Cooloff period for new signups?

Yes indeed, you are certainly correct. And those are often the topics I avoid, not because I don’t like actual controversy, but because I know what to expect: that bad-faith noise. I don’t mean to suggest the porch should be ceded to the bats, 'cause y’know that’s akin to treating bad actors as a force of nature against which it’s fruitless to rail, and I am instead a proponent of the idea that we mustn’t allow the bastards to dictate the furniture of our communal living rooms if we ever want to have nice things. I’m just reluctant to raise the bar to entry. We want a screen door to let in the fresh breeze of Discourse while keeping out the Horseflies of Discord, but that will require a delicate touch indeed, and one that will either result in someone occasionally seeing flyspecks in the ointment or a delicate newbie’s toe getting stubbed on the threshold, and my inclination is to err on the side of the former. Many’s the time I wanted to comment on io9 or Kotaku, but I still simply cannot be bothered with the Kinja system. And I don’t want this place to become like that.

2 Likes

This has worked the best for online communities that I’ve been in charge of. I think you have the ability to automate and gamify this with Discourse too. Say, after x approved posts they get a badge and no longer have their replies go straight to moderation. Downside: more work for your lot.

New idea:

Ask new users their opinion about Joe Paterno before allowing them to comment. Examples: 1. 2. 3.

1 Like

I think one could gauge based on college sports in general. I’m sure there are those that would say Paterno is guilty as all hell because he’s not from OHIO STATE YEAH!

1 Like

I actually like it when people who are knowledge about an issue jump in because they have some kind of feed coming in that says, “All topics related to transgender issues posting now…” and then they come over and bring some knowledge.

I don’t like the people who have the same thing going on and spew hate on particular political topics. They tend to be very canned and dogmatic.

I don’t know if this helps at all, but maybe it’s hotbutton political topics where we need some kind of flow control.

3 Likes

Okay, new idea. Hear me out. I was inspired by

All new users for the first ten minutes can only see controversial threads, and they can only see other new users!! I propose we call this The Chunderdome.

The top 25% are promoted to members, the middle 50% remain in The Chunderdome, and the bottom 25% have form letters mailed to their mothers explaining they didn’t raise their kids well.

Who’s With M…

Mod note
Japhroaig has been banished to the Chunderdome.

12 Likes

LOL, watching Mad Max right now.

Previously thought the war boys said “White Nightmare” but seems like they are actually saying “Witness me” when they sacrifice themselves for their greater good.

Kinda fits with the Chunderdome grads who would sacrifice themselves in order to be witnessed or have I just twisted that badly to fit?

I like it! We can turn the entire bbs into a dystopian, mad max meets my little pony night-Mare!

5 Likes

“Turn it into”… yeah… yeah. Lotta work to do there. :wink:

:musical_note: My little unicorn chaser :musical_note:

:musical_note: Cyber-razor punk maser :musical_note:

On a more serious note, @codinghorror by way of seeing flagged posts already has a dictionary of word combinations and structures that are deemed unacceptable. Stripping meaningless words, utilizing stop words, and employing… Sigh… Artificial Neural Networks could result in Classifiers that catch bad actors before falcor even has a chance to eat them.

No cooloff necessary, and it would even catch abusive authors (like that guy who antinuous banned that claimed he lost fifty gazillion pounds eating only taters).

A simpler approach might be to auto-flag (or even force approval on) any post from a new user that contains dumb words like SJW, Killary, and junk like that. Or y’know, breitbart.com

6 Likes

Two possible issues I’d see to forcing approval. If you make it clear what’s happening, you could get people working at it until they figure out how to get things through. If you don’t make it clear, you could get loads of “why haven’t I been allowed to post?!? censorship!!!” posts.

Also, holy necrothread, Batman!

1 Like

I don’t know how much work it would be for the mods to approve posts by new signups, but it is a good idea. Even with the occasional heat I get here, this is a valuable community, and worth preserving.
I have sometimes signed up for technical forums because I really needed the answer to a question, and posted as soon as I read the rules and got approved. This is not that kind of BBS, and any effort to keep random angry people from signing up and raging on BB is really appreciated.
(edit- I did not realize I was responding to an old thread)

all for it

1 Like

Allow new users one post per topic. If the Like / Flag ratio works in their favor they get a couple more posts. If they continue not drawing flags for a day they go up a trust level. Something like that should work and require much less mod intervention.

5 Likes

I like it! But because me being me, I must add a horrific play on words.

So, you’re suggesting bannin’ Bannon?

5 Likes

Huh, apparently there’s a timeout for how old a comment you are allowed to edit.

6 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

I wonder what triggered the re-opening of this thread.

Might have something to do with a certain HR decision regarding the US supreme court…

2 Likes