This Pit thread was started by a person who apparently just wanted to pop in, register, and stir up a shit-storm. Not that it happens with great frequency, but it sure is annoying when it does.
So, I was wondering if it would be possible to limit what a new member can do? On one forum I visit, they try to throttle spam by requiring 15 posts before the board will allow you to put in urls, which almost works.
My thought was that the trollish drive-by activity could be all but eliminated by restricting new member from starting threads anywhere but GQ, and maybe Café before they have ten or fifteen posts under their belts.
Would that make sense, or would it be too much of a burden on new members?
If this becomes policy (it won’t), I think it would be feasible/advisable to restrict newbs from starting threads in GD, Elections, and the Pit until they meet a certain threshold of activity. Maybe GQ too, but I’m not sure what the ratio of good-to-bad first posts is for GQ.
They’ll just dump their steamers wherever they can or they’ll post to old threads just to put it somewhere.
It’s not like they’re planning to stay anyway.
I doubt that would help. They would just clutter GQ with their garbage. I’m not sure restricting by forum would help, but if it was to be tried as a first attempt at restriction I would say newbies get to post in “Comments on Cecil’s Columns…” with very stringent modding as well as a new “Playpen” forum where they can spout any crap they want and be easily ignored.
Like I said, I’m not convinced that would work very well either, just suggesting a better route if restriction by forum was to be tried.
What always get me is the number of regulars who read an obvious drive-by post (it’s obvious by the first 20 or so posts, anyhow) yet still respond and keep responding and debating. So obviously the drive-by steaming dump o’ shit posts are providing amusing fodder for many regulars here, and sometimes they evolve into interesting discussions.
I think the status quo is fine. It works. It’s part of what makes this board better than most, I think.
I don’t post all that much and I’m neither a troll nor a valued member, but still, if there had been restrictions on my posting when I joined, I wouldn’t have come back.
I always find it’s funny when a new poster starts a thread (like the one in the OP) and 100 posts later the regulars are debating and the OP still has 1 post to their name (often times this is days later). It amazes me that people get so caught up in a thread that was obviously just a trap to get people riled up. Then, we get threads like this asking for a way to restrict new users so it can’t happen (as easily) again. Instead of restricting new users, just walk away from the thread. When the thread in the OP first showed up I clicked on it, noticed the odd way it was written, saw that it was a new user and backed out of it. I was surprised (just now) to see how many posts it had.
I hate starting out in other forums where my first X posts have to go through a moderator or are otherwise restricted in some way. The only time I stick with those ones is when it’s a technical forum and I really need a question answered.
I’m another daily follower but infrequent poster. This sort of restriction seems to me unnecessary since posters (regular or infrequent) have some responsibility to peruse the post/comments before jumping in.
Let’s try not to make this board more exclusionary to the point where it attracts no one.
I figured the OP was a drive-by almost from their only post. Some are just so obvious that all they want to do is spout their beliefs and have no desire for discourse. Why even bother? It’s not like we don’t have plenty of interesting discussion anyway, with people that will actually show up for follow through.
We’ve always had many drive-by posters. Among registered users of this site, the median number of posts is 1, and the mode is 0. That is to say, the 0 and 1 post users between them make up over half of the membership of the board, and the 0s outnumber the 1s.
If we’ve gotten to where we are today with that kind of numbers, then it looks to me like it’s not a problem.