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New users will only be able to post in existing topics


Ed
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In an attempt to control spam and duplicate topics, we've now implemented a change in the forum so that users will have to have reached 5 posts before they can create new topics.

 

Note that new users can still post in existing topics as normal, just that they can't create a new topic.

 

Any queries, holla!

 

-Ed

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@tonhe98 - agreed, I'll see what can be done from within the forum software, we try to avoid modifying the code manually at all costs so that we can patch quickly & easily when Invision released updates. We have put a bold red message in the forum rules as well which you have to agree to upon sign up so hopefully it's clear for new users.

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In an attempt to control spam and duplicate topics, we've now implemented a change in the forum so that users will have to have reached 5 posts before they can create new topics.

 

Note that new users can still post in existing topics as normal, just that they can't create a new topic.

 

Any queries, holla!

 

-Ed

 

Well even though this is a great rule to decrease enormous amount of new topic this does create a problem with the quality of replies. New users a lot of times will have hard time posting comprehensive replies because of lack of knowledge. So it seems that there might be a chance of very basic and less related replies just to be able to get 5 replies in and receive authorization for new topic.

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Yep, I agree, we do run that risk, we had to choose the (hopefully) lesser of two evils - it's early days and we're monitoring this closely - by all means, please provide more feedback (with URLs for examples) as we're striving to improve this forum for the benefit of the majority of our members

 

-Ed

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Well even though this is a great rule to decrease enormous amount of new topic this does create a problem with the quality of replies. New users a lot of times will have hard time posting comprehensive replies because of lack of knowledge. So it seems that there might be a chance of very basic and less related replies just to be able to get 5 replies in and receive authorization for new topic.

 

This is very true, its happened on a few other forums that I used to visit that initiated the same rules.. Hell, I know I fudged a couple of replies just to post a topic to ask a few questions about my hardware choices. It was either that or thread hijacking someone elses.....

 

-Tony

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the lesser of two evils is sometimes necessary, good choice

 

EDIT: doh! i just came across someone threadjacking asking for unrelated help cause they couldnt start a new topic

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t=#entry1111379

 

perhaps we need to force new members to only read for a while? or at least read forum rules and click checkbox acknowledging them. i've seen this on other forums. i joined in october 09, but only posted for the first time a few weeks ago because the first 2 months as a member i felt it would be more respectful to search and see if my questions were easily answered. there was plenty of content to read, and asking myself clearly seemed i would be duplicating whats been asked 20 times over. turned out i found most of the answers i was looking for

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As I've seen in another forum, in addition, why not allows new users to posts ONLY in a newbie section and adding a multiple answer test, whit a random question choices that allows new users to post in other threads ONLY if they have over a 90% success test score.

 

Questions won't have to be complicated, only a basic knowledge, like whats is a kext, what QE/CI means, what SSE3 means, etc. And a link to the end of the test to some basic lecture, like that we well have more newbies and finally less noobs.

 

Just my two cents.

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I dunno guys, I been using this thread since 10.5.2. Dont really post all that much as I find most of the stuff that I am looking for is already learking around on the blogs and as a rule I try stay atleast 2 updates behind. I dont think that just because I refrain from asking stupid questions on a whim, I should be limited. Should I then say stupid stuff and ask stupid questions just to avoid been limited.

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@phoenix789 - we did consider a quiz but felt that would make the forum a bit too 'exclusive' which is not the aim of the game - we want to involve as many people as possible, but at the same time, too many duplicate topics is spoiling it for everyone else and reducing the quality of the forum for everyone.

 

@phonatik - totally agree with you on this, I'm in fact very much the same, I mainly browse other forums and read but very rarely post - I hope you can understand our predicament, that this forum is a victim of its own success and arguably maybe a bit too popular, which makes it a tough job to keep the quality high when we have a huge audience and unfortunately a percentage of which won't check if their topic already exists. I'd suggest maybe PM'ing one of the staff (you can PM me but I'm a bit slower than the others due to volume of work!) and stating your case and your topic, we can override the 5-post limit in certain cases but this is at the staff's discretion.

 

As I think I mentioned before, we are monitoring the performance of this new measure and will be reviewing it. And of course we're welcome to better suggestions from you guys if you've got any! Really am sorry for any convenience this has caused some of our members.

 

-Ed

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I've been using InsanelyMac for well over a year now, with various posts - hey, some other users have even found them helpful (well, some of them).

 

Now I come back with another query but I find that I'm not actually allowed to post it, because all of my previous comments etc have disappeared from my account. Strange...

 

Right now, I've gone to the trouble of finding out why I can't post - the stock 'you do not have permission...' is pretty unfriendly, so I had to search for 'Why can't I post a new topic?' to even get to this point.

 

And now it seems I have to post five times in other threads just so I can post a topic? Seems a waste of bandwidth to me; I know what I want to ask, so why do I have to add meaningless content somewhere else on the forums to get to that point?

 

Discy

 

Maybe inplement this only to the members who have only only been registered for 18 months or less.

 

Just a thought!!!

 

BTW

 

Thanks for the reply Ed

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I've been using InsanelyMac for well over a year now, with various posts - hey, some other users have even found them helpful (well, some of them).

 

Now I come back with another query but I find that I'm not actually allowed to post it, because all of my previous comments etc have disappeared from my account. Strange...

 

Right now, I've gone to the trouble of finding out why I can't post - the stock 'you do not have permission...' is pretty unfriendly, so I had to search for 'Why can't I post a new topic?' to even get to this point.

 

And now it seems I have to post five times in other threads just so I can post a topic? Seems a waste of bandwidth to me; I know what I want to ask, so why do I have to add meaningless content somewhere else on the forums to get to that point?

 

Discy

Your posts didn't go anywhere! Take a look in your profile. There is one small issue with this right now. To be "upped" for members with already 5 or over, you need to post once in an existing topic, then the change takes affect. As said this is the best solution we have up to know. We're going to see how it turns out and make changes as needed to make it the best possible solution for all of us. So no you don't need to post 5 times. If you post uselessly it doesn't make it fun for any of us does it :(? Don't try to make your way around it. Remember this is suppose to be a community. Let's work together on this one and make sure we take into account everyone's opinions.

 

iPoco

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I agree that this should be made clearer in the warning message new users, or under post limit users receive. I also think it's a bit unfair. I rarely use this account, except for to ask a few questions here and there, and each time its been a question that has not been previously discussed on the forum. I understand the need to cut down on spam, but this is hurting people who may need legitimate help quickly.

 

Besides, what's to stop people from spamming already created topics?

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I agree that this should be made clearer in the warning message new users, or under post limit users receive. I also think it's a bit unfair. I rarely use this account, except for to ask a few questions here and there, and each time its been a question that has not been previously discussed on the forum. I understand the need to cut down on spam, but this is hurting people who may need legitimate help quickly.

 

Besides, what's to stop people from spamming already created topics?

 

We're working on this :(. Hopefully we'll get something together for our new users soon. While we do get spam in existing topics it is quite rare compared to new topics.

 

Thanks!

 

iPoco

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We're working on this :( . Hopefully we'll get something together for our new users soon. While we do get spam in existing topics it is quite rare compared to new topics.

 

Thanks!

 

iPoco

 

Actually, this is already happening and causing a massive increase of topic hijacking and necroposting by users with

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Hi guys

 

I've started discussing some of what you're talking about here with iPoco via PMs, I'm bringing some thoughts here too:

 

Hagar's right. I think that you should take the forum offline for a weekend, get the team together and reconsider:

 

- You've grown big. 1m posts is the first turning point for any kind of forum where decent admin/maintenance skills are required. You need some decent db optimization/maintenance routines done weekly (at least).

 

- Categories/Boards: you're pretty much covering the whole universe. Do you really need/want all of them?

 

- Topics: you've way more gigantic posts than any board software would tolerate. Even vBulletin starts choking on large threads. You're getting serious hiccups from this.

 

You have some pure quality threads from people who took time to research & document what would take say 2-5 pages and in between 50 pages from posters who quote a whole dang page to ask what's answered in the 1st post. Drag for the one who documents.

 

- As for new members/OT hell/spam/hijacking, you should come up with a fixed set of rules that would pretty much predict what you'll get. If you continue to pamper users you won't get anywhere, if you remind them the rules you're going to get more and more quality of posts/topics/forum. Just an anecdote for comparison: I once locked a thread from a user asking a question covered by our faq. He came back to retaliate like "Some advice, if people need help............help them if it means giving them a link to another post then do it. Look at insanleymac. theres many questions on there repeated but people help each other out and guide each other" (meaning screw search, someone will give me a link @insanely while I post a redundant thread @insanely)". Now unless you guys have time for this kind of spoonfeeding, I only see pure laziness yielding redundancy/OT havoc.

 

You might also like to re-evaluate the whole thing, is it still any fun for you? Members of the team who've grown bored or changed interests won't be of much help. You might want to revive the team or you might find out that you want to drop the whole idea.

 

Anyone still active in your team, feel free to catch up with iPoco about our discussion so far and let me know if you'd like to discuss further about it here or elsewhere.

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OK, we've just refined the implementation of this so that users with less than 5 posts but have been registered since January 2009 or earlier will be able to Create New Topics - this accounts for lurkers who don't post often and mainly read.

 

We've also fixed an issue where users with more than 5 posts were set to the 'Newbies' group and couldn't post a new topic straight after we implemented this until they made a post in an existing topic - we only had a handful or reports of this being an issue as most people post in existing topics, but nonetheless that's now been rectified, so everyone's in the appropriate group now.

 

-Ed

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