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Classmate verification

Forums: General Discussion
Created on: 09/27/18 01:46 PM Views: 785 Replies: 6
Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 1:46 PM

A new classmate signed up but is not yet verified.
I sent classmate a question that hasn’t been answered approx two weeks ago. Classmate continues to log on even though our website is locked until verified. Usually a new classmate responds to verification question immediately or within a few days. I did send an email reminder with the verification question. Personally, I do not know classmate.
To other Admin: how long would you wait and/or would you be concerned. Thank you

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Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 2:37 PM - Response #1

I've had this happen a few times. In one case, the classmate simply forgot to check back with us until several months later. Other times we had what seemed very likely NOT to be real classmates, broken English and Google analytics showed visits from Russia and China about the same time.

I reply to their original message, but on the 2nd and 3rd follow up, I add the name of our high school and town. at the end of the original subject. My feeling is that those names will perhaps catch their attention or make it stand out from Spam a little better.

After that, I figure either they are not who they claim to be, or forgot to follow up. They can always send us another message.

For verification, I ask several questions and ask them to answer as many as possible, one of which is "who were your friends, who did you hang around with and what do you remember about them" (now we only had a little over 300 graduating so the chances were good that I knew who they were. Wouldn't work as well with a very large school. )

Other questions might include when you enter the main school entry, which direction do you turn to get to the office, band room, vocal music room, etc., who were your favorite teachers and why, what memories of our high school do you have?

In our case, we had two very well known twin boys and I asked if they knew their names and if they were identical or fraternal twins.

I try to avoid anything like plays that might be shown in a yearbook (visible on classmates.com) or discovered by Googling the school's name such as school mascot, or sports team name, etc. unless I've got additional verification questions.

I'd love to hear what questions others use as verification.

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Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 2:46 PM - Response #2

I like to look at the geographic location associated with their signon history. If the location is reasonable (where you know they live, a neighboring state, or elsewhere in the USA) you might give them a second or third reminder. But if this is out of the country, it might be good to be swift. Just an idea.

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Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 3:02 PM - Response #3

Thanks, Gary.
One of your suggestions worked. Classmate is now verified. Classmate didn’t realize a response had to be sent to be verified...

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Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 6:58 PM - Response #5

Elena,

I'm glad to hear it!

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Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 11:03 PM - Response #6

Well, interesting coincidence, I just got a new classmate verification. Here is what I sent, (along with a few questions I thought of afterwards). You're welcome to use any that make sense to you. Obviously you'll need to tailor them to your specifics, but perhaps this might inspire some questions of your own.


Hi _____,

Welcome to the class website! I hope you'll forgive the extra security questions, but we've had some folks trying to gain access that weren't legitimate.

Here are some questions, I realize you many not know all the answers, but I hope you'll answer as many as you can.

What was your address and what were your parent's names? (Can be verified if your local library has historical City Directories such as Cole, Polk, etc. and Ancestory.com if you're a member.)

Who were your friends, who did you hang out with? What can you tell us about them?

Who were your favorite teachers and why?

Who was your English teacher?

Who was your math teacher?

Who was the coach (baseball, football, basketball, whatever you remember)?

When you enter the main front entrance of the school, which way do you go to get to the principal's office?

Which way to the auditorium?

Which way to the band room / vocal music rooms?

Who was (name of our school Principal)?

Who was (name of our school Vice Principal, or any well known person)?

Do you know the names of any of the basketball player's names, or football, or swim team?

How tall would you estimate (person) was? (could be a tall or small person if well known).

We had some twins in our class, do you remember any of their names and were they male or female, fraternal or identical twins?

What was the school mascot or emblem?

What was the sports team's name?

What school was our main cross town rival? (school name and mascot?)

What is your most vivid high school memory?

What were your favorite hang outs, drive-ins, movie theaters, restaurants, sports venues, was there a place where high school students hung out?

Who was (person)? Did they have any prominent habits? (In our case, one local hang-out was our "Youth Canteen" operated by a women's club as a place for students, and run by (person) who was a chain cigar smoker. Could be anyone with a memorable habit or characteristic. )

I'm (my name), webmaster. Do you have any idea who I am or any memories about me?

Again, my sincere apologies for all the questions, but we do our best to make sure our site is as secure as possible so that you can share openly. I look forward to having you with us!

Thanks,

My Name
webmaster

As mentioned, I didn't send all those questions, but I sent a lot of them. Typically no one will be able to answer all of them, but I'd rather have too many that include some they can answer, than a few that they can't answer (based on experience).

How about you all? I'm sure that there are a lot of better questions that could be asked, I just couldn't think of any of them.

Any suggestions?

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Edited 11/14/18 12:26 PM
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