This Forum Blows

[Ferminal]

Lay off the bottle flicker!

 

[pedaling squares]

So did you just flip a coin to decide what thread to post this nonsense in?

Flikkuh is just proving the thread title was accurate.

 

[TreeFiddy]

Improving the Forum

Than give us some ways we can deal with it, 'cause god knows we have enough on our hands as it is. We try to do our best, so if you have some way we can improve on this aspect it would be much appreciated

Firstly it is "then", not "than".
Secondly it's "God", not "god"...even if you're an atheist.
Thirdly, why can't it be more like this http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling
...easier use, more intuitive, better layout

Thanks, Bye.

 

[Granville57]

Firstly it is "then", not "than".
Secondly it's "God", not "god"...even if you're an atheist.
Thirdly, why can't it be more like this http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling
...easier use, more intuitive, better layout

Thanks, Bye.

Maybe because of this:

reddit is currently offline. we'll be back in a bit!

good god...

 

[Francois the Postman]

that settles it than.

 

[Granville57]

Glad to see your avatar is back, Francois. It's definitely more classic.

 

[QbixNorway]

I don't think that this would work very well. For some reason people don't like to troll and spam when it's allowed...

While I do not agree with the way the sentiment was expressed in the title of this thread, it is understandable.

QbixNorway's comments about this forum's traffic relative to other fora gave me an idea. Barrus and others who are in charge, what do you think about this? Why not create a new subforum where truly anything goes. No moderation except for spam. Language, slagging, trolling, etc. would be permitted and any complaints about such activity would be ignored. Maybe there would be a portal that in order to enter one would have to click on "agree". Personally, this would be a much more enjoyable forum. I would even consider being the spam moderator. The administrators could do it on a trial basis and if it is successful, keep it.

I look forward to everybody's views.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think that this would work very well. For some reason people don't like to troll and spam when it's allowed...

as far as spam goes. this is possibly the cleanest forum i have ever seen. People are pretty good at reporting spammers at first sight. considering the traffic the forum gets, the spam is virtually zero.

 

[Barrus]

as far as spam goes. this is possibly the cleanest forum i have ever seen. People are pretty good at reporting spammers at first sight. considering the traffic the forum gets, the spam is virtually zero.

You seriously need to thank Susan for that, with the new system and her hard work most spammers don't even get the chance to start posting nowadays

 

[steelciocc]

I agree with Dim!

You seriously need to thank Susan for that, with the new system and her hard work most spammers don't even get the chance to start posting nowadays

Thanks Susan!

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

You are welcome. It is easy enough to fish out a new prospective user whose user name is BuyUggBoots, but we have so many people applying to join the forum that it is quite time consuming.

Susan

 

[Granville57]

we have so many people applying to join the forum that it is quite time consuming.

Roughly, how many? per day or week. Just curious.

And yes, thanks for the "crowd control."

 

[Ferminal]

Have you turned manual validation on?

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

20 a day, I would reckon. I haven't done it for a few days, and just looked, there are 64 people waiting on me.

I know I ought to do it every day, but there has been so much news happening lately, which has taken up my CN time. It is also easier for me when I do it daily.

I don't know what you mean by manual validation.

Susan

 

[Martin318is]

The assumption was possibly that the system would validate people automatically when they responded to an email. The term manual is referring to what you are doing.

Before anyone asks, the reason that Susan is the only one doing it is related to the security struccure of the site and the fact that she is actually a CN employee and the rest of us are volunteers.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

OK, that's what I thought but wasn't sure.

And to set things absolutely straight, I am not actually employed by CN, but am a freelancer who has a contract with CN.

Susan

 

[QbixNorway]

In order to limit the number of accounts created you could try to make it impossible to sign up with free email addresses. Like they have done on NeoGAF where you cannot sign up with hotmail.com, msn.com, gmail.com etc.

Though 20 a day isn't terribly many. I wouldn't say the user base is growing at an alarming rate, especially not if a lot of those accounts doesn't get approved for whichever reason.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Considering I use one of those free mail accounts, I think that is a bad idea.

20 may not be a lot, but as I said, it is time-consuming.

Susan

 

[python]

susan, we had this conversation - how to keep sock puppets out - in another thread. so, i'm glad to hear that the validation of new members is manual.

i'm sure having sifted through the dozens of new applications, you have got your filters down..

one suggestion that i floated before but dont know if it was picked up is to check if the new applicant is using an anonymous server to register, not just to post. since you are dealing with killing spam, you must be well informed about servers used by spammers. true, the lists of anonymous servers expand by the day, but it still can be a helpful tip.

another, tip as to whether you're dealing with a potential sock puppet, would be if the applicant, has started running out of email addressees. for example, one of the suspect long term trolls banned multiple times here, would have to acquire new email account just to register at cn forums. he'd likely be be using some generic emailer (yahoo, gmail..) over and over because it's easier. just a thought.

 

[scribe]

Python: How do you run out of email address and what does that look like?

 

[Ferminal]

Python: How do you run out of email address and what does that look like?

Well many people have several personal email accounts, after a while they will have to start making new email accounts for their forum accounts. The idea is that people will usually stick with the one provider, be it hotmail, yahoo, gmail etc. Simply looking at the username and host of the email gives you plenty of information.

 

[Martin318is]

for example, one of the suspect long term trolls banned multiple times here, would have to acquire new email account just to register at cn forums. he'd likely be be using some generic emailer (yahoo, gmail..) over and over because it's easier. just a thought.

Actually generally speaking so far there has been no real pattern to the use of email providers in that type of case. Multiple email types, multiple countries, multiple locations within countries.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Just out of curiosity: Last night I approved/disapproved a huge batch of new users. I just looked at the list again about 12 hours later, and there are already 15 new users awaiting action.

As far as the forum itself is concerned, it is not how many users we have but how many active users. We have over 18,000 registered users, and I would estimate that probably 10 percent of them have ever posted, and that less than 5 percent are active.

Susan

 

[QbixNorway]

Probably less than 2000 users have ever posted in the forums? That is a lot less than what I had estimated considering the traffic the site itself gets.

Just out of curiosity: Last night I approved/disapproved a huge batch of new users. I just looked at the list again about 12 hours later, and there are already 15 new users awaiting action.

As far as the forum itself is concerned, it is not how many users we have but how many active users. We have over 18,000 registered users, and I would estimate that probably 10 percent of them have ever posted, and that less than 5 percent are active.

Susan

 

[scribe]

Probably less than 2000 users have ever posted in the forums? That is a lot less than what I had estimated considering the traffic the site itself gets.

Seems logical. Unless you include all of BPC usernames, then it would be much higher.