barnes wrote:
SHAdmin, I'd love to hear your input on this subject. This forum needs to be reformed, and badly.
Am following this thread closely looking out for views and comments over this topic. Meanwhile i will be working out some strategy to bring some more quality into the users posts. Lets see how long will it take
This is a very very good idea but the whole process of making this work is absolutely impossible. I have anti-spam and stupid post - posts placed on almost all the forums I have ever moderated for SHAdmin, but it doesn't work. Not even people would report the spam posts because they are in the same category as the spammers... too lazy to give a darn.
The ones who write good posts usually are well known and the morons who just come to post to get their hosting and don't put anything good in the posts they make usually are not well known. But it doesn't quite matter because the ones who stand up for Anti-Spam never do anything about it such as using the REPORT button. I'm not trying to single anyone out and I sware please don't think I am but I have been trying to de-arm spam from this forum ever since I joined it oh so many months back. I just know from experiance that people will put that link in their signature and won't ever uphold or adhere to what they claim they stand for.
When I was a moderator I use to actually change spam posts to reflect something they wouldn't normally say such as if they previously posted " I hate this game, " I would change it to say " I love this game so much that I dropped out of school, quit my job, dumped my girlfriend, and stopped bathing just to play it because I am a super uber nerd who doesn't want to do anything in life except play this game. I don't even sleep or find time for pleasure because the game is my everything, if it was a person I would marry it. " It pissed a couple people off, hell even once someone tried to get me booted off the forums all together for doing it, was quite amazing. I'm still here because I was only doing my job and he griped or something like that.
But yes this website needs a major overhaul, just like old engines you can't let junk sit on them for years and years and I don't wish manual pruning on anyone because I was trying to remove everything which wasn't posted in within the last six months ( which has been quite some time ago ) I don't think I even emptied a single section before my veins started showing through my mouse hand.
A **** rank system would be sweet but the prize or the award would have to be superior or most people would just scrap the idea. It's horrible that you have to pay people something to make them post right when it's post to host and unless the spam is extremely excessive not much is done about it ( lack of moderators. ) The moderator problem isn't anyone's fault it's just the simple fact that most people who are considered good for the job usually blows their chances by asking for it. Remember: Moderation is a privledge, if you keep clean posts and report things you see then your skills to Moderate will be noticed, hell I wasn't a moderator because I asked to be, but because I earned it.
But moderating isn't an easy job and no moderators have absolutly nothing to do with smokyhosts, just moderate the website. So even with the Karma system it would be hell on wheels for the moderators and admins because it's extreme work to clean up posts and properly punish every spam post properly, due to the simple fact mods have no powers except to delete, edit, or move posts we have to put more work on the Admin to carry out punishments for reported incidents. Which lowers the time SHAdmin has for maintaining the website, planning and coding future upgrades, setting up and sending account information, also it would cut down on his posting time and PM responce time. The Karma system would also require posters to rate posts and have a single post-single account rate safety mechanism programmed to prevent morons from voting for one another numerous times.
With every system you have a downfall but I do somewhat agree with the points per post having it read how many words you have and complete sentances, would be even better if it lowered your points if you have half-assed spelled words in your post. ( Sorry for improper use of language but some people can't type english or understand what they say themselves and it use to frustrate the crap out of me. ) But then the point system would actually go by how much involvement in the forums you have rather than the quickest spammer on the forums ( high posters in short periods of time. )
Honestly you only have to post twice a day, if you run around and post 400 times a day and revive dead topics then you should be kicked out for stupidity. I was going to say something about the posts thing but ... forgot. Oh yeah I think if rules were actually reinforced and everyone did moderation jobs wether or not they was an actual moderator like some then people would stop the stupid spamming and screwing up the forums. :Yes: is not a good post, "I agree" is not a good post, "I agree because; but I disagree because" is a good post... WHY? Why do you like it;, Why do you enjoy it?; Why does it turn you on? Give some insight in to why YOU are posting in responce to what has already been said but then again the only people reading these suggestions are the non-spamming people who care.... others just want hosting... they don't care.
So until SHAdmin pulls another neat trick out of his "Hat O' Tricks" here is a few suggestions that I would deffinately recommend to reduce stupid posts/spam posts/"poster needs slapped in the face for that one" posts.
1. If you write short, short posts... ADD SOMETHING!
2. If you see a STUPID post, REPORT IT!
3. If you notice one person is constantly spamming, SUGGEST PUNISHMENT!
4. If you are a spammer, SLAP YOUR MOTHER!
Now I am normally calm an collected but here is a few things I believe should be done to Smokyhosts to increase it's potential and reduce the stupid morons who spam spam spam, and make me want to slam my fist through my monitor.
1. Set up an Auto-Lock Code which will lock all old posts which have been started a year prior to the current date ( which ever date it would be ) or not replied to within the last six months of the current date.
2. Prune Topics over two years of no activity or a year after being locked for current date and last post/lock date.
3. Set out a punishment list with proper warnings, and carried out punishments to the morons who didn't heed to the warnings.
4. Set up places where those who speak different languages can actually talk in their native language to one another so that they won't have to strain to figure out how to put words into the english language just to earn points, would help most foriegn language members keep hosting and would reduce what some people would consider spam. ( This isn't meant to be racist or anything I just believe that if a bunch of people from the same native language could talk in their native tounge then it would help them aswell as helping the non-language speakers from having to comprehend something which makes no sense ( would reduce improperly taken comments such as " I don't understand what you are saying, please type clearer english " which would make the person who doesn't normally type english feel somewhat bad. )
Instead of a visable Karma thing set it up to be invisable and have it rated on a couple different factors along with the report system. Like someone who posts and nice responce could get rank in it, but someone who types an informative responce would get better karma and someone who writes a nicely written, informative responce with a in-depth and clear explination directed exactly to the question or previous topic would get an even better karma rating. Should also have bad karma which should take away from your activity. Would be pretty sweet, maybe even a word limit in a post ( minimum limit. ) That would be amazing.
More mods are needed, people need to uphold the Anti-Spam with the report feature and the other things I have mentioned are needed.
Most of all if you read this and yes I am talking to you..... NOT HIM... YOU!!!
If you read this then you are one of two types of people, the person who agrees or the moron who has a bad feeling your name may be mentioned in this topic. Either way if you are fed up with stupid people, report them. By not doing anything except complaining about a spammer and wasting webspace by typing how much you hate spammers, you my friend are also spamming. Start the end of spam by **** a button... go the extra mile... Would it kill you??
Now I don't post on this forum much anymore which I have my reasons so I will come back in maybe 2 more weeks or so and see where this post is going... I can already tell that people will still be complaining and nothing will get anywhere major... If you kick all the spammers out of the forums, you lose your member population... which hurts your popularity... which is also why the old members who have made accounts but never posted, have never been deleted. I like to see 1000 or 2000 members in a forum but if you have 250 active members then it shows you have a well kept, and maintained site. People who want hosting will get it reguardless of the popularity of the board... They would be paying and wouldn't need the site too much... ( I wouldn't post if mine was being paid for lol.. so why would they? )
But I hope to see something done this site had been a great host and SHAdmin has been one of the better friends I have ever had, met some really nice people on this forum. But if it ever got tooo horrible ShAdmin would do something about it, he cares about this community and he'd make sure it succeeds. Well I will repost in about two or three weeks, and I sware if you just post ( I agree with TheCrymsonLegends ) I will personally see that you get removed from the site. Don't be a smartie pants either... >.< :P. Please elaborate... If you don't know what the work ELABORATE means... look at my post! Now look at another post... I've elaborated way tooo much... but it shows I don't just say Yup.. and move on.
Thanks and have a nice day/night/week/month/year what ever it may be till the next time we meet...
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|-------------------------------- Ouch, You bit me!-----------------------------------|
|------In words I stalk my prey... in darkness you should be scared.-------|
|-----------------P.S. I'm literally crazy so just ignore me!----------------------/
Reached 5000 Credits! The highest of any member on Smokyhosts! New milestone for Me!
And here comes one great post from one of the very few who matter a lot to these forums, and who has contributed a lot to keep SmokyHosts forums to the best quality.
I totally agree with you TheCrymsonLegends with all what you said. The members who feel responsible when they are posting on public forums are their own moderators and do not need anybody else sitting on their heads. But then if things had to be so perfect, then there will not be any excitement while reading the dumb posts that some spammers make knowingly or unknowingly
I do have one plan in mind about chaning the way of awarding points for the ones who do make quality posts on the forums, and mind it, all spammers are going to have a tough time once i bring in the negative points system in the near future (almost as soon as i bring in the new design onto SmokyHosts, which unfortunately is taking a lot of time).
I would also appreciate if somebody would please explain me in as much detail as possible what Karma system is (i need an expert to answer me this thing). Coz though i do have a basic idea about this, i would like to know everything needed before i initiate any such system into the forums.
I agree with you as well, but even though we should be our own moderator, people are getting points for posting just a couple words/phrases which is not fair since most of us try to post average length posts that have a meaning in it.
Couldn't you have a character limit be put on and make BBCode not count into the character limit...as well as links?
I'm happy to see that my suggestion is going somewhere. I still believe there is an excessive use of useless posts. To many: 'Oh, thanks for the link' and such.
SHAdmin: On the topic of the Karma system, it works like this. Underneath the usernames near posts (or where you want it, like say the 'About' box.) there is the 'Karma' feature. People can add Positve karma for people who write useful posts, while adding negative karma to worthless users. The total amount of karma added is shown. If you post useful content, you'll have a high, positive number for karma, while if you post worthless content, you'll have a low, possibly negative karma. Its really hit or miss with successfulness. Its either the community will feed off of it, and work hard to increase karma (say for one of those reward shops that I see on fourms, with items like custom usernames, and extended signitures.) or the community will not care and ignore them all together. I suppose a really great way to encourge the use of the Karma system is adding it as a requirment for free hosting. A karma of 20+ or something. Hope this helps!
barnes: Thank you for explaining me this karma stuff. But as you know, there is no fool proof way as yet to detect that the two different email addresses are of the same person or different. So what if the same person signs up 20 times under 20 different usernames using 20 different email addresses, and gives 20 karma points to one of his own usernames that he chooses, then again this will kill the whole advantage of the karma points!!
I think the Crymson Legend knows exactly what hes talking about..I will personally start using the report button more often. While I am no amazing speller lol thats one part I didn't like about his suggestion i suppose i can try harder to at least make my posts more readable. (dam spell check makes me dumber and dumber every day). I have a suggestion it may sound sort of stupid but who knows. Where i live when you first get you drivers liscence you go through a probationary period where you can only do so much. Maybe we should do that to knew users, make them prove that they can be productive members of smoky hosts. Just a very rough thought if anyone can add to it or refine it that would be cool.
SHAdmin wrote:barnes: Thank you for explaining me this karma stuff. But as you know, there is no fool proof way as yet to detect that the two different email addresses are of the same person or different. So what if the same person signs up 20 times under 20 different usernames using 20 different email addresses, and gives 20 karma points to one of his own usernames that he chooses, then again this will kill the whole advantage of the karma points!!
Please let me know if i am wrong at that!
Understanding just how much work that is for something easy to get is enough for me to expect it never to happen. Thats just me though. SHAdmin, out of curiosity, are you running this site alone? If so, very impressive that you can manage all of this.
barnes: As far as the free hosting part is concerned, i am running the complete thing alone, whereas the paid hosting stuff is being also watched by one other employee when i am not online, coz the paid hosting customers need 24hours monitoring of the servers.
SHAdmin wrote:Jonxmartini: That was a good response from you
barnes: As far as the free hosting part is concerned, i am running the complete thing alone, whereas the paid hosting stuff is being also watched by one other employee when i am not online, coz the paid hosting customers need 24hours monitoring of the servers.
Quite an undertaking, you have my full respect. Let me know whenever there is anything little you need help with.
