Topic: Warning against consecutive posts (SMF patch) - page 2. (Read 491 times)

Any change that can lead in a positive direction is welcome, although it is always a question of how much effect a warning can have for those who obviously do not read the rules or any other warnings that the forum shows them. Maybe that patch could also have some real preventive measure in the sense that it would disable "Posting multiple posts in a row" in a way that it would simply refuse to publish such posts?

There may be some instances in which it is appropriate to have two consecutive posts.

This is another great addition PowerGlove, I could remember days ago I made a mistake of posting same thing on a single thread after double clicking it. Although it was because I was using my mobile phone, so the first post actually got posted but i didn’t know due to the network connection and I clicked on post again, luckily I could be able to delete the post immediately from that board. A warning like this could have easily prevented that.


Yes the user can definitely still proceed to post, it’s a warning not restriction just like the usual warning we get when a new post is added to a thread while typing yours.

How about automatically merging them? Like this:

The post is untouched, but the black parts aren't shown anymore. Now that I type it, I realize this is probably much more work to do. And even more work if the second post is on a new page.

This should also work fine with "Reserved" posts, and since posts aren't really merged, the post size limit shouldn't be a problem either. If the new post doesn't count as a bump, rule #32 becomes obsolete

After the warning, the user can still proceed to post? Let us say the user first clicked on 'post' and this warning appears, but clicked on post again and he successfully posted it. If this is how it is, that is good.

Moderators are acting on it. I mean the ones that I have reported before are often merged. But there are sometimes that I will not report it, example is if the person posted on the thread a day or some days or weeks before posting on the thread. If the information is useful, I will not report it.

Moderators may not act on it if people are not reporting it because it is hard to find unlike new topics. Even moderators act on new topics fast when reported.

Good idea but by the way you could make a patch for the moderators to explain why they don't act on reports of rule 32 violations.

Another banger by the mysterious Max Headroom wizard.


You're probably right about that, and I think its equal parts annoying for the the mod and the poster who is having their posts merged. Sometimes its pretty clear when a thread-starter is just posting to keep their thread at the top of a section; sometimes its just an rules education issue, and I usually warn the poster that their posts will be deleted if they keep doing consecutive posts. Some listen and some don't.

I like how its just a warning and optional rather than explicitly prohibiting the poster from making a consecutive post. Seems like there is a precedent for such a thing to be instated as there is a similar warning that accompanies would-be necro-posts/bumps.

I like the idea!
Being a warning it will still allow a new topic to be followed with multiple sequential posts (usually 2 or 3) following the opening post. This is often done when starting say a new hardware review. For example, the reserved post(s) usually end up holding pictures and testing details.

Testing to see.

No sign of warning.

It should be nice once it is done.

at

Mods feel free to merge this.

I am on a mobile.

Has this been done?

I've been thinking for a while now that rule #32 violations (unnecessary consecutive posts) are handled pretty poorly... As I understand it, when posts like that are reported and moderators merge them together, the author gets notified that one (or more) of their posts were deleted, but they're not given a specific reason why, so they're unlikely to learn anything from the interaction. I remember when I had an early post of mine deleted by a moderator, it was a pretty confusing/deflating experience, and I was kind of left guessing at what was wrong with my post... I think that especially when it's for something that amounts to a very minor posting misbehavior, being left to figure out on your own what you did wrong is even worse. In fact, in this case, I think overzealous reporting might actually do more harm than good (that is, it's probably counterproductive in terms of the forum's health: for minor violations, the benefit of having a superficially cleaner forum is probably more than matched by the damage caused in making this place feel inhospitable).

Long-term, I'll make a patch to let moderators leave an optional reason for post deletion, which will hopefully make the general being-moderated experience less confusing/deflating (especially for newbies), but, for now, all I really have in mind are rule #32 violations (because I've been reporting quite a few of those lately, and I'm starting to feel like a douchecanoe for doing that, especially when you consider what I said in the previous paragraph). I think adding a warning against consecutive posts is a good thing to do (both to hopefully curb multi-posting, and to maybe reduce moderation busywork, along with providing users with at least some context for when they get notified that their posts are getting deleted/merged: after all, if they've been seeing and ignoring warnings given to them before they post, then they'll probably be able to correctly guess at what they've been doing wrong).

So, this patch adds the following warning when you're about to add another post to a topic that you're already the latest, recent (<24 hours) poster in:



(There's even a handy dandy link that takes you directly to the appropriate "Edit message" page.)

Here are the diffs for @theymos: