Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

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Should we screen new forum members?

Yes. There have been too many trolls here lately. We need to screen new members to raise the content and credibility here. Moderators should interview them and check their IP's.
6
26%
No. That's too restrictive. Just let new members post and we'll deal with it then.
7
30%
Let's just moderate new members by having their posts subject to approval before being posted.
4
17%
Let's put new members in a restricted board first where they have to prove themselves before being allowed into the main board.
6
26%
 
Total votes: 23
Ghost
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Post by Ghost »

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Last edited by Ghost on April 3rd, 2020, 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OutWest
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by OutWest »

Ghost wrote:Seems like screening or testing new members would be a good way to make new members take a pass.

Pretty much. This is much ado about nothing. Even one sensible moderator who has a clue about protecting Winston's brand and what civil behavior is, would not find it all that difficult. No "system" will substitute for intelligent common sense applied fairly.
Rock
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by Rock »

Ghost wrote:Seems like screening or testing new members would be a good way to make new members take a pass.
And the recent forum content would be a lot more legit if the latest crew of new members had taken that pass.
Last edited by Rock on October 21st, 2014, 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Rock
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by Rock »

Winston wrote:I'm not sure how practical any of these solutions are though.

Firstly, we do not have any moderators that are willing to spend time on Skype to interview new members. And even if we did, it would be kind of pushing it to expect new members to be willing to show their face on webcam. Many people like to remain anonymous. This solution is too time consuming and we don't have moderators willing to do it.

Second, even if new members' posts are moderated, or they are restricted to certain newbie boards, they could just act normal and behave until they get approved into the main board, and then start their trolling. So I'm not sure that would really help.

MrBlueLight for instance, started his posts with good quality observations about the Philippines. Then after that, he started acting suspicious and boasting about his conquests. Anyone can start posting one way and then turn into a troll or fraud later.

There isn't any way of keeping them out for sure, other than banning them when necessary. But we do need some moderation of them, I think. If we restrict them to certain boards, maybe we can have them stay in the "Introduce Yourself" and "Why Go Abroad" first?

How does Roosh screen out new members? I don't think he does. When I signed up on his forum, I just had to fill out a long profile on the registration page. I don't see what the advantage is of restricting new registrations to only once a month. No other successful popular forum that I know of, does that except Rooshv's forum.
Didn't E_Irazzary not only volunteer to do this but actually suggest it himself? If you did the one day per month system, I would be willing to do it too. So there's 2 right there.

We are not talking about big numbers here. The number of new sign-ups who ever post is miniscule. And why should we even let someone sign-up if they don't intend to post, so they can PM members as a random person? We don't need that do we?

Go back for 3 years and count the total number of people who posted in each month. Overwhelming majority of those are repeats (longer tremors). What are we talking about here, 10-20 spread over time? HA only has a handful of content providers.
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WorldTraveler
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by WorldTraveler »

Since there are not many members that post now, you'll have even less if screen them up front. The forum will become a click. Winston I though you hated clicks?
A good forum has all types of people: old, young, players, marriage minded. expats, and the guys that take a two week vacation, and guys just interest in the subject.
Rock
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by Rock »

WorldTraveler wrote:Since there are not many members that post now, you'll have even less if screen them up front. The forum will become a click. Winston I though you hated clicks?
A good forum has all types of people: old, young, players, marriage minded. expats, and the guys that take a two week vacation, and guys just interest in the subject.
I think there are 2 maybe 3 separate problems:

1. a relative flood of garbage posts and troll posters

2. a lack of posting by quality posters

3. too small a number of longer posters who remain in No. 2 category (many decent posters come and go)

Several have speculated that No. 1 (the abundance of troll posts) has discouraged quality posters (No. 2) from contributing. Perhaps No. 1 also contributes to No. 3 too (out-churn of quality posters).

We probably need to experiment for awhile to figure out what system yields at least a good improvement in content quality and quantity. I don't pretend to know the sure answers. But I think most of us here agree that status quo is not acceptable. So we definitely need to make material changes.
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Winston
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by Winston »

You guys are exaggerating about the lack of posts here. Check the latest active topics page and you will see that we have quite a new threads and responses everyday.

I think some of you guys have a point though, that trolls are impatient and will likely not waste their time being good in a sandbox or being moderated for a while, before being allowed on the main board. So a sandbox is a good idea.

I think that to moderate new members' posts is too much work for anyone. It is much easier and faster to just ban someone when they turn into a troll.

Btw, here's a lesson for you all: There is no formula that will produce a certain result when it comes to popularity, traffic and success. You claim that Roosh's forum is overly moderated. But so was OrientExpat's forum, yet that one died out after a while. Alex Jones' PrisonPlanet forum has banned about a million members, I heard, yet that forum is still top ranked and has heavy traffic. Go figure.

Stuff like this is unpredictable. Some things get popular and capture people's hearts. And some don't. No one can predict such things, and no formula can either, not even logic can. For example, when Star Wars came out in 1977, no one expected it to capture the hearts and imagination of the world and become as popular as it became. Not even the director George Lucas did. It was expected to be another mediocre sci fi/fantasy flick. Yet it became more popular than anyone ever imagined.

When Harrison Ford first got into acting, all the Hollywood experts said he would never be a star because he had no acting talent, no charisma, and no charm (which I agree with). Yet somehow, the audience liked him and he became a blockbuster star, receiving many regular roles after Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

A lot of things are just unpredictable. No formula or logic can predict such things. So don't overanalyze this.
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MrMan
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Re: Should we screen new members? Some ideas and proposals.

Post by MrMan »

No, just kick spammers out, along with people who promote violence and people who just insult other people without adding anything to the conversation.
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