Violent

Well if you want to gain a certain loyalty from a new member your not going to get it by forcing them to reach a limit, sure setting a goal amount of posts is ideal to show someone cares about the site but when you see people spamming to get 100 posts that just makes the site look horrible.

You need members that can contribute to make the site grow and give ideas to make that happen, not morons that want to play the arcade and look at the gallery... you can play the arcade and look in the gallery I'm not saying theres anything wrong with that but to spam just so you can...? Come now...

Let me ask you a question back, does a site grow from leechers?

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Silverskater145

You make a great point. Based on what you're saying, then the amount of posts needed to achieve the new member status should be raised? It is, logically, the best solution.

I've always thought 100 posts was way to low. 300 and 2 months feels much better, to me, personally.

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Violent

There thats something more like it maybe like a trial member kind of thing? 2 weeks to a month before reaching a community status? Along with 100 posts, that should solve the problem if you honestly like the site and want to stay then you can wait yea?

I don't think raising the post count will solve much honestly, I just think it will make more people stray from the site in my mind.

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Priestess Angel

I get what you’re saying but I’m not trying to imply that the newcomers should get too many new privileges. I mean if they don’t have anything to look forward to when becoming a community member than they have nothing to work for or look forward to. I mean at least let them have a custom avatar. I remember when I was new we were at least able to do that.

And reducing the post count was just a suggestion. I lean more toward having the flashchat available to the newbies. I mean come on! That’s the perfect way for new members to meet the others. Instead of just PMing random people, they can just go on to flashchat. They will make friends and feel more like they are apart of a community and that is the goal we are striving for, correct?

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Silverskater145

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here...

People can't stray from what they don't know. I can imagine most new members don't even know all the technicalities, like what it takes to become a "Community member" and what that does for you.


You said it yourself,

And,

Which is why lowering the post count needed isn't ideal either. When, as you say, people simply spam their way to 50 or 100. The logical solution is to raise the count. That ensures that people won't simply spam, and that they are, after all, interested in the community and not themselves.


But honestly, this isn't a chatroom. A flashchat is a neat, little feature for everyone. I'm pretty sure the intention wasn't so that the chat would be the main focus of the website. We aren't hear for the flashchat, and neither should new members.

You post and participate, and through this, you subsequently end up meeting people.


These are all my opinions, anyway. I'm just a nobody, after all.

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kurapika

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great sig by Lasura thanks heaps

Priestess Angel

I don’t want the flashchat to be the focus of the forum by any means. I mean that is not what a forum is about after all. The main reason why I want the flashchat to be available to the new members is mostly because I remember how it was when I first came here. It was very difficult for me to just PM some random person. It was a very awkward situation for me. The only ones I did PM to get to know were the ones that said I could PM them if I wanted to talk. PMing them wasn’t so awkward. But otherwise it was very difficult for me to meet people. I think that it wouldn’t have been such a problem if flashchat was available.

I also believe that it could gain us more active members but of course I could be wrong. There's a reason I have never been a forum administrator.

And who’s to say that if we made it available to newbies that it would become the main focus? You can’t know till we try. And if it does than we can change it back to it only being available to community members and up.

Or maybe make it where if someone has been active on the site but instead of actually posting they just use the flash chat feature than we could use the idea that you and Chief touched on. If a member hasn't posted one or some set number of posts in one month than they are exempt from flash chat until they can post the number of posts they need to make.

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Violent

Here let me define what I mean for what I said earlier

Trial Member - Must be in AO for a respected amount of time ( 1 to 2 weeks ) and after this amount of time if they have a post count reaching above 100 then they can become a community member.

What I meant by people spamming post to get to the community status, I meant they wanted to reach community status just to leech the good thing such as the gallery, flash chat, and arcade.

And well with what I said about a " trial membership " they can spam all they want but they can't leech until that period of time is up, so it will make those leechers not even bother with spamming.

I can see what you mean about raising the post count but 300 is drastic in my mind, if I came to this site seeking fun and friends why would I need 300 posts just to use these need tools to meet people; it would kind of kill my enthusiasm about the site. Now if there was a 1-2 week wait I could understand that with also the goal of posts ( 50-100 ).

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Luminous

How about giving new members just avatars and user titles? The sole reason I joined AO was for forum posting, nothing else, and it seemed rediculous that the forum was holding these things back from me. The only people who even care about avatars and user titles are people that actually intend to post and be part of a community. If you're spamming to get access to features, you're not likely to care about either of those in your travels.

The incentive to keep me posting on AO is fun, and it's my opinion that you'll get better quality posts and members when post count isn't being treated like a hovering dog treat. As everyone keeps saying, if someone wants gallery access, they'll probably just speak the internet language of Spamish. Empower those who want to post with user titles and avatars(Which honestly, is a very basic request), and come up with a new plan for the feature-grabbing spammers(I haven't seen many of these, but I guess they exist?).

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SasuraiHell

Can i copy and paste Silvers post as my own?!(well said/replied :P)

Back in the old days(meaning when i joined foruming) You really had to have the passion for making a name for yourself either by making the effort to post or even showing up. There wasn't any easy way besides posting common sense posts. These "dog treats" arent at all they're cracked up to be anyway. I've posted on sites where they dont have avys and sigs, i just want to post and have a meaningful time period.

I think our system is pretty fair...if not already too easy for members to gain access to our main functions. like Silver said, once you gain each promotion there's a an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and relief. You wouldnt want to skip past this feeling pretty fast dont you?

Maybe they have a pretty skimpy arsenal....maybe but then again, the more time they spend here before getting up close to the regular members is the best way to go.

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cantsenditback

it not really that hard, yeah newbes are going to make a few mistakes when posting their comment on threads or making threads but their still learning how this site is run and there is a standard social level on this web, so another idea is maybe not giving out those infringment out so early and maybe a warning and taking a small fee out of their credit like 5% or somthing

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