Forum avatars... how?

[Saracen]

Well argued

I can see that tradition will almost certainly prevail, and the opinion of the few new members won't change that (nor should it). But I still think a slightly lower number would have been a better starting point.

But Shirty .... a few days, and you're virtually 10% of the way there, with 47 (qualifying) posts. Game, set and match methinks ..... that's called lighting the blue touch-paper, by the way, and this is me, standing back.

[Saracen]

....

I can see that tradition will almost certainly prevail, and the opinion of the few new members won't change that (nor should it)......

Weeeell, I hope we're open-minded enough to listen, so if a good-enough reason emerges .... but I've said that. But who knows, even a new member could come up with a reason we haven't heard before.

Thing is, like life, it's rarely cut and dried. You guys do give good reasons, but like coins, there's two sides.

[TooNice]

How many posts till the PM limits get raised?

[ZaO]

I guess for now we can use our signatures to make us more recognizable. I never really considered that before but it's an option...

[Saracen]

How many posts till the PM limits get raised?

Good case in point of the "two sides" argument.

On the one hand, for "genuine" members, it's irksome to not have PMs. But you only need 15. Same for editing profile fields, IIRC.

On the other hand, it stops (or gives us a chance to catch) spammers using either PMs or profile fields, because they typically either won't post 15 times, or if they do, we spot, catch and and remove them. Could it be 10? Maybe? 20? Sure. 50? Well, we could, but the anti-spam benefits would be minimal and the hassle for actual legit members higher. It's a balance. But if spammers were to start getting past that, we would increase the qualification.

[ZaO]

Yeh this forum is definitely low on the spamming. I'm not sure I've even noticed any in my time here So something about these tactics is working..

[Shirty]

Haha Saracen, it's like you know me too well already!

Yeh this forum is definitely low on the spamming. I'm not sure I've even noticed any in my time here So something about these tactics is working..

That'll be the registration CAPTCHA doing its job. Human spammers are a lot rarer than bots!

[ZaO]

Haha Saracen, it's like you know me too well already!



That'll be the registration CAPTCHA doing its job. Human spammers are a lot rarer than bots!

yeh maybe so. soundcloud needs to sort out something for the registration. i keep getting disgusting chav girls following me who seem to have no interest in music, but just want me to visit their sexy website...

[g8ina]

Human spammers are a lot rarer than bots!

You'd be surprised how they are not

[Shirty]

Any evidence? Things might have changed, but when I was a mod a few years back on a vBulletin forum without any sort of anti-spam capability and just spent all of my time deleting spambot accounts.

[YEHBABY]

I've decided to rejoin the debate and hopefully push up my post count lol.

I think 100 posts would be nice as I'm an amatuer poster compared to shirty it will take me ages lol

[ZaO]

I've decided to rejoin the debate and hopefully push up my post count lol.

I think 100 posts would be nice as I'm an amatuer poster compared to shirty it will take me ages lol

Are you declaring that you're going to mildly spam the forums to raise your post count? Haha...

[Saracen]

Any evidence? Things might have changed, but when I was a mod a few years back on a vBulletin forum without any sort of anti-spam capability and just spent all of my time deleting spambot accounts.

Yes. The evidence is the number of spammers that get past CAPTCHA, and that we have to deal with manually. Rarely does a day go past where I don't delete a few, and it has been known to top a couple of dozen. And that's just me. Other mods are pretty active too. And that, of course, is why we won't discuss what we do, because to do so would help spammers get past our counter-measures.

Captcha helps, and of course, we don't know how many it stops as they don't get to us, but it certainly isn't 100% effective. Perhaps necessary, but certainly not sufficient.

[Saracen]

I've decided to rejoin the debate and hopefully push up my post count lol.

I think 100 posts would be nice as I'm an amatuer poster compared to shirty it will take me ages lol

But, but, but .... we're such nice people, surely you'll want to post more?


Go on, wriggle out of that one. -

[Guy]

Just imagine what opens up to you once you hit the 5k mark... (Nearly there!)

[YEHBABY]

But, but, but .... we're such nice people, surely you'll want to post more?


Go on, wriggle out of that one. -

You are all nice people and I'm glad you've given me the opportunity to post some more