Needed posts before starting threads

[slayer9019]

Is there a way to impose a post limit before a person can start a thread? I know other forums I am a part of do the same (usually 25). This lets (forces) the poster to understand the nature of the forum (do's and dont's) before they open a useless thread. It also forces new members to use the search function before firing off a thread without looking first.

Just a suggestion!

[Jaycel Adkins]

If only people took to heart, 'Reading is funDA!mental.'

[Shannon Shirley]

do we have to read the newbie guidlines before posting? Im not sure I did. but it doesnt really bother me as long as the people on this site are appreciative of the " trade secret" attitude.

[Jaycel Adkins]

When you become a new member of the forum there are some pages you have to click through and one of them in the 'newbie' guidelines, the idea, of course, being that new people will read it and not post questions/threads that deal with certain subjects that have caused intense angst among other members. At least that was my understanding.

Personally, I just don't post there and don't see the point of any of the posts after @MsRad post, mean no offense to people who posted after her, just my opinion. There was a recent thread about tattoo equipment and I did what MsRad did and that thread died, without any angst.

Link to the 'newbie thread' and then quote the guideline they broke and walk....done...finished....*drop the fucking mic*

:cool:

[Shannon Shirley]

thank you,I do appreciate the understanding of the enthusiasts on here .

[Lochlan]

Thanks for the feedback and patience as we figure out how to provide a useful forum/ezine for both tattooers and customers. Overall we and it appears many LSTers are satisfied with the forum so it's just working out the "bugs" and encouraging everyone to stick with us so we can continue to work on providing a better resource online for tattooers and customers......

The twenty-five or random number of post needed before a new user can start a thread is something @steve1461686340 can speak more to and we, Team LST, can discuss further.

[Jaycel Adkins]

@Lochlan

I think everyone has to accept that it's fundamentally a law of 'internet entropy' that there will always be trolls and people who don't bother to read guidelines. I'm thinking the last couple of 'threads' were people who just viewed the guidelines as 'terms and conditions' on other sites/downloads/updates, something to click through rather than read.

For what it's worth:

I think LST admins, mods, etc. have done what they can to make this place welcoming yet respectful. If some people don't get what this place is about, then it's no longer something to hold against the forum.

To take note:

1. LST solicited suggestions/comments for a 'newbie guideline.'

2. LST wrote up a plain as english guideline manifesto.

3. LST programmed the registration process to make sure new people will see it.

4. LST has open suggestion threads for anyone who has additional ideas.

5. LST has banned and deleted members and threads that have gotten out of hand.

The only thing left to do would be to post moderators online 24 hours to act as hall monitors or the safety patrol, i.e. not going to happen.

I personally think that LST has made a 'good faith' effort and it's really up to the LST community to tag and bag, bad threads.

So when it happens again, and it will, for certain. I would suggest that who ever is first to come across a suspect thread or posting to just:

Flag it for a moderator/admin.

Make a posting on the thread that: Links to the Guidelines and quotes the guideline that was violated.

Let that serve as a 'temporary/voluntary' hold on the thread, for everyone in the community to see.

It's fun to start displaying wit and piling on a thread, but it just feeds on itself, the suspect thread stays up longer, it gathers lots of likes, from people liking each other's witty putdowns or indignation, etc. etc.

And then the mods or admins are forced to delete the thread, when it would be better to just either lock the thread or let the guideline link and quotes be an object lesson.

A deleted thread doesn't teach anyone anything.

Is a part of a lot of forums/blogs and actually thinks this is one of the most well-mannered ones around, but if people take others ignorance as a personal affront...well...

[slayer9019]

I checked it can be done no problem, if any mods care to know how to do it just PM me.

[Steve]

@slayer9019 - thanks for the great suggestion! We have implemented a 10 post minimum requirement before users can create new threads (they can create an intro thread in the intro forum, however).

Users w/ less than 10 posts will always see this notice:

Hi stevetest, Thank you for joining LST! Please take a moment to

review these guidelines to help ensure your experience here is positive and productive.

Also, please introduce yourself here, and finally, notice that you will not be able to create new threads until after you have 10 posts in existing threads - except for the intro thread :). This is a measure to help protect our community from spam. Go to 'My Profile' > 'About Me' to see how many posts you have currently. Thanks again for joining LST! Sincere regards.

Let's see how this goes - we can fine tune as needed.

Cheers

[Pugilist]

Hi guys. Just topping this thread to raise a concern about the 10-post n00b thing. I love the policy and the logic of how it's set up, but I feel like recently there has been an influx of people who sign up and then basically spam the board with posts to get to their 10-post count so that they can start whatever weird thread they signed up to start. It didn't bug me when this happened occasionally, but it seems to be happening more and more often such that the noise caused by these throwaway posts is really aggravating.

I have no idea how to fix this, as I think the policies already in place are fantastic, but I just wanted to ask if it's driving anyone else nuts too, and if so, if you have any ideas re: how to get people to actually post ten REAL posts and not just abuse that policy to get out of their n00b status faster?

[Lochlan]

yeah it's been on my radar lately too and we can't come up with a good solution to try and keep the "spam" down. If you have some ideas pls share as we're always open. I must say though is the people who are doing it tend not to stick around long and their need to contribute for their own selfish need of ten shows the quality of user they may be....it really is not that hard to contribute ten productive post if someone cares enough as we've had users recently do this as well.

Long story short stuck between a rock and a hard spot

EDIT: We are going to have users chasing the ten post irresponsibly so when we see this we may just want to jump in and say something like, "if you're trying to just get to your ten post so you can start your own thread without contributing productively to the community then chances are you're not gonna get a productive answer to your thread when you do reach that ten."

[oldfartart]

I guess one of the issues I have is that I'm a new member with less that 10 posts. Since I'm not a spammer, it will take me a little bit to get to 10 posts. Since I just got my first tattoo 5 days ago, I don't really know a lot about tattooing so it's hard to interject into a conversation when you're new and don't really know much of anything. I do enjoy reading the boards though and there is a lot of good knowledge to glean from here. I can understand why the rule is put in place, but it does make it difficult for a new member to ask a legit question they may have.

[Lochlan]

@oldfartart thanks for being respectful and helpful...you should be able to start an intro where you can ask your question?

So you know if it doesn't show up immediately just wait for a mod to sign-in and approve it....this normally only takes a few hours as we're all in different time zones and on the board regularly. Look fwd to seeing your new tattoo!

[Pugilist]

@Lochlan - thanks for your reply. Like I said, I am totally stumped when I try to think about how to solve this problem too, which is why I threw it out there -I feel like some other posters might have some good ideas!

@oldfartart I totally get what you're saying, but that's kind of a point - it's not a bad thing if it takes a little while to get to your ten posts. It's not a bad thing to say nothing if you have nothing to contribute, rather than searching for things to say just for the sake of saying them (although I feel like it would be easy to get to one's ten posts just commenting on how rad everyone's work is! Don't need to be a pro to appreciate!) The point of this kind of policy is to force people to listen before they speak. LST wants to see itself as a community, i.e. as a place where people exchange ideas and get to know one another and learn from each other, and so people signing up because they have a specific question they want to ask about THEIR tattoos and not respecting that they are expected to participate, meaningfully, first, sucks. If we all just used the board to ask our questions, no matter how good, without engaging with others in more sustained ways, then this place would be really self-serving, noisy and not a community at all.

I am a big fan, in general, of slowing down in life. Everything about western culture right now is based on speed - we want things now, we get things now, we hate to wait. It alters how we relate to each other and while sometimes the speed with which we function is really amazing, it can also have its downsides. And so I really appreciate that the administrators of this board have been thoughtful about how to try and slow people down a bit, and hope we can come up with functional ways to make that work even better.

[Dan S]

One of the things we did on another forum was to place an unnatural number of posts to reach a certain status, i.e., Contributor, ex-Lurker, etc.

Say someone joins, they can access all the boards, but are only able to post in, say, the Intro and General boards. After they have shown their stuff, a mod can move them to the next level by adjusting their post-count. We set it at, for instance, 101 for an ex-Lurker, 501 for a Contributor, and so forth. It's a little bit of a pain, since a mod has to adjust people's status, but it pretty much eliminates the poster who is gon dump ten quick posts across teh boards, as so many seem to do lately.

.02

[slayer9019]

I guess one of the issues I have is that I'm a new member with less that 10 posts. Since I'm not a spammer, it will take me a little bit to get to 10 posts. Since I just got my first tattoo 5 days ago, I don't really know a lot about tattooing so it's hard to interject into a conversation when you're new and don't really know much of anything. I do enjoy reading the boards though and there is a lot of good knowledge to glean from here. I can understand why the rule is put in place, but it does make it difficult for a new member to ask a legit question they may have.

Hate to say that's kinda the point so you have a "chill" period to learn a bit. This is usually referring to a solid month or so as I've seen elsewhere. I suggest really abusing that search function and digging through all of the past threads, there is true gold to be found in the old stuff!

On a side not not really directed at you but to new people in general with questions, generally MOST questions in regards to new tattoos/issues/aftercare/etc have been covered very well already. I can say for sure I have read every post on this forum by now. When I joined I read though most of the threads before posting. Generally on any forum if you jump in with a question right away, you get ignored or flamed. I treat is similarly to walking up to a group of people that are all friends and just interrupting everyone talking with a question.

One of the things we did on another forum was to place an unnatural number of posts to reach a certain status, i.e., Contributor, ex-Lurker, etc.

Say someone joins, they can access all the boards, but are only able to post in, say, the Intro and General boards. After they have shown their stuff, a mod can move them to the next level by adjusting their post-count. We set it at, for instance, 101 for an ex-Lurker, 501 for a Contributor, and so forth. It's a little bit of a pain, since a mod has to adjust people's status, but it pretty much eliminates the poster who is gon dump ten quick posts across teh boards, as so many seem to do lately.

.02

Options are being explored. As a mod on other sites, I can tell you nothing is a one-size-fits-all option. I've seen the uber-high post limit usually on motorcycle forums.

[Dan S]

Options are being explored. As a mod on other sites, I can tell you nothing is a one-size-fits-all option. I've seen the uber-high post limit usually on motorcycle forums.

Seems like all the forum software is the same...'cept different! Best-o-luck on getting that straightened out.

We just used the high postcount thing as a way of organizing who saw, and commented on, what.

[slayer9019]

Seems like all the forum software is the same...'cept different! Best-o-luck on getting that straightened out.

We just used the high postcount thing as a way of organizing who saw, and commented on, what.

I would say 99% of forums run on only 1 of 3 major software platforms. Forums are like custom cars. All of em look different but most people run a GM smallblock under the hood!

[Dan S]

ProBoards and JelSoft are the only ones I have worked on, but yeah, they seem to be all more similar than not.

[else]

Hey! I just noticed that I'm a "regular" here now... ex-lurker no more!!

What if people had to have at least 10 posts and... at least 3(?) or 5(?) "liked posts" before they could start a thread... certainly no one would "like" one of the obviously spammy posts that people have been rushing through to get to 10. It might force people to be more thoughtful...

[rocketfish344]

hmm. yea. I definitely agree with the spamming. i've seen this problem on a few other forums as well :(

[Steve]

thanks for the thoughtful feedback everybody! we truly cherish your suggestions and are always keen to make LST better and better.

We will be upgrading our new user approach soon - and the ideas you have posted here will be carefully considered. I love the 'liked' posts idea - that one hits it on the head, just not sure if it could be automated or not.. off to research!

[Delicious]

I agree with the liked posts idea too.

for a newbie, it means they either said some interesting, or non spammy things, or that they got a kick ass tattoo that people liked. Either one is positive reinforcement for good behavior ;)

[Brock Varty]

I say every new user has their intro thread judged on an individual basis by the community somehow.... likes/etc...

[Dan S]

It sure is a lotta trolls coming out from under the bridge lately...another just started..."very interesting", "wow", "that's a nice tattoo", etc. WTF?