New Automatic Moderation has been activated

[Greg]

Due to a recent spat of offensive materials posted to the forums, I've activated a automatic moderation feature that should mitigate some of these problems in the future.

If you see something offensive, just continue to use the reporting feature to report the post.

I won't go into the specifics of how it works (if I did, then perhaps people could manipulate the system to cause even more trouble).

Also note, moderators cannot to be available 24/7 - even if we had dozens of mods on these forums, offensive materials will get posted. However, if we all use the reporting feature responsibly, then something like what happened over the past few days would quickly be stamped out.

Any questions, or comments, please post them below.

[ExFlyer]

33 minutes ago, Greg said:

Due to a recent spat of offensive materials posted to the forums, I've activated a automatic moderation feature that should mitigate some of these problems in the future.

If you see something offensive, just continue to use the reporting feature to report the post.

I won't go into the specifics of how it works (if I did, then perhaps people could manipulate the system to cause even more trouble).

Also note, moderators cannot to be available 24/7 - even if we had dozens of mods on these forums, offensive materials will get posted. However, if we all use the reporting feature responsibly, then something like what happened over the past few days would quickly be stamped out.

Any questions, or comments, please post them below.

Thanks.

[cougar]

2 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Thanks.

I think there is a feature somewhere in the forum settings where every new user needs to be approved by the forum admin before they can start posting.

If automatic registration and approval is turned off, this will prevent seeing the types of user names we saw in the past two days and likely discourage whoever it was from launching further attacks.

It is unlikely we get too many new registrants to make it a big burden.

[Greg]

1 minute ago, cougar said:

I think there is a feature somewhere in the forum settings where every new user needs to be approved by the forum admin before they can start posting.

Yup, there is actually another way I could do it...

Currently all new members are placed in the New Member group, which limits their ability to do specific things (create new thread, etc). Once they make one post, they graduate (basically, they're promoted) to the full Members group.

Rather than manually approving registrations - which would be a pain. I might force moderation on the new member group, which means their first couple of postings have to be approved, then they'll be graduated to the full Members group (if they're not degenerates).

I just don't want to discourage new members, so it's a careful balance.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll make this change to the new members group right now and report back.

[Greg]

OK, the new conditions have been placed on new members.

Does anyone want to try it out?

Sign up as a new member, and post a few times - those posting should be dropped into the moderation queue.

Once 5 posts have been approved, the new member will graduate to a full member, and presumably they won't be a degenerate (hopefully, anyways) 

[Infidel Dog]

I had to do that to register at the Vancouver Canucks official forum.

Kind of irritating because you don't really know when or if you might get confirmed and suspect they might be sleeping on the button to make you an official member.

But it seems to work even if some might get impatient and just give up.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Infidel Dog

[Greg]

Just now, Infidel Dog said:

Kind of irritating because you don't really know when of if you might get confirmed and suspect they might be sleeping on the button to make you an official member.

Agreed. 

I'm open to providing limited moderation status to senior member of the forums, who could approve these new members quickly... 

Lets see how this all works out, and if it becomes too difficult of me to respond quickly to the new members, I'll see if members want to contribute to the effort.

[cougar]

14 minutes ago, Greg said:

Yup, there is actually another way I could do it...

Currently all new members are placed in the New Member group, which limits their ability to do specific things (create new thread, etc). Once they make one post, they graduate (basically, they're promoted) to the full Members group.

Rather than manually approving registrations - which would be a pain. I might force moderation on the new member group, which means their first couple of postings have to be approved, then they'll be graduated to the full Members group (if they're not degenerates).

I just don't want to discourage new members, so it's a careful balance.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll make this change to the new members group right now and report back.

Greg, I also wonder if there is a way to disallow new members from posting an image or a link till they have at least 100 posts.

Links and images are something a new member could easily go without in our forum.

[Greg]

Just now, cougar said:

Links and images are something a new member could easily go without in our forum.

Agreed 100%!

I looked into limiting this functionality this morning, but came up with nothing.  I'll double check, maybe I missed something obvious.

[Greg Test]

test

[Greg Test]

test

[Nationalist]

Thanks Greg

[OftenWrong]

2 hours ago, Greg said:

I'm open to providing limited moderation status to senior member of the forums, who could approve these new members quickly...

What is the rate of compensation?

 

[Greg]

On 7/29/2022 at 3:57 PM, OftenWrong said:

What is the rate of compensation?

Ha, perhaps a sense of satisfaction!

[OftenWrong]

Automatic moderation, you say? Now this shall be an interesting experiment.

"Artificial" Intelligence. Heavy on the artificial... 

"Automatic", "Automaton"

Digital morality.

Man's soul reduced to Boolean mathematics.

Now the trees shall all be kept equal. 

[DogOnPorch]

16 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

Automatic moderation, you say? Now this shall be an interesting experiment.

"Artificial" Intelligence. Heavy on the artificial... 

"Automatic", "Automaton"

Digital morality.

Man's soul reduced to Boolean mathematics.

Now the trees shall all be kept equal. 

Birds sing out of tune
And rain clouds hide the moon
I'm okay
Here I'll stay
With my loneliness

I don't care what they say
I won't stay in a world without love

[robosmith]

On 7/29/2022 at 10:13 AM, Greg said:

Yup, there is actually another way I could do it...

Currently all new members are placed in the New Member group, which limits their ability to do specific things (create new thread, etc). Once they make one post, they graduate (basically, they're promoted) to the full Members group.

Rather than manually approving registrations - which would be a pain. I might force moderation on the new member group, which means their first couple of postings have to be approved, then they'll be graduated to the full Members group (if they're not degenerates).

I just don't want to discourage new members, so it's a careful balance.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll make this change to the new members group right now and report back.

I have made more than one post, but it seems I am still stuck in the new members group, which makes it impossible to participate real time in discussions. Do you not want new full members?

[robosmith]

On 7/29/2022 at 10:30 AM, cougar said:

Greg, I also wonder if there is a way to disallow new members from posting an image or a link till they have at least 100 posts.

Links and images are something a new member could easily go without in our forum.

Links are necessary to post substantiation for an argument, which according to the rules is a requirement.

Although from my limited experience here, that requirement is often ignored.

[robosmith]

On 7/29/2022 at 10:20 AM, Greg said:

OK, the new conditions have been placed on new members.

Does anyone want to try it out?

Sign up as a new member, and post a few times - those posting should be dropped into the moderation queue.

Once 5 posts have been approved, the new member will graduate to a full member, and presumably they won't be a degenerate (hopefully, anyways) 

Okay, I see that you've upped the requirement to 5 new posts, but it seems for some reason my posts beyond number 4 have not been approved. Is there a problem?

[Greg]

17 hours ago, robosmith said:

but it seems I am still stuck in the new members group,

I just noticed that too.

however, I believe your account has now been graduated to full member.

please update this thread if that isn’t the case.

[Greg]

34 minutes ago, robosmith said:

Is there a problem?

No, it would appear that the membership queue was stuck for some reason.

I’m looking into this issue as we speak.

[cougar]

On 9/4/2022 at 1:18 PM, robosmith said:

Okay, I see that you've upped the requirement to 5 new posts, but it seems for some reason my posts beyond number 4 have not been approved. Is there a problem?

Our intelligent auto-pilot system must have picked up on something and decided you will be a problematic new member.? (just kidding)

[robosmith]

8 hours ago, cougar said:

Our intelligent auto-pilot system must have picked up on something and decided you will be a problematic new member.? (just kidding)

I was suspecting it saw my screen name and assumed I was a bot.

[Rebound]

On 7/29/2022 at 1:20 PM, Greg said:

OK, the new conditions have been placed on new members.

Does anyone want to try it out?

Sign up as a new member, and post a few times - those posting should be dropped into the moderation queue.

Once 5 posts have been approved, the new member will graduate to a full member, and presumably they won't be a degenerate (hopefully, anyways) 

That’s what happened to me. I was a little surprised because I think the signup told me I’d be moderated for one post but it was more, so maybe you need to update the notification. Or not.  
 

I’ve already been called a lot of names by other members.  Not sure how the moderation is working on that but I report it when it occurs and hopefully those people will adjust their behavior. 

[Jedi_Master_Tallyn]

I noticed my first three post were quickly approved it has been several hours and the next several have not. I have not received a warning or anything so I was wondering if need to do some editing or if it was just a coincidence. Hitting the first three near a approval cycle. and the rest needed to wait longer?