Way to get round the 5 post limit...

[Inedible]

...it's so simple!

All you have to do is join in this thread and provide a better solution to the 5 post + time limit. If it works, it'll get implemented.

Please note, you have to fully explain why it's better than the existing system and explain how it'll work whilst being no more time intensive for Mods to implement.

Good luck everyone!

[Other newbies should feel free to discuss any solutions - pitch in, it's a community!]

[umair135]

I'm ok with 5 posts.

[Inedible]

I'm ok with 5 posts.

That's probably because you understand what that limit's there for

[OnLashoc]

Ive been registered for 24 hours now and still have to STARE at these forums for 4 hours to get out of newbie jail?

I've tried minimizing and doing other things and none of that time counts.. what gives?

[Inedible]

Ive been registered for 24 hours now and still have to STARE at these forums for 4 hours to get out of newbie jail?

I've tried minimizing and doing other things and none of that time counts.. what gives?

I understand your frustration, but what alternative solution can you suggest?

[OnLashoc]

Post count and staring at these forums does nothing to solve the bot or spammer problem if not only exacerbates it.

Put a 24 hour or longer membership requirement and leave it at that.

Have them graduate in levels, after 24 hours allow to post in the general forums, after 1 week all greater access.

Do it in waves as far as access level.

[Fishbones]

A captcha type input for first 5 posts on ANY sub-forum would solve the spammer bots thing.

[Bismark]

these five posts are incredibly annoying

[Miki77]

This is my fifth post, yay!

[Zaih]

I think the current situation is great.

It makes it so your still able to view the rest of the forum, you simply can't post. This gives you time to read up on how Bitcoin works and all that important stuff. This in turn stops a tonne of dumb content being posted.

Maybe a slightly shorter time period?.. But I don't see why we need to be changing something that most certainly isn't broken.

[WuLabsWuTecH]

So I'm an Enginner in real life, so you have to look at it from a problem perspective.

The problems you are trying to solve are (correct me if I am wrong):

1) Newbies who post worthless crap on the other subforums because they haven't taken the time to read
2) People who sign up to just spam and troll


So solutions are:
1) Some people simply don't have that much to say.  At a certain limit, (say maybe 1 hour of reading?), allow newbies to take a short quiz.  No more than 20 questions that tests their knowledge on bitcoins and forum policies.  If they pass, they get early parole, if they fail, current restrictions apply (no retakes).  This allows those people who may already have been bitcoining for some time or people who have legitimately read the announcements to get on with their life here.  People like these will want to contribute to the community and aren't going to be your "What is a wallet?" guys.

2) For the first few hours, posts by newbies are moderated everywhere but the newbie forum.  If they are of decent quality, they are released from newbie jail.  If they are not, all pending posts are deleted and they must follow current policies.  To cut down on moderator work, they are only allowed to have 4 pending posts at any one time, and if one of them is spammy/trolly, then all pending posts are deleted and they are subjected back to newbie jail (or banned, we don't want spammers and trolls around here anyways right?)

And I'm already out of jail but if you want to donate some btc my way, PM me and I'll be more than happy to give you an address

[CWO]

Interesting idea but for the first one, what would stop people from programming bots to know the answers in advance? The second one would still require a lot of work with the sheer amount of posts and new registrations. The subject of spam and newbies is definitely a hard subject to solve. Maybe until we adopt something like biometric logins (could cut down on bots and duplicate accounts) in the mainstream but I'm sure someone will find a way around that too.

[8-bit]

So I'm an Enginner in real life, so you have to look at it from a problem perspective.

The problems you are trying to solve are (correct me if I am wrong):

1) Newbies who post worthless crap on the other subforums because they haven't taken the time to read
2) People who sign up to just spam and troll


So solutions are:
1) Some people simply don't have that much to say.  At a certain limit, (say maybe 1 hour of reading?), allow newbies to take a short quiz.  No more than 20 questions that tests their knowledge on bitcoins and forum policies.  If they pass, they get early parole, if they fail, current restrictions apply (no retakes).  This allows those people who may already have been bitcoining for some time or people who have legitimately read the announcements to get on with their life here.  People like these will want to contribute to the community and aren't going to be your "What is a wallet?" guys.

2) For the first few hours, posts by newbies are moderated everywhere but the newbie forum.  If they are of decent quality, they are released from newbie jail.  If they are not, all pending posts are deleted and they must follow current policies.  To cut down on moderator work, they are only allowed to have 4 pending posts at any one time, and if one of them is spammy/trolly, then all pending posts are deleted and they are subjected back to newbie jail (or banned, we don't want spammers and trolls around here anyways right?)

And I'm already out of jail but if you want to donate some btc my way, PM me and I'll be more than happy to give you an address

Good points, thanks for the insight

[aigeezer]

So I'm an Enginner in real life, so you have to look at it from a problem perspective.

The problems you are trying to solve are (correct me if I am wrong):

1) Newbies who post worthless crap on the other subforums because they haven't taken the time to read
2) People who sign up to just spam and troll


So solutions are:
1) Some people simply don't have that much to say.  At a certain limit, (say maybe 1 hour of reading?), allow newbies to take a short quiz.  No more than 20 questions that tests their knowledge on bitcoins and forum policies.  If they pass, they get early parole, if they fail, current restrictions apply (no retakes).  This allows those people who may already have been bitcoining for some time or people who have legitimately read the announcements to get on with their life here.  People like these will want to contribute to the community and aren't going to be your "What is a wallet?" guys.

2) For the first few hours, posts by newbies are moderated everywhere but the newbie forum.  If they are of decent quality, they are released from newbie jail.  If they are not, all pending posts are deleted and they must follow current policies.  To cut down on moderator work, they are only allowed to have 4 pending posts at any one time, and if one of them is spammy/trolly, then all pending posts are deleted and they are subjected back to newbie jail (or banned, we don't want spammers and trolls around here anyways right?)

And I'm already out of jail but if you want to donate some btc my way, PM me and I'll be more than happy to give you an address

I wish that post had come from a newbie.     

In that vein, I think another reason for the 5-post count is to gently change the newbie mindset:

from something like "I've got to make five stupid posts when all I want to do is make a really important post as soon as I'm out of this stupid prison. What a dumb place this is that I really really want to join. They're obviously a bunch of idiots and I demand my right to join them right now or I'll hold my breath and turn blue..."

to something like "I can't think of anything useful to say right now, so I'll go and do some reading and when I have something interesting to say I'll say it and perhaps if readers find my post interesting we'll engage in conversation about it and I'll learn some stuff and... hey, I just noticed I've got more than five posts already so I'd better start to think seriously about how I can contribute to the other discussions that I'll be getting access to."

The present system isn't foolproof but it's better than many fora have. Lotta noise on the Interwebz.

[WuLabsWuTecH]

Interesting idea but for the first one, what would stop people from programming bots to know the answers in advance? The second one would still require a lot of work with the sheer amount of posts and new registrations. The subject of spam and newbies is definitely a hard subject to solve. Maybe until we adopt something like biometric logins (could cut down on bots and duplicate accounts) in the mainstream but I'm sure someone will find a way around that too.

The question bank is more questions than you need so the bots would have to sign up many accounts before they saw all of the questions.  Also you could use a captcha or something for access to the test.

[bobsmith652]

...it's so simple!

All you have to do is join in this thread and provide a better solution to the 5 post + time limit. If it works, it'll get implemented.

Please note, you have to fully explain why it's better than the existing system and explain how it'll work whilst being no more time intensive for Mods to implement.

Good luck everyone!

[Other newbies should feel free to discuss any solutions - pitch in, it's a community!]

My solution is to spam post in this thread 5 times...

I know it is meant to stop spam, but all you are going to get is 5 spam posts just so the person can post in the section they want.  I actually want to post in a thread I am buying some hardware from, but I can't unless I put 5 useless "+1" posts somewhere...

[WuLabsWuTecH]

So I'm an Enginner in real life, so you have to look at it from a problem perspective.

The problems you are trying to solve are (correct me if I am wrong):

1) Newbies who post worthless crap on the other subforums because they haven't taken the time to read
2) People who sign up to just spam and troll


So solutions are:
1) Some people simply don't have that much to say.  At a certain limit, (say maybe 1 hour of reading?), allow newbies to take a short quiz.  No more than 20 questions that tests their knowledge on bitcoins and forum policies.  If they pass, they get early parole, if they fail, current restrictions apply (no retakes).  This allows those people who may already have been bitcoining for some time or people who have legitimately read the announcements to get on with their life here.  People like these will want to contribute to the community and aren't going to be your "What is a wallet?" guys.

2) For the first few hours, posts by newbies are moderated everywhere but the newbie forum.  If they are of decent quality, they are released from newbie jail.  If they are not, all pending posts are deleted and they must follow current policies.  To cut down on moderator work, they are only allowed to have 4 pending posts at any one time, and if one of them is spammy/trolly, then all pending posts are deleted and they are subjected back to newbie jail (or banned, we don't want spammers and trolls around here anyways right?)

And I'm already out of jail but if you want to donate some btc my way, PM me and I'll be more than happy to give you an address

I wish that post had come from a newbie.     

In that vein, I think another reason for the 5-post count is to gently change the newbie mindset:

from something like "I've got to make five stupid posts when all I want to do is make a really important post as soon as I'm out of this stupid prison. What a dumb place this is that I really really want to join. They're obviously a bunch of idiots and I demand my right to join them right now or I'll hold my breath and turn blue..."

to something like "I can't think of anything useful to say right now, so I'll go and do some reading and when I have something interesting to say I'll say it and perhaps if readers find my post interesting we'll engage in conversation about it and I'll learn some stuff and... hey, I just noticed I've got more than five posts already so I'd better start to think seriously about how I can contribute to the other discussions that I'll be getting access to."

The present system isn't foolproof but it's better than many fora have. Lotta noise on the Interwebz.

My problem with the newbie restriction was that I had already been doing bitcoin related stuff for years when I joined the forum about a month or two ago.  It was stupid for me to have to post 5 times and for four hours with useless crap so I could post the one questions I came here to post.  But since I had knowledge of my aspect of bitcoining, I felt those questions I shuld have been able to post to the correct forums.  As you can see, I still post in this forum even though I am not a newbie anymore for questions for areas I am new to.  I have been mining for years, but I'm relatively new to trading for example).

The problem is that not all of us on this forum are adults (or at least act like adults) and can self triage their posts to the right subforum.

[LuckyXIII]

At first when I noticed I could not reply to posts, I thought I missed a verification email or something. Then I found out about this 5 post + time limit thing.

It's kind of annoying, but I'm sure it cuts down on the spammers, trolls and noobs posting questions that have been answered 200 times already. So I guess if I have to troll the newb forum for a bit and do some research, then so be it.

[elasticband]

5 posts seems fair to me

[101Official]

There's nothing wrong (nor anything especially right) with the 5 post thing. The problem is in the 4 hour restriction.  Why? Here is my experience to date:

Let's say you've made your 5 posts... now you go on to a more interesting forum, and have something interesting to contribute, you go looking for the reply or quote button, but it's not there. What do you do? Say "screw it, that's right, I'm still a newb", then surf to another site.  You come back the next day, thinking, ok, i'm gonna put in my time.  You read a number of threads, maybe for 10 minutes or so, then you feel like you have something to contribute.  But still, no quote or reply buttons. Grumble, grumble, rinse repeat. Time goes up by only 10-20 minutes a day.

I completely understand the need for some newbie vetting process - I have moderated other forums, and know the challenges mods and admins face. But the 4 hour thing is chafing my you-know-whats.

</rant>