The Steady Parade Of Suspensions Continues.

[momatik]

No one liked my idea?

New idea:

There is another forum I go on that is unrelated to smoking, but how it works is that you have to "apply" for membership.

In actuality, they just accept all members at the beginning of every month. But if you applied near the end of a month, you would have to wait for the next month to be over. Basically, you cannot post for 30 or so days.

So if someone wants to be a member, he/she has to apply, and in that time he/she will check out the forum and see that it "those" topics are not permitted.

If you want to stick to the already formed system, I disagree with the giant slap on the wrist initially. People make mistakes, it happens.

[jezter6]

No one liked my idea?

New idea:

There is another forum I go on that is unrelated to smoking, but how it works is that you have to "apply" for membership.

In actuality, they just accept all members at the beginning of every month. But if you applied near the end of a month, you would have to wait for the next month to be over. Basically, you cannot post for 30 or so days.

So if someone wants to be a member, he/she has to apply, and in that time he/she will check out the forum and see that it "those" topics are not permitted.

If you want to stick to the already formed system, I disagree with the giant slap on the wrist initially. People make mistakes, it happens.

Doesn't work. Most people come here to ask questions. If you can't sign up and start talking - why did you come here?

Some forums I've seen have a "newb" area - basically a sandbox for the first 100 posts or so -- but do we really want to hide the other forums? I'm betting 90% of the bans come from either chat, or this general forum that would be the sandbox for n00bs anyways.

I don't think we're gonna see any flame war crap over NHT bans, because face it - if you discuss NHT in an obvious intentional situation --- we don't want you here. Plain and simple.

The length of the ban, IMHO is not so much a factor. The only reason it has to be longer then 3 days is so that the person on the other end of the ban can calm down and not try to come back and retaliate. A 3day ban is too quick, the anger can be burning up, and they come back to try and get permabanned - causing more problems.

I do like Eric's ideas of a little interaction, coupled with my ideas regarding intent.

If it's an accident, and you're cool and want to come back - you should come back and have fun and not have to wait forever. If you're intentionally mentioning a topic, get banned, and don't bother to to make an effort to change - then fuck it - we don't need that here.

[momatik]

Doesn't work. Most people come here to ask questions. If you can't sign up and start talking - why did you come here?

99% of the time the questions have already been answered.

It will not only force people to check out the rules, but also use the search function to check if their questions have already been answered, which more than likely they have.

I mean, there is so much information in the stickied New people Faq already. And we could always add more to it, like posting links to threads about frequently discussed topics.

[Sonthert]

I do the same thing on another Forum I admin, well similar anyways. All new accounts must be confirmed and approved. We talked about it already and decided it was too difficult to accomplish with the traffic this place sees.

[ilikemyusername]

I still want to see a road of shame, I'd sign up to be premium again for that!

[momatik]

I do the same thing on another Forum I admin, well similar anyways. All new accounts must be confirmed and approved. We talked about it already and decided it was too difficult to accomplish with the traffic this place sees.

What if you actually didn't confirm and approve every application, but rather, just accepted all the previous months applications at the end of said month?

That way:
-it won't be too tough on the mods
-applicants will still have to kill time through searching the forum and observing how things work around here before having the privilege to post.
-Previously banned members will think twice about re-applying when there is an "application process."

[Sisonpyh]

I do the same thing on another Forum I admin, well similar anyways. All new accounts must be confirmed and approved. We talked about it already and decided it was too difficult to accomplish with the traffic this place sees.

What if you actually didn't confirm and approve every application, but rather, just accepted all the previous months applications at the end of said month?

That way:
-it won't be too tough on the mods
-applicants will still have to kill time through searching the forum and observing how things work around here before having the privilege to post.
-Previously banned members will think twice about re-applying when there is an "application process."

I think the concept is good, but there are other forums where people can go to ask there questions which is what they are probably only looking to do, at least at first. So waiting 1-29 days seems very inefficient to simply ask a question and most people would go elsewhere I would imagine.

[kudomonster]

It's pretty obvious your tactics of "suspend and tell everyone" aren't working at all. My suggestion? When someone breaks the rule just edit their post to a picture that says something like : I'M TOO GOD DAMN STUPID TO READ THE RULES. Hopefully after a while people will stop.

[liquidglass]

I really like Sontherts ideas and I think we should look into applying those to our forums.

Perhaps we should also consider a 24 hour rule only reading or even 12 hours. They can browse all they want but when they sign in they are told they have 12-24 hours to just read the rules and then feel free to post along with a set banning dictation.

I feel like this will deter a lot of spammers and people who just want to post something to see how long it'll get left up. People like that who are too lazy to participate in the forum won't come back to post after their rule reading time is up. During that time Mods can see if the person is a troll on another "bad IP"

We could also, during the sign up process, have a small section that says: "why do want to join hookah forum" it will kill any bots that are trying to spam plain and simple.

[Sisonpyh]

We could also, during the sign up process, have a small section that says: "why do want to join hookah forum" it will kill any bots that are trying to spam plain and simple.

That is a good idea if there are bots that come. Have a little window with a code that you need to retype.

[mushrat]

Um..we have a little code to type when you are signing up. And frankly, we have better things to do than approve each and every person who signs up.

I think we are doign ok with the bots, accounts with 0 posts gets culled every day or two. I go though and look at certain ones and ip ban if i think it's needed.

I believe we are doing things about as well as they can be done under the circumstances.

And I repete, we arent going to hold people's hands to make sure they follow/read the rules. Y'all are big boys and girls after all.

[jezter6]

Doesn't work. Most people come here to ask questions. If you can't sign up and start talking - why did you come here?

99% of the time the questions have already been answered.

It will not only force people to check out the rules, but also use the search function to check if their questions have already been answered, which more than likely they have.

I mean, there is so much information in the stickied New people Faq already. And we could always add more to it, like posting links to threads about frequently discussed topics.

People will always ask stupid questions that have already been answered a million times. And if you stop all new questions if they've been asked before -- then the forum would end up with like 10 new posts a day. If you don't want to answer a n00b question (often I don't) then just ignore it. However, if people stop posting questions, the forum will be dead. Even if it's annoying to tell people to search.

It's like this on every forum on the internet that's not overmoderated.

Perhaps we should also consider a 24 hour rule only reading or even 12 hours. They can browse all they want but when they sign in they are told they have 12-24 hours to just read the rules and then feel free to post along with a set banning dictation.

People have all the time in the world to "read only" by not signing up. How many people honestly just sign up without at least lurking around and reading threads? I'm guessing very VERY few just join up without spending a few minutes surfing around the forum and reading that we're not a bunch of total jackasses.

[liquidglass]

Doesn't work. Most people come here to ask questions. If you can't sign up and start talking - why did you come here?

99% of the time the questions have already been answered.

It will not only force people to check out the rules, but also use the search function to check if their questions have already been answered, which more than likely they have.

I mean, there is so much information in the stickied New people Faq already. And we could always add more to it, like posting links to threads about frequently discussed topics.

People will always ask stupid questions that have already been answered a million times. And if you stop all new questions if they've been asked before -- then the forum would end up with like 10 new posts a day. If you don't want to answer a n00b question (often I don't) then just ignore it. However, if people stop posting questions, the forum will be dead. Even if it's annoying to tell people to search.

It's like this on every forum on the internet that's not overmoderated.

Perhaps we should also consider a 24 hour rule only reading or even 12 hours. They can browse all they want but when they sign in they are told they have 12-24 hours to just read the rules and then feel free to post along with a set banning dictation.

People have all the time in the world to "read only" by not signing up. How many people honestly just sign up without at least lurking around and reading threads? I'm guessing very VERY few just join up without spending a few minutes surfing around the forum and reading that we're not a bunch of total jackasses.

I realize that, but that's why I specifically said "the rules' whenever they sign into their account for a short amount of time. I may have no explained it well and it may not be a great idea, but perhaps you should have read over it a bit more.

[Priapus]

at the risk of sounding stupid, but what was/is the end result?

are we back to square 1 where the banhammer comes into play, or the filter thing for words, or something else?

just interested.

[mustang_steve]

There are ways to deal with this. Reporting them (ban-evaders) to their ISP with evidence will usually get them to cut off their internet. Reporting to a university will often have far more dire, but still fair consequences.

[ilikemyusername]

It's pretty obvious your tactics of "suspend and tell everyone" aren't working at all. My suggestion? When someone breaks the rule just edit their post to a picture that says something like : I'M TOO GOD DAMN STUPID TO READ THE RULES. Hopefully after a while people will stop.

now you're talking!