content on the now "secured" https page. Also, the login sessions now seem to time out and I have to enter my service details again.

This may be a good way to keep non-exetel users out of the forums, but I'm guessing it's also going to do a good job keeping exetel users away as well.

[Zhent]

Question I have is; if we all have a fixed / static IP why is it necessary to 'log on' surely there is a way of identifying a 'friendly' range of addresses and only use log on for remote use?

Thats a good point. Obviously there is a limited IP range that is reserved for Exetel customers (220.233.*.* + others?), so why can't they just white-list this range?
They managed to hack a secondary login into phpbb, surely they can manage this and save us the annoying double login. The same can apply to JL's blog as well.


BTW: I also echo the sentiments of other users that locking the forums is a bad decision.

[ForumAdmin]

.... will potentially turn away people who may have been thinking of changing over to Exetel from whoever their current provider is....

Why?

This forum is to provide information that Exetel USERS may find useful.

It provides nothng for people who aren't customers.

[ForumAdmin]

This is really tedious.

I constantly get prompted about if I want to view the unsecured content on the now "secured" https page. Also, the login sessions now seem to time out and I have to enter my service details again.

This may be a good way to keep non-exetel users out of the forums, but I'm guessing it's also going to do a good job keeping exetel users away as well.

I have asked the sysadmin responsible to address all legitimate issues.

[Baldrick]

.... will potentially turn away people who may have been thinking of changing over to Exetel from whoever their current provider is....

Why?

This forum is to provide information that Exetel USERS may find useful.

It provides nothng for people who aren't customers.

I just see it as being part of a good market resource tool which will now be underutilized. for example, we have Joe Blogs who is looking for a new ISP, he does a google search & Exetel turns up in the results. He takes a look at the Exetel home page, some of the deals, etc. Then he decides to have a bit of a read of the forums to see what existing customers might think. He clicks on the forum link on the Exetel homepage but can't gain access. From there he thinks "ok", goes back to google & moves onto the next link & ends up with some provider that is nowhere near as good, but sounds so much better in the "come with us spiel"

[ForumAdmin]

It has never been Exetel's intention to use a help forum as a 'sales aid'...if it has ever served that purpose then that is a minor bonus.

We were pioneers in using a forum to provide resources to customers to help solve their problems and to get feedback on how we could improve Exetel's offerings and services.

I doubt whether any user help forum anywhere in the world has the daily attendance of the CEO and other directors and senior managers helping individual customers and picking up views that are not available from Exetel's other interactive dealings. It is a key 'feed back mechanism' that has provided immensely valuable information to us over the past six and a half years and, more and more frequently, to Exetel's competitors.

I think I would be in a better position than anyone else (having created this, and before this, other fora) to make this judgment and while the dissenting opinions being offered are sensibly based they do not have an overall perspective.