Newbies escaping newbiezone too soon?

[ByteCoin]

I've never thought that the number of posts was a useful metric for assigning seniority to members as it encourages people to post even when they don't really have anything to say.

However, that's how it's implemented now and we might as well make sure it's working. It's not.

Let's pick on Forp. I'm picking on him as he's actually OK and therefore will (probably) not suffer from my drawing attention to him
If we list his posts, at the time of this message he has six but his profile says he's posted 10 which allows him to escape the newbie-zone.

Perhaps people should need to apply for "promotion" and their posts be reviewed for usefulness. I'm confident Forp would pass but others.... not so sure!

ByteCoin

[SgtSpike]

How is a newbie expected to make useful posts?

Or by useful, do you just mean not spamming and being obnoxious?

[joan]

he has six but his profile says he's posted 10 which allows him to escape the newbie-zone.

Could it be that private messages are counted in the total ? That would kind of defeat the metric.

[theymos]

Let's pick on Forp. I'm picking on him as he's actually OK and therefore will (probably) not suffer from my drawing attention to him
If we list his posts, at the time of this message he has six but his profile says he's posted 10 which allows him to escape the newbie-zone.

This is because you are ignoring some of the boards he has posted on.

[ByteCoin]

Thanks theymos! That makes sense.

How is a newbie expected to make useful posts?

Questions can be useful if the newbie has taken appropriate care to be clear, concise and neither the question nor the answers have appeared in the forum in any obvious places before.

Just to raise the usefulness of this post: I'd like to point out that newbies are posting messages essentially void of any useful content in order to escape newbiedom. This probably decreases the usefulness of the board for the newbies who actually play by the rules making them want to escape etc...

I think the current newbie confinement strategy is failing and an alternative needs to be found.

How about "Newbies must request whitelisting and their posts are reviewed for usefulness before acceptance"? Similarly, non-newbies should be demoted to newbie if their posts show insufficient usefulness upon review.

ByteCoin

[fascistmuffin]

Maybe some more active moderators on the boards?

The reason why the newbie stuff was made was to get rid of the mass trolling and spam, which worked. I think with a few people throughout the day getting rid of spam might make it so new members can contribute more easily. There's a report feature built into there forums, might as well utilize it.

Regardless of the rules, people are going to continue to ask stupid questions, and questions that have been answered hundreds of times because that's the nature of internet boards; the search feature is still a mystery to many. I've moderated a few boards with hundreds of members, and I don't believe this restriction is as productive as other methods. I'm not too sure of this software, but ip bans come in quite handy (and pressing that button makes you feel like Zeus bring down the banhammer ).

[theymos]

Here's something relevant I posted in another topic:

This is certainly not the best solution, and I never intended it to be permanent. I have a long-term solution in mind: A new jr. moderator position is added with no moderation ability over established posters. Newbies can post freely, but their posts are subject to more strict moderation by the many jr. moderators. All newbie posts are additionally available on a single page for review by all members for moderation/reporting.

The reporting system also needs to be enhanced, and moderation needs to be made easier.

This requires extensive modifications to SMF, so we'll have to make do with the "newbies" section until I get time to code it or someone contributes the code. I think the section has been pretty successful in containing trolling, spamming, and repeat questions: the only downside is that it is annoying and drives away potential contributors.

This is essentially a manual review like you suggest, but it takes place after the posting to reduce annoyance.

[SgtSpike]

Thanks theymos! That makes sense.

How is a newbie expected to make useful posts?

Questions can be useful if the newbie has taken appropriate care to be clear, concise and neither the question nor the answers have appeared in the forum in any obvious places before.

Just to raise the usefulness of this post: I'd like to point out that newbies are posting messages essentially void of any useful content in order to escape newbiedom. This probably decreases the usefulness of the board for the newbies who actually play by the rules making them want to escape etc...

I think the current newbie confinement strategy is failing and an alternative needs to be found.

How about "Newbies must request whitelisting and their posts are reviewed for usefulness before acceptance"? Similarly, non-newbies should be demoted to newbie if their posts show insufficient usefulness upon review.

ByteCoin

I think you'd have trouble getting newbies to post at all under those guidelines!  Every question that they ask now is already answered somewhere.  I agree with you that there is a chain of uselessness in the newbie forums, but am just not sure how to fix that.