Positive Changes To New Member Restrictions

[Chad]

As you know any forum fights a terrible battle against spam. For the most part a few simple things we've done around here has caused us to be one of the few forums on the winning side of that battle. 
 

 
Spammers are a clever lot though and they find ways around our defenses. Most recently they started posting their spam in the user profile area since they couldn't get it past our honor guard of a moderating team. To fight that I restricted new members from creating profiles. 
 
Well...I hate that and hated having to do it and so I've been thinking about it ever since. How to win but not really make it hard on new members. One of the things I always encourage people to do is brand their account with a nice avatar and personalized signature and here the spammers were causing me to restrict that for 60 posts. 
 
Well...no more*. I've decided to change that to 5 posts. Make five good posts and the site will automatically move you from the New Member group into the newly created Mostly New Member group. 
 
I hope being able to make an avatar, signature, and profile after only 5 posts makes new members feel less put upon. They are so welcome here and we want them to show their personality.
 
*The restriction on chat will remain though (sorry...the board comes before chat always) and we've decided that it also remains for contest entries and for now selling in the classifieds, though you can buy from them and view them. 
 
Also New Members are restricted to just 2 PM's a day, after 5 posts this now changes to 10 a day and after 60 posts to no limit. 
 
Both the PM and chat restriction are to encourage board use as that's what we're about not PM use and not chat use...thanks for understanding. 

 

[sawickib]

YAY!!! 

 

 gotta say i was really excited back when i hate 60 posts haha!

 

[FlakeyBiscuit3.14]

Yay!

  60 posts just seems so far away....
When will the new changes take effect?

 

[GuppyGirl20]

Just a question. What do spamers do? And why would someone want to spam a fish forum??? That just doesn't seem productive to me.

 

[Mamashack]

They just try to advertise in the forum Guppy girl It's very disruptive and annoying.
If you suspect spam activity (or other offensive material for that matter) there is a reporting facility. At the bottom of each post there're 2 visible buttons Multiquote and Quote. If you hover your cursor anywhere in the post you want to report, the Report button appears next to Multiquote and gives you the opportunity to flag it up for the moderating team and admin.
Hopefully you'll never have to use it tho! 

 

[the_lock_man]

Just a question. What do spamers do? And why would someone want to spam a fish forum??? That just doesn't seem productive to me.

 
Spammers are paid to get links to websites onto other websites.
 
Sometimes, the goal is to create sales, by linking to websites which sell something. Other times, the goal is just to create as many links to another website as possible. Up until about a year ago, Google's logic was that a site that had loads and loads of other sites linking to it must be a good site, and so ranked it highly. They have since realised that a fish forum that has a link placed on it to a site that sells fake Louis Vitton handbags isn't necessarily a good indicator, so they have changed their ranking algorithms to reflect that. But some spammers don't seem to have brought themselves up to date yet, and are still trying to place spurious links in irrelevant places (which is silly of them, because, AIUI, this will actually damage their Google ranking).
 
A lot of spammers use software to send their spam. A programmes find forums, register, some are sophisticated enough to get past the validation link, and they then place the spam message on a random area of the forum. This is why new users have to have their first post approved by one of us. I don't remember the last time you guys actually saw and reported a spam post, and it's all down to that one simple restriction.
 
So, as Chad says, they got clever, they started posting their links in their user profiles, and particularly in their signatures.
 
Which is where you guys come in. By easing the restrictions, we have partially opened the door to spammers. It is now fairly easy to get to a stage where you can personalise your signature, just a few "Yes I agree with that" messages and BINGO! We need you lot to be vigilant, and if you spot a link in someone's signature to something out of the ordinary, we need you to report them. As Mamashack says, there is a Report button on each post, and IIRC there is also one on each member's profile page. Please click it, write a brief explanation of why, and click submit. When you do that, each Moderator and Admin receives an email, and if we are logged in, we also get a bright orange "Active Reports" alert at the top of our screens. And we do the rest.
 

 

[FishMonkey]

That is great news!
 
I managed to create an Avatar when i joined, but cannot change my information on my profile, my tank stocking has changed and i would like to update this, but when i try and Edit my Profile, it only lets me change my email address or password and not Previous Fileds.
 
I have made 32 posts so far (33 after this one) and am still showing as a New Member, do i have to wait for 60 posts before this information can be changed?
 
Thanks

 

[the_lock_man]

Nope, still only 32, as posts in this section aren't counted.
 
The only way that I know of that Mods can do it is by issuing an official warning, which seems a bit on the harsh side. I suggest you send Chad a PM (tcamos, as above) asking him to do it, he has all sorts of little tricks he can do that we can't.

 

[daizeUK]

So the new category isn't retroactively applied to members with more than 5 but fewer than 60 posts?

 

[the_lock_man]

No it's not, I'm not even sure if Chad can do it as a batch job.
 
We've had issues where members who joined years ago, built up 30 or so posts, then came back just to post in the Classifieds Section.

 

[FishMonkey]

I've PM'd tcamos, will await for a response.
 
Thanks

 

[cocoa007]

Hurray !!
 
Edit: I take back that Hurray as I can't change my display pic

 

[FlakeyBiscuit3.14]

Just to confirm, so I will have to PM tcamos before able to edit my information and avatar? Or alternatively wait to get to 60 posts?

 

[the_lock_man]

Yep, 'fraid so. (Sorry Chad)

 

[Chad]

Just to confirm, so I will have to PM tcamos before able to edit my information and avatar? Or alternatively wait to get to 60 posts?

Not anymore. You used to have to but now you should be able to based on the group you are in.
 

Yep, 'fraid so. (Sorry Chad)

See above.

So the new category isn't retroactively applied to members with more than 5 but fewer than 60 posts?

No...I'm trying to find a batch way to do this though. There are 32 pages of members who need changed over so...doing that one at a time...no...
HEY, I FOUND THE BATCH TOOL! All of them are now moved.