The same message in lots of threads, and repeated requests

[abobql]

There have been a few members who have been annoying me and I'm sure most of the other users of this forum recently.

• One has been making lots of requests for stuff and promising to eventually post something without actually doing so.
• A 2nd has been making a lot of posts in the last week or so which are usually 1 or 2 words long. I think he is doing this to advertise his blog, because his signature is longer than the actual "content" of most of his posts.
• A 3rd has posted the same thing to a huge number of threads recently. Maybe he actually wants to thank all those other posters and is too stupid to realise that although feedback is nice when it is repeated so often it looks like spam rather than gratitude.

I've just discovered the ignore list so hopefully I won't have to put up with those 3 anymore. For those of you looking for this click on the name of someone you want to get rid of to go to their public profile and you'll find a link on the right hand side of the page. Alternatively go to your control panel and then to the buddy/ignore lists section. I might remove them in a few months in the hope that they've learnt something and become useful contributors to our community.

I think that perhaps part of the problem may be that they want to get "senior member" by their name. It is good that we give some recognition to those who've made a significant contribution to the board, but it cheapens it to give the same recognition to those who have made things worse rather than better. I've a few suggestions, but I'm not familiar with the software used for this forum so don't know what is possible:

• Is it possible for membership type changes to be awarded to those who've posted a significant number of attachements? Attachements that broke the rules and had to be removed shouldn't count.
• How about once you've posted enough to have your membership type change you still need to get approved by a moderator? The downside is of course that the moderator already do so much and we shouldn't exect them to do more.
• What about the section on each post that says when a member joined and how many posts they've made be expanded to also say how many attachments they've shared. If it could seperate out photos and videos that'd be even better, but if if it could say the total size as well as the number that'd give us an idea.

Does the software that runs this board have a feature that can block someone who makes too many posts in too short a time period?

Oh, and to Alex, the moderators, and everyone who posts attachements and thoughtful comments thanks for making this such a great site.

[Wetmac]

You raise some good points there abobql. I think I can guess the first two users you mention as I noticed some heavy posting by someone today myself just saying 'thanks' over and over. The other one I think your getting at had the threads closed where he was making a lot of requests.

I'm guessing somebody thought that upping his post count would entitle him to access to the video forums. I'll send a private message explaining it doesn't and we'll keep an eye on the situation.

Thankfully we have a large amount of great members who far outweigh the VERY small number who dont have the forums best interests at heart.

Wetmac.

[Alex]

I like to deal with problems on an individual basis. It doesn't matter if a member has 1 post or 1000+ posts, everyone here starts out with my respect and I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

I understand your frustration with certain members posting habits. In general, nobody should be SPAMMING the forums with links in their signature. If people are going to use a link there, we ask that the site they link to has a reciprocal link back to OCC. It's just a courtesy.

Saying "Thank You" is a good thing. Everyone who is a member is encouraged to make thoughtful replies to threads they really enjoy. Today I spent a lot of time deleting almost 100 generic cut-n-paste "Thank you" replies from a member trying to boost thier post count. That's bad. There's no reason for anyone to post more than 10 "Thank you" posts a day. Especially if they are not contibuting to the forums in other ways.

The photo forums are free for everyone to enjoy. A member's title is based on post count.

0-29 posts = Junior Member
30-99 posts = Member
100+ posts = Senior Member

People will not get anything more for having a high post count. We are not giving away free upgrades or One Click Pass memberships just for posting. People post here because they want to share. There should not be ulterior motives involved.

We don't have any plans to change the way a user's stats are displayed. I don't want to make more work for the moderators.

Thanks,

[abobql]

Thanks for considering my suggestions and for dealing with some of the issues I raised (though I'm sure you would have anyway).

There was one other suggestion I'd thought of: how about get rid of the member's title completely? Anyone who has been around here for a while knows that they have no meaning beyond how many posts that member has made and that this information is displayed anyway, but those who are new might think there is some other benefit from posting enough to get a new title.

I should have made it clear that I wasn't complaining about people leaving feedback. Comments such as "I liked that pic because ..." provide a lot of encourgement to the original poster and are interesting to a lot of the others reading that thread too. A generic comment that could apply to any post isn't so useful, and the same generic comment pasted many times does nothing except annoy.

I agree that the most of what goes on here is great, and it was only a very small number who were detracting from that.

[glass]

If I may put in a nickel's worth?

There are many places on the Internet where pictures and videos may be obtained. There are few places that have hosts who set a courteous tone and enforce proper decorum. OCC has friendly members who are following the lead set by Alex and the Mods. When somebody steps out of line, there is a response. The OCC brand is growing. However...

Success comes with a price. We have spammers who want to access the growing base of OCC members, as Alex has mentioned elsewhere. We also have attracted more consumer oriented folks who use the site and contribute nothing.
Because of the spammers, I will never follow a link posted by somebody with less than ten total posts. I like seeing the level of participation by contributers because it provides a comfort zone of sorts. All it takes is for a new member to make a serious contribution, not links, and all is well as far as I'm concerned. I'm not trying to be elitist, just cautious.

Regarding "Thanks" as a post, too many can be regarded as spam. However, it IS nice when somebody says something nice about one's effort. The "count" builders are pretty obvious, but sometimes a simple thanks is better than being ignored completely. That's my nickels worth.

[thetominator]

Originally Posted by glass

Regarding "Thanks" as a post, too many can be regarded as spam. However, it IS nice when somebody says something nice about one's effort. The "count" builders are pretty obvious, but sometimes a simple thanks is better than being ignored completely. That's my nickels worth.

Agreed. Howsomever, it's better to be judicious in your thanks. If someone's already said thanks, and you don't REALLY like the post, then don't post. Once is enough. If you're an appreciation wh*r*, then that's just as bad, in my opinion. Some posts I make don't get a single reply. And that's fine. They're usually the ones that are merely OK, and that I probably wouldn't reply to. It's not a popularity contest--and just like posting doesn't make your dick bigger, it doesn't grow when you get more comments.