Privacy and post count requirements

I think it's time we had a bit of a rethink on our privacy measures.

As it stands, things are pretty unclear. New members can't even see certain parts of the board until they've made 10 posts, but that information isn't presented to them when they sign up – or if it is, it isn't clear enough, because we regularly hear cases of them being confused about it. The latest example is a couple of people we met at Mind the Pom who would like to stay in touch with us but can't see our Meetups & Conventions sub-forum. Then there are things like not being able to post links and images, which makes sense as an anti-spam tool but, again, isn't made particularly clear to new members.

First things first: if there's any way we can allow recently-joined members araneahighwind and sephicells to bypass that restriction, I'd appreciate it. I can vouch for their identities having both met them in person and interacted with them on Twitter (including about this very issue).

Second: I'd like to hear what people think about the current restrictions in general. I think it's a shame that we're working hard to attract new members while at the same time hiding content from them. At present everything in General except General Gaming and Entertainment is being hidden. Why, exactly? I'm sure there was a discussion about it at some point but I can't find it because our search feature isn't great. I know there are some concerns about stalkers but to be honest, a determined stalker isn't going to be put off by having to make ten posts, and the best way to deter more opportunistic "stalkers" is to be selective about what information you post in public. Ultimately, barring a couple of sub-forums like the Donator's Domain, this is a public forum.

If it were up to me I'd make everything except the aforementioned and perhaps News, Politics, Religion, & Debate public, but I'm probably in the minority there, so I'm hoping we can come up with a compromise that is both better and a lot more clear than what we have now. Thanks.

IIRC part of the reason General was hidden is because Google searching won't bring us up with SafeSearch on (which it is by default) if certain things (lots of swearing, certain images) aren't kept below a certain level. So there is an actual reason for that beyond trustworthiness.

I moved the KupoCon Europe thread to a public board yesterday, so they should be able to see that.

I think the best solution is to provide clarity for new members (pointing them to a locked thread/ post when they join is a good idea), and to move them to a trusted usergroup (which is where default members lie already) if someone vouches for them prior to post count.

I mean, I get wanting to make it more accessible but we're already fairly open compared to most boards publicly. I'm still a junior member (unrelated to post count, this just means subject to really strict posting rules) on NeoGAF and I have a hundred or so posts and have been an approved member for a year.

I'm in favour of making everything public except for general discussion (people post a lot of personal stuff in the ruins/makes day thread, and although we could not do that, I kind of like doing that :p ) and the forums that are already hidden.

cba to check, gaming/music/entertainment could be split out if needs be.

As for post limits, I think it would be ok to do away with that, but people should post an introduction at least, if only to prove you're not a spambot

EDIT: yeah I forgot about the safesearch thing

Other forums I've joined iirc have said something like 'you need to make x posts before you can x' whereas we don't seem to have that, hence a lot of new members having to ask the same questions

Mm, I certainly wouldn't complain if the 10-post requirement was dropped to one post with a nudge towards an intro thread, or even zero posts so guests and spiders can't see it but registered users can.

By the way, when I said "everything in General", I meant General, not General Discussion, which is currently completely private.

I'd like us to have something directing new members to post an introductory thread (if we don't have that already). Besides that I'd say remove the post restriction and make stuff more publicly viewable. Naturally the hidden forums should remain that way.

Wasn't there talk months ago about new members receiving a PM when they first sign up? It was meant to be a general FAQ thing iirc but it could easily address the post count queries and nudge them towards making an intro thread too. Unless the PM for new members plan was thrown out because of technical reasons?

^that rings a bell, probably nothing happened due to a severe case of CBA

Pretty sure it did though, Jason made it iirc but I could be wrong because I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'm just here because I remember why the rules / restrictions are the way they are:

1: spambots; some of them are able to make a couple posts that pass the (albeit elementary) filter we have, which if the limit is just 1 would put them in the regular wossname group and allow them to poast spam.

2: Stalkers and general evildoers; IDK if any of you remember but we've had at least one of those come in, register one (or a dozen) accounts, and send inappropriate images by means of poasts, PMs, visitor messages, signatures, etc.

I'm fine with lowering the limit if that's no longer a problem (I think it's not because if they were persistent they would've figured out by now), but, it's really not up to me.

I'd rather wait for the ones for whom we put up the thing for #2 to respond before doing anything.

I did create a PM and I thought somebody implemented that and its all automated. It has general FAQ stuff, not a direction to a specific Introduction thread though iirc.

If it's an issue of clarity, it seems like the answer is to explain how things work to the new members rather than an issue of 'I can't do this until I make X posts.'

I mean, 10 posts isn't exactly a high bar to clear if you actually do want to meet someone from here, and if it's really that urgent, just make a thread or PM someone.

It's also about persuading people to join in the first place. To the wider world we may as well have no KupoCon discussion at all right now, for example. That also reduces our visibility on Google, etc. Plus I'm not sure if you can PM people when you first sign up.

It would be a shame if we got more spam but, to be honest, that's one of the reasons we have mods in the first place. If it's the price to pay to get a few more active users, I think it's worth paying.

Hopefully someone can look into the automated PM system to see if it's working or if any of the information contained within needs updating.

Relevant threads:

NEW! Welcome PM For New Members

Newbie PM

I would like at least the general discussion section and debate sections to remain away from prying eyes, thanks kindly . I like the current setup. If people don't read JT's intro message, that's their own fault. Maybe we should say READ IT in big shiny fonts during registration :p. If new folks are eager to join and/or have issues, there is plenty of avenues for recourse, as has even been demonstrated in the OP. Public events like Kupo-Con could be posted in the more public guest-accessible sections, I guess.

See for like the ninetieth time: I moved that thread to a public board. If Sub-FF isn't public then it should be.

I was speaking about future instances, not ignoring you .

None of the Kupocon threads are on a public board though?

edit: Well, the Tri-Pom trading thread is but I thought we were talking about the Kupocon discussion threads proper

Cthulhu said:

I'm just here because I remember why the rules / restrictions are the way they are:

1: spambots; some of them are able to make a couple posts that pass the (albeit elementary) filter we have, which if the limit is just 1 would put them in the regular wossname group and allow them to poast spam.

2: Stalkers and general evildoers; IDK if any of you remember but we've had at least one of those come in, register one (or a dozen) accounts, and send inappropriate images by means of poasts, PMs, visitor messages, signatures, etc.

I'm fine with lowering the limit if that's no longer a problem (I think it's not because if they were persistent they would've figured out by now), but, it's really not up to me.

I'd rather wait for the ones for whom we put up the thing for #2 to respond before doing anything.

Click to expand...

There're also a good chunk of spambots that you gaise never see specifically because of those restrictions, and if/when the Remake and other things gets an up-tick in new member registration those'll be good to keep in place to avoid letting them even see the light of day if/when they get more frequent again.

I think that so long as the forums/sub-forums we want are visible and the ones that we don't want to be aren't, and that the indication of that restriction is reasonably presented to new users that we ought to be fine to leave that as-is.




X

Okay, how about this: most forums/threads are at least visible to everyone (it seems the ones people want to keep hidden are General Discussion and News, Politics, etc.) but if new members try to post in some of them they won't be able to; instead, they'll be told exactly how many posts they need to make elsewhere first. Much better to have that information in the relevant place than in an automated PM which they may not read (and which we still haven't confirmed to be working).

Edit: Enrique tells me that the Introductions subforum is invisible to new members. Surely that can't be right?

^this sounds good to me.

If the introduction section is hidden to newcomers, maybe that should be fixed .

Huh, yeah it is. That's weird. Should be fixxed now.

Is there some sort of way to make the board, like.. hidden when you make a new account with just a new msg appearing at the top saying something like "welcome comrade, you may have met us at a local Kupocon or have joined due to the remake, but just to ensure you're not a bot and/or stalker, please follow [link] to the Introductions section and introduce yourself, whereupon having one post made, you will be able to access the rest of the forum." that way if people just wanted to lurk on the forum without needing an account, for whatever reason, they could, but our hotbutton sections are still hidden... and if they were serious about us, they'd have blatant easy instructions to follow and would be fine after that.

This sounded better in my head before I put it down to text because I don't know why the rest of the forum would be revealed fine to lurkers. Nevermind me.

Yeah, we'd have to fiddle a bit with the usergroups but we could make it so that newbies only have access to the introductions section and get promoted to regular users after that.

But let's see how this goes first; no need to fix a problem until it actually occurs in this case.