Some changes (reverting back to old rules) to forums

After we launched a new layout, we took out some restrictions we had put in place years ago to keep the forums tidier. Apparently the move wasn't very smart and we currently have the record high levels of "useless" posts in forums.

These measures will be re-introduced this week:

-Newbies and Junior Members can't reply to threads that are "dead" (i.e. the last new post in that thread has been posted 60+ days ago)

-Newbies will be forced to see a "splash screen" that will encourage them to read through the forum rules, search for previous posts for answers and to read our guides before they start a new discussion thread.

I do apologize these measures, but the current state of forums would require us to get 60 new moderators and start a new "nazi regime" to clean the forums. I hope that these measures will keep the "garbage level" (by "garbage" I mean posts asking the same questions that have been answered million times in forums and could be located by using the forum search, posts that violate our forum rules, specially piracy rule, etc).

We will also add certain features later on that will allow us to make the forum nicer and cleaner place for people who like to visit our forums regularly. Some ideas include setting a "threshold" (i.e. "don't show discussion threads started by newbies and with no replies" checkbox and a possibility to alert mods to remove/edit certain posts that violate our forum rules).

 

Oriphus I'll keep in mind when we nominate more mods later this spring.

And now, finally the "splash screen" is functional for newbies and jr. members. Its annoying, but its supposed to "clean" the forums.

 

taclark: Basically the extension to Jr. Members partially links to the fact that we changed our "promotion structure" about a year ago. Previously we "promoted" members manually, based on the "quality" of their posts, but have since moved to simply promote the newbie -> jr -> member part automatically, based on number of posts.

And the splash isn't really that annoying, it simply states that you should first check if the question has been asked previously or not.

But we considered this decision quickly and decided that the splash will be applied to newbies only for now and see if it is effective enough. But if we think that it should be extended to jr members as well, we'll do that -- hopefully there's no need.
_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Petteri Pyyny
Webmaster
http://AfterDawn.com/


Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here:
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lcarbutt: Analogy is this: They've been told and if we decide to be nasty, we can ban them as they didn't obey.

 

It is only for newbies, I changed it two days ago.

 

Nah... a mod is a mod is a mod (unless things change) but naturally some mods will stick to certain topics rather than others

 

Ive been on forum break Prisoner, till June 2004. Just finishing school and stuff. Havent had the internet at home for a while either, but ill be back again! Writing guides at the moment! And Oriphus, of course you want to be a mod + you deserve to be one, but remember, its your life you are signing over to this "fellowship of mods", where we must all bow to the Admin Lords! lol Anyways, you definately have my vote

 

newbies == traffic so dRD loves newbies ;-) its useless to complain, tehehehehehe

Anyways, School is going fine prisoner, so good actually that i left to finish it at night instead ;-) lol my isp are still a bit fucked up in the head, still waiting for my internet to come back, so im not exactly a jolly irish man at the moment!

I'll be back, and when i come back ill be bringing a lot with me