1. The Intro Topic has been, for the most part, a recommendation. You could simply engage with the community for some time, most likely passing the 20-post mark easily, and be in the green. This would be a dramatic change to require new users to post Introductions as their first post, and doesn't really deal with the core problem of people not following rules and guidelines... that and people don't typically devote their whole spew on introductions to begin with. I certainly didn't.
2. It's pretty much a given that you must create your own topic regarding your work and not leave links to other sites (There's an exception to those who meet the post limit). That part has pretty much already been implemented via administrative description. I'm... not quite sure how you plan to take that part to a programming level.
3. This is about the only part that people have problems with... on a regular basis. The only thing I'd add would be to leave a message notifying the user of the pending approval and the reason for such. Other than that, it should be fine.
Regarding the time rule, that might be a bad idea overall, considering the options of either automating it or doing it manually. Automation means locking people out of their own topic after they've come back for a while, leading to anger and complaints and possibly more headaches to deal with. It's a gray area on what's acceptable time and what's not. Manual means keeping track of dozens, if not hundreds of users at a time, which would put a heavy burden on the mods to keep tabs on (Not that I care as a non-mod member
)
On another note... The Artist Request Board is by far the only board that has been a consistent pain-in-the-bum to deal with, for everyone involved.
We all know how it's like: new guy wants an artist to make their stories come to life, and posts a tiny request seeing if anyone is up to it. Only to realize that "No, MangaRaiders does not have artists on-standby." Some ad-artists come by and leave links to their work and can also be a pain sometimes, but those are by far few in-between compared to the "Art-Beggers" as I doth call them.
Thinking back on my own self, who joined this forum some couple years ago... I initially came here with the intention of creating something tangible with whatever work I had in mind. That's the impression I got back then, and I'm certain many others will also get that impression the first time they join. With that in mind, we have to be clear to new members what are the standards and what is expected of them in the forum. People sometimes make mistakes.... I get that. I make mistakes too, and I shouldn't expect people to understand how the forum works on the first day. Regarding repeat offenders... I have no sympathy for utter incompetence, but the first mistake should never have to be the last mistake.
To be honest, I do not believe there will be a one-hit solution to this problem anytime soon. We can only hope to quell the symptoms, but the flu won't go away entirely. We longtime members feel obligated to help others, but in the end, we must recognize we are not representatives of the forum itself. We are only its collaborators. Let those who represent the forum: The Admin, the Moderators, deal with forum issues, as it is expected of representatives of the forum to do so. We cannot act like moderators when we officially aren't, so we have to step aside and let the mods do their hard-working jobs of keeping this forum organized.
Topic: Extra Coding (regarding the 20 posts rule) (Read 10275 times)
