Thread: More Freedom for Newbies?

Originally Posted by Silverskater145

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ).

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?).

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.

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

I think both sides make very good arguments. Back when I first joined, there weren't any limits on the avatars. Compare then to now, that is pretty much about the only thing that is different. The gallery is the same (community member), and the arcades and flash chat was not even around. So it's hard to give "more freedom" than what is available now.

At the same time, I want the staff to remember that today's post count to achieve community member is 75 posts more. Someone also mentioned that community membership was chosen by the staff members and I believed that is true (not sure). To be fair to the members, if they were really cared about the quality of threads before posting in them there really is not much posting opportunities right now on the forum. Introduction/Poem sections have post count turned off.

I am not saying to make it a fire sale, but I think maybe we could finally loosen things up or at least redo the system. This system currently in place is because of the previous regime, leaving most of the members addicted to spam. They were, in essence crack babies that can't stop spamming. Today a lot of them are already gone, even though one or two are still here (we know who they are).

I doubt anything will come out of this, but we could remake the whole system to this:

• Custom Avatar: Standard for all new members
• Custom [picture] Signature: 15 posts (used to be given standard for all new members)
• Custom Titles: 50 posts
• RPG: 75 posts + Two weeks
• Arcade: 100 posts
• Gallery: 150 posts
• Flashchat: 200 posts

I think it's almost time to get rid of the fav thread rule too...

Originally Posted by 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.

I understand the value of earning your place here and having something to look forward to when you go up a rank. I also understand that we want quality posters and not spammers that would just want to use this place for the arcade or flash chat.

The thing is that we have no trouble whatsoever getting people to register. We always have people becoming a member everyday but how many of them stay? Sometimes 2 or 3 in a month if we’re lucky. So it comes to the question as to why so many leave or don't really become involved?

The reason why I think so strongly that making the flash chat available to newbies would attract more active members is by comparing it to the forum’s history. When it was really active here we still had things like the chat thread or chat section. They were immensely popular. The reason behind getting rid of them though was because it ended up being done away with was because many members became so involved in that one section or thread that they never involved themselves in the forum itself.

Now, I wouldn’t even suggest that we make flash chat available to newbies if I thought that would happen. I don’t think that would happen because I think that flash chat can be more easily regulated than the chat section or the chat thread was.

This is what I am thinking. Make flash chat available to new members but make it where they must post at least once a day. If they don’t then they will not be able to use the flash chat feature. This makes it where they must contribute to the forum if they want to use that feature. This technique could be extended to the arcade as well.

Then when they become a community member they gain a privilege. Instead of having to post once a day to be able to use the flash chat feature they just have to post a certain number of posts each month but if they don’t reach that number of posts than they will once again be exempt from flash chat or even arcade.

Originally Posted by Legend

I think both sides make very good arguments. Back when I first joined, there weren't any limits on the avatars. Compare then to now, that is pretty much about the only thing that is different. The gallery is the same (community member), and the arcades and flash chat was not even around. So it's hard to give "more freedom" than what is available now.

At the same time, I want the staff to remember that today's post count to achieve community member is 75 posts more. Someone also mentioned that community membership was chosen by the staff members and I believed that is true (not sure). To be fair to the members, if they were really cared about the quality of threads before posting in them there really is not much posting opportunities right now on the forum. Introduction/Poem sections have post count turned off.

I am not saying to make it a fire sale, but I think maybe we could finally loosen things up or at least redo the system. This system currently in place is because of the previous regime, leaving most of the members addicted to spam. They were, in essence crack babies that can't stop spamming. Today a lot of them are already gone, even though one or two are still here (we know who they are).

I doubt anything will come out of this, but we could remake the whole system to this:

• Custom Avatar: Standard for all new members
• Custom [picture] Signature: 15 posts (used to be given standard for all new members)
• Custom Titles: 50 posts
• RPG: 75 posts + Two weeks
• Arcade: 100 posts
• Gallery: 150 posts
• Flashchat: 200 posts

I think it's almost time to get rid of the fav thread rule too...

I like this idea, too, and for these reasons. It doesn’t give all sorts of privileges right off the bat but a member would never be too far away from gaining a privilege. It would motivate the member to keep active because the next step to gaining something would never be too far away.