'Probie' Status for New Members

[MCH]

if that's what happens, so be it.

the alternative is to do nothing and leave ourselves open to another attack like last week's.

Unless and until there is legislation in place to punish those that abuse others online, and the ability to turn transgressors over to the authorities, there's not much we can do beyond try to control and prevent it as much as possible

Very happy you have taken the action that you have. I didn't see the posts, and I don't want to. I've had my computer targeted and result it crashed, received emails and pictures that are less than pleasent.

So we all have the right to be on the internet, but if you abuse as you cruise this is what you deserve.

Once again thankyou MCH

[Darren]

Ah okay, I was gonna say there are certain well known sites that primarily aim to display offensive and/or disturbing images, which obv. I won't name here, that could be blocked, but you already have a block list, so I could have saved my breath!

You certainly can PM me with the domain name of such sites, and I'll add them to the block list.

[rlr149]

if that's what happens, so be it.

the alternative is to do nothing and leave ourselves open to another attack like last week's.

Unless and until there is legislation in place to punish those that abuse others online, and the ability to turn transgressors over to the authorities, there's not much we can do beyond try to control and prevent it as much as possible

the day a law that says "you hurt my feelings, go to jail" is passed will be a dark day indeed. it'll be 'thought' crime next

[Tracy Jane]

I guess the only way round would be to only allow images from GW itself (as in pictures you've uploaded to your Gateworld albums). But to block everything would mean stupid amounts of work and no pictures would definitely change the community atmosphere, as others have already said.

You know what? If I were to join GW again today, I don't think I would mind the modding aspect. You see, GW was my first forum, really. I lurked for ages before I joined and, when I did, I was so scared of accidentally breaking the rules... I would have appreciated someone okaying all my posts and making sure I didn't get myself into trouble.

But I suppose a lot of posters are different and wouldn't appreciate it. All I can say is that I think Darren and his team are doing the best they possibly can in a tough situation. At the end of the day, there's no easy way to solve this. There's no solution that everyone will be happy with. So Darren has to make a decision that is good for the site and causes minimum disruption.

I'll finish my arse-licking now

[majorsal]

we've actually been considering this probie step for quite a while. And have been using it quietly in the background for many months. Prior to this, we'd take a look at the new member list and make educated guesses about potential trouble makers. For obvious reasons, I won't reveal our personal criteria for 'mmhm, could be trouble'.

We'd talked about implementing this to stymie the persistent spammers that hit this site once or a few times a week, but haven't felt it necessary until now.

We're just doing what we can to keep trash off the forum, and really, this isnt' even something that will effect you guys. We know you're all real

It's just something for the newbies.

is there also a way of preventing someone from creating multiple identities? why would someone need to be more than one person anyway? that's a real question.



sally

[Skydiver]

the vast majority of our folks have legitimate sockies. They're for RPG games and are quite responsible with them. We do have a few that are ornry and have or have had multiple identities.

needless to say, i'm not gonna illustrate how we suss out who they are.

as to IP's, I'm me, and have only been me...yet last time i looked at my IP report i had a few HUNDRED assigned to my username. Because when i access it at work i rotate through several, and every wiffy point i access has a new one, and my home now rotates through many...and i've never even tried the whole proxy server thing

If i can legitimately have a hundred+ IP's linked to my name, you can imagine what those that are dedicated to being ornry can do

[Colonel Sharp]

Wow, if you guys are willing to do this, then I'm all for ya!

Though to me it may seem a bit extreme...on the other hand, how many new members are there a day? I can't imagine it's an overwhelming amount...*Shrug*, again, it's up to you guys

[maylet]

That's a really good idea

[Skydiver]

says the person whose sig is a bit too large for our rules

[Skydiver]

which is why Probie status is a 'better' solution than locking things out

[Pharaoh Atem]

when will member registration be allowed start up again>???

[prion]

Frankly, if we weren't convinced that it is necessary to prevent DOS attacks, we wouldn't consider it. GW is just prominent enough now to be targeted, I guess.

actually, attacks have been increasing across the board, and dgeek.com, among other SG-related sites, got nailed.

[TameFarrar]

actually, attacks have been increasing across the board, and dgeek.com, among other SG-related sites, got nailed.

I feel for those Forums and their membership as well then
and its nice that some folks want to make sure GW never thinks to highly of itself so thanks for sharing

[TameFarrar]

Just making sure folks see this again since it was posted and created last year. The Probie Status is not new folks

[Skydiver]

And, it changed from its inception. Probies cannot

post visitor messages
send private messages
post group messages

Now visitor and group messages do post, but they have to be approved by a mod. This isn't how we wanted to do it, however we had a couple of spammers that joined, realized that they couldn't post their spam to the forum, thus instead sent out dozens of PM's and visitor messages to members, spamming them...so we had to turn off those features because once one finds out that loophole, more would follow and you guys would be getting deluged daily with spam. (every day we delete at least one and sometimes as many as ten spam messages)

we do recomment to all probies that you have fun in the forum first and perhaps refrain from joining any of the 'hurt and heal' or other vote counting games.

the mods clear queued posts as quickly as we can, but we do have lives and it may take an hour or three before your post is cleared, and in fast moving threads, that means you post can be pages and pages away from the 'bottom' or 'top' of the thread before it's cleared.

[iloveteyla]

How long is it before my posts will be displayed straight away ? its really annoying trying to answer people but then the post goes up the next day and the whole conversation is just ruined
thanks

[Pharaoh Atem]

only the mods know how probie status works. it's a combination of posts,rep received and how long you've been a member.

the settings are changed from time to time by darren. so that no one can figure it out. yes it's a pain but it has been so helpful in stopping spam.

just don't get discouraged

[iloveteyla]

Trouble is it is discouraging as you always seem out of sync with everything thats going on ,i can understand why they do it but surely if they have to read every post of mine before it can be viewed they can see im no spammer




oh it looks like it might be working now so please disregard all of the above

[Supreme Commander Sil]

This new system is kind of stupid.... If there's spam, it can just be reported ! The mods want a break though, I guess. They deserve one... possibly !

But I agree it's annoying. I have had unapproved visitor messages waiting for seemingly forever and they came up in my notifications ...
!
It's a shame, because when I was a probie, I was one for well over a year . Fortunately, I was long before this madness, but newer members are less fortunate ! I feel we won't gain terribly many permanent new members, because of this frustration ...

[Jper]

You can approve "unapproved VM" yourself though, can't you?