An Immodest Proposal

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

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Razor One
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Re: An Immodest Proposal

Post by Razor One »

Idea time.

On one forum where I registered, it was a requirement that new members make a single introductory post on a hidden subforum visible only to said new members. Once a mod came in, reviewed their post and verified they weren't a spambot, they'd be given posting privileges for the rest of the site.

It'd be fairly simple to replicate here.

1. Create a new user group for new members only.
2. Make an introductory subforum visible only to this group and moderators / admins. Unregistered users and regular members would not see the forum.
3. New members introduce themselves here. If they prove not to be spambot, promote to regular member group. Otherwise, delete and ban.
4. ???
5. PROFIT!

It shouldn't be too difficult to implement this solution on the backend... in fact, I think it can be done with about 15 minutes of work and a little testing to ensure that it does. It'll keep the public face of the forums clean and allow us all peace and quiet in the main forums.

The only issue I can forsee is if we had a sudden massive influx of new members that weren't spambots all suddenly registering... though I think that somewhat unlikely ;)
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Arioch
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Re: An Immodest Proposal

Post by Arioch »

Requiring administrators to validate new users is sort of the "nuclear option" of anti-spam warfare; it's what you're forced to use when nothing else works. It requires a lot of attention and effort from the admins, and even under the best of circumstances it deters legitimate users from registering, because they can't post until goodness-knows-when an admin will happen along and validate them. The reason the forum moved here from Digital Webbing is because they used admin validation, and the admins got so backed up that they simply stopped validating new users.

For now, the new Q&A CAPTCHA appears to have stopped the bots cold (they were registering about 10 accounts per day, and there hasn't been a single new one since the Q&A went up), so I don't think there's any need at the moment to consider the nuclear option.

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Trantor
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Re: An Immodest Proposal

Post by Trantor »

Arioch wrote:..."nuclear option"...
And here i thought nukes were gooood.


scnr.
sapere aude.

Karst45
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Re: An Immodest Proposal

Post by Karst45 »

Trantor wrote:
Arioch wrote:..."nuclear option"...
And here i thought nukes were gooood.


scnr.

Mini pluto are cute! when you face an army of "can i come with you?"

javcs
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Re: An Immodest Proposal

Post by javcs »

Godsdammit.
They're getting in again.

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Arioch
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Re: An Immodest Proposal

Post by Arioch »

That was one that had registered in March. I'm freezing all the existing accounts with 0 posts, to take care of the sleepers. There were about two thousand of them.

If there are any lurkers here who registered but never posted and whose accounts got deleted, just create a new one.

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