Topic: "You must be this tall to ride" Threads (Read 1110 times)

It's already been suggested (by me):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/user-restrictions-upon-thread-creation-1092276

BTW, I don't think a Hero+ board would be all too useful.
It's not like the "old guys chat" could be expected to be all too lively.
How do I know?
Well, here's a "screenshot" of the VIP forum:

 

It's not only newbies who derail topics but I've seen many Hero/Legendary members doing the same. The activity/rank of a person doesn't define a person as a constructive poster/spammer w/o taking into accounts that have been sold. Self moderating threads also won't work and there are many newbies who just have one account on this forum and contribute to a thread. It would be unfair to those newbies who genuinely post some informative content on this forum and again it would like a newbie jail. I don't see anyway wherein a thread creator would have ONLY constructive posts on his thread as it's an almost impossible to restrict members based on their activity/rank/reputation/IP. It's better if the forum could have a limit to the number of accounts a user can create using one IP (may be 10/IP AND/OR not allow a user to create more than one account in a day using the same IP) and ban proxies so that users don't abuse the forum. If MODs are given access to detect the IPs of users, it would be easier for them to just delete the multiple replies the same user creates on a thread just to increase his/her activity.

TBH, I don't have any interest in Hero+ boards. What would we discuss in Hero+ sections that couldn't/shouldn't be discussed in normal subs ? Afraid it would devolve into a circle-jerk.

I understand the option could be abused, but I've see far more abuse with self-moderated posts, and this cowardly post-locking shit Leroy Fodor is pulling.

The code for this feature is trivial, and believe it's at least worthy of experimentation.

I would further suggest that allowing Minimum Rank threads should be mutually exclusive of the option to have a Self Moderated thread.

But newbie jail didn't really do anything other than delay them for a few hours whilst they made a few pointless shitposts they had no interest in making but were forced to do.


That might have worked back in 2011 when you're probably only getting a handful of new users a day at most, but not now. People would just make a few constructive posts to fool whoever whitelists them then revert to shitposting once they are anyway.

You can mention in your post (in services, auctions, lending...)  that you will not consider posts from newbie, jr members for example.
Self moderated topic is a solution too in some cases.
But the feature that you propose here will definitely be abused.
Sometimes i check the users profile to see their statistics, once i found a member tho with 500+ posts & ~90% in the off-topic section, this guy can become a senior/hero in few months so you can imagine how much he can be useful to the forums discussions... I think in this case that restricting him is better than restricting another low rank user with excellent post quality...

Well originally there was the Newbie jail but we released the Bastions on that a long time ago it did keep the forum relatively clean as it acted as a sponge but then their was that large influx of users and the forum was opened up to promote activity in the end it did accomplish its purpose by allowing newbies to participate in threads and boosting activity.

That said we always did have a way to get newbies to post in other parts of the forum and get out of jail, if they could prove that they were capable of contributing to the forums through the Whitelist system and the requirements were reasonable good knowledge of Bitcoin above the average user or to help in a thread, having friends vouch for you, seeing how its been two years many members would be able to meet those requirements out of newbie jail in my opinion

It's one of those situations where we see the consequences and results of what happened when newbie jail was released and the possible benefits of bringing it back now, that said it might have a strong effect on bots, users could just buy accounts to get out of jail but at least it adds a bit of a buffer.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/whitelist-requests-want-out-of-here-15911
Still seems like a fair set of rules even now

If you have a need to be allowed into the forum beyond before you have completed the required 5 posts and 4 hours logged in, please post your request here. You must provide evidence that shows that you either understand more about Bitcoin than the average newbie, or that what you want to post can only be done in another forum. Reasons such as "I'm not a spammer" will be ignored. Try to be as specific as possible.

If you learned of Bitcoin through a currently established member of this forum who feels that you are ready to be released to the rest of the forum or who is willing to mentor you, or if you want to make a new account that is separate from your already-existing established forum account, have the existing user/account vouch for you after you have made your request.

If you are asking to be whitelisted because you are having a problem with something, we generally look more favorably on people who have already attempted to solve their issue in the Newbie board. Even if you end up not qualifying for preemptive whitelisting, your post might still qualify for being moved to another board if you have received insufficient help after a few hours.

I'm on the fence. I guess it would be good in certain situations but it's annoying if you're restricted when you have something worthwhile to contribute. It would be good to automatically restrict certain ranks that are prohibited from giveaways etc but not so good if higher-ranked members just stifle all discussion from lower-ranked ones just because they can (as annoying as some posts by newbies can be they're not all the same and everyone was a newbie at some point).


Self-moderating a large thread would be a full-time job in intself and it can take a long time to delete posts en masse so it would be easier to just bar certain ranks from replying. They're are pros and cons to it just like self-modded threads.


I've thought about something like this before. Maybe a special sub for just Hero or Legendary or something.

This would still happen, but with more provocative questions if we implemented this system. People would just hold their alts for 2-weeks longer before using them to signature campaign farm.



I am referring to the entire forum, and do not have any bias towards any one section.

I forgot to address your actual goal. Prevent trolling and derailing. Is that really done mostly by newbies? I see plenty of "established" accounts trolling and derailing. Or cluttering up threads to increase there post count for their signature campaigns. I don't really see many newbies doing that... But if they do, what do you thing causes them to do it? If they're real "newbies" (not alt accounts created just for trolling or for account farming) then maybe we could educate them instead, like I mentioned before.


I am afraid you're right. But I think that should be addressed at a different level. Not by everyone who's creating threads.
edit: but every thread, including this one, attracts sig spammers ;-)


This thread is about allowing thread creators to specify a minimal required activity level to participate in the discussion. If there's a specific issue with the lending section maybe we could start a new thread to discuss that?

i like these one. mostly newbies today is just an alt of someone to start a "question regarding something" thread and will attract signature spammers which in most cases all they are saying is the same

My point being that you can be well and established before becoming a Jr. Member, making it really uncomfortable to get adjusted to the forum based on silly time-constraints.
Another possibility would be Labeling an account "Brand New" until 15 Activity and implementing the aforementioned system.

Right, so Jr. Members should be able to post, but not newbies, and certainly not brand new accounts.

In some cases, yes. I think we all have too much of the mindset on "newbies + any kind of loan = definite scam", but in reality, as long as they have the proper collateral, it's all good. There are plenty of possibilities of someone registering just to get a loan with their collateral.

A lot can happen in the 6-weeks it takes to become a Jr. Member with a perfect activity schedule.
By the end of your first month here you could well have established yourself as trustworthy or have the knowledge of proper collateral.

But should a newbie's first post really be for a loan?


I like this idea. They should add this to the new forum.

There's no reason to scare away newbies because they're not all bad! At one point or another we were all there.

Yes, but just as TheGr33k said, what if the newbie had valid collateral and really needed that loan? I saw a newbie with valid collateral the other day (although I'm not quite sure what the outcome of that loan was) in the Lending section.

You could achieve your goal by starting a self-moderated thread. There are rules on this forum and on a self-moderated thread you can tell people to get out. Even in a normal thread it's not allowed to post off topic, so posts derailing a thread can and should be reported. I'd rather see us educating the willing newbies.

Limiting threads to a minimum activity level is an inverted newbie jail. And it will not keep out any of the signature spammers who bought an member+ account. It will even hardly hinder account farmers.

I do understand that it takes more effort than simply closing a thread off to those with less than x activity....

I can see the usefulness, however I have also seen some newbies really making the difference in discussions where they wouldn't have been allowed (presumably) if this system were in place.

I've been thinking the same since I saw a lot of junk threads posted specially in the lending section. It would be great if they can implement such thing like in other forums, they won't allow you to access the marketplace without having an account that lasted for atleast 1 month.

It would prevent newbies to spam in the forum, specially the lending section where there is almost everyday a newbie asking for a loan.