To The Board Moderators - I propose A New Forum Rule. OK?

[Fat Man]

I propose a new forum rule.

In the light of the recent "purge" of new members form over 900 members back down to just over 200 members, I would like to make a suggestion for a new forum rule.

That new members, after they have registered, that they should post at least one message in the Introductions section of these forums.

They only need to give just give a brief introduction, saying why they have come here, whether they are either anti-sports, or pro-sports, or neutral concerning sports.

That way, we can tell whether or not they might be potential SPAMers.

A lot of new members come in here with odd looking user names that require seven rows of teeth and three tongues to pronounce.

Most of them never post anything here, or else, they try to flood us with a shit-load of SPAM.

I believe that this new rule might help to discourage potential SPAMers.

I would much rather that they were rude obnoxious sports bores than SPAMEers any time!

Of course, this is merely a suggestion.

It's up to the board moderators to make the final decision.

[ChrisOH]

I propose a new forum rule.

In the light of the recent "purge" of new members form over 900 members back down to just over 200 members, I would like to make a suggestion for a new forum rule.

That new members, after they have registered, that they should post at least one message in the Introductions section of these forums.

They only need to give just give a brief introduction, saying why they have come here, whether they are either anti-sports, or pro-sports, or neutral concerning sports.

I for one feel this is reasonable. Perhaps a window of say, 48 hours to post in Introduction (acknowledging I didn't follow this myself when I joined, as I had told most of my story on the Letters page; however, I tried to post relevant comments in other threads upon my joining). If they don't post within the prescribed window, they could simply be dropped and be required to re-register if they wished to post in the future.

[recovering_fan]

I for one feel this is reasonable. Perhaps a window of say, 48 hours to post in Introduction (acknowledging I didn't follow this myself when I joined, as I had told most of my story on the Letters page; however, I tried to post relevant comments in other threads upon my joining). If they don't post within the prescribed window, they could simply be dropped and be required to re-register if they wished to post in the future.

Perhaps a week?

[i_like_1981]

I see my use of the term "purge" for getting rid of all the spammers on the members list has caught on. Well, it sounds a good idea, Fat Man. There is no way to stop spammers getting through altogether but we can lower the amount of trashy new threads that get made. Indeed, perhaps even lower it to zero. But I wouldn't exactly know how you could restrict new posters to only being able to post in one thread, the Introductions thread, before they were allowed to post in others and create new threads. I have personally tried to advise that new members should rack up 5 posts minimum before they can create new topics. Well, we'll have to see what is done about this. There seems to have been a significant increase in spammer numbers on this forum over the last few weeks.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[i_like_1981]

Well, I'm a little bit browned off about the last piece of spam we got - do you know why? It was deleted as I was about to respond to it! And I was actually about to give the spammer positive feedback - do you know why, because he linked to an 80's music site! Yes, a spammer has finally posted something that actually appealed to at least one of the members of a forum, and it was deleted! The only spam that I ever actually liked seeing around! (Even though it was only there for a few minutes.) Well, I did go over to the website, and hardly any of the videos worked. A bit of a disappointment, but heck, that spam had my name written all over it! Did anyone else notice it?

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

The only spam that I ever actually liked seeing around! (Even though it was only there for a few minutes.) Well, I did go over to the website, and hardly any of the videos worked. A bit of a disappointment, but heck, that spam had my name written all over it! Did anyone else notice it?

It appears as though spam can work at times, as long as the product appeals to someone on that site. Who knows, maybe Joyloadly will one day find a forum where someone requires to accept such a cat. But yes, I did notice it, but I didn't actually manage to go into the thread. I saw it and went to a few other threads, and I guess I forgot about it, so I never managed to actually read that thread. But when I saw the title, I knew you'd probably like what was being advertised.

[recovering_fan]

I propose a new forum rule.

In the light of the recent "purge" of new members form over 900 members back down to just over 200 members, I would like to make a suggestion for a new forum rule.

That new members, after they have registered, that they should post at least one message in the Introductions section of these forums.

They only need to give just give a brief introduction, saying why they have come here, whether they are either anti-sports, or pro-sports, or neutral concerning sports.

That way, we can tell whether or not they might be potential SPAMers.

There is another reason why this should become a rule.

Recently, Skul got rid of all the people with 0 posts. Once the membership count gets near 1,000 again, he will probably do so again.

So, in a sense, Fat Man's rule is already in effect--is it not?

If it were written into the "rule book" at least then the well-intentioned newbies would know what they had to do to remain members.

We don't have to "threaten" in the rules that we'll delete them after some fixed amount of time, like a week, but we should give them some indication of what's going to happen to their accounts (i.e. deletion) if they don't post at all, ever.

--RF

PS--Newbies reading this should know that we basically consider everyone who is not a spammer to be well-intentioned.

[ChrisOH]

We don't have to "threaten" in the rules that we'll delete them after some fixed amount of time, like a week, but we should give them some indication of what's going to happen to their accounts (i.e. deletion) if they don't post at all, ever.

--RF

PS--Newbies reading this should know that we basically consider everyone who is not a spammer to be well-intentioned.

My advice would be to not publicize the exact amount of postings/time window for first post, etc., as some lamers would simply clog the list with irrelevant posts just to meet the requirement. I would suggest those limits be known to just the moderators.

Honestly, if someone takes the time to register for the forum, I'd think they'd naturally want to post something fairly soon (taking into account some time to get a "feel" for the forums, of course.)

[i_like_1981]

I wonder what exactly has precipitated the massive increase in new account registrations? Yes, I know it is the spammers, but what exactly has caused them to all start coming now? A few months back we hardly used to get any spammers registering. Maybe one every few days or so. Now we seem to be getting dozens on a daily basis. Do you think that when the number of spammer registrations on this forum swells, the same goes for a lot of forums on the internet until they step up their security procedures for registration? Yes, I think this is what may need to be done. I remember speaking out for the decrease in registration security last year a short while after the 4channers got bored of this forum, and now I'm speaking up for an increase in security seeing as how the spammers are hitting this forum in droves. I know most of them don't even post anything but it's pretty embarrassing, seeing the number of actual members on a quieter forum such as this one completely dwarfed by spammer accounts.

Best regards,
i_like_1981