Changes made to New Users group permissions

[Trotter]

Due to recent spam activities, some changes have been made to the Registered Users group, This group is comprised of members with less than 40 posts, so basically new users.

The Registered Users group has been changed to the following:

• No signature privileges
• Unable to post attachments
• Unable to send Private Messages, but may receive them and respond to them

The removal of signature privileges is due to the fact that many were signing up, putting spam links in their sigs, and then making loads of short posts all over the place to get exposure. Spam is spam, and we will not tolerate it here. Links are allowed in sigs, but not when the only purpose of that person posting is to get there spam links in front of other members.

The removal of the ability to attach images stems from the same problem: spam. If a new member needs to show a picture to get help with a problem, it should be hosted with ImageShack, Photobucket, or another online host, and then linked.

Due to a recent couple of episodes of PM spam, the ability of new members to initiate PMs has been removed. New members can still receive PMs, and can respond to these, but that's all that they can do.

Please note: Anyone seen posting a lot of short posts to increase their post count to move up in usergroups will have their posts deleted, and may face disciplinary action, up to being banned for spamming the forums (depending on the situation).

If a member with more than 40 posts finds that their privileges have been affected, contact me. It is possible that your primary usergroup is showing as Registered User instead of the proper usergroup, and I will fix it.

[vernong1992]

Thats what I'm talking about, the Sig Spam annoys me a billion

Thats another point for tech forums Management, so the score so far is

Spammers: one giant egg
Tech-Forums Management: too many to count

[arcticap]

Now I'm unable to contact someone that I had already exchanged PM's with, and didn't realize why until I had investigated this thread. I did receive some of the spam from a member listed as being banned, but now I really do feel penalized over it, above the level of inconvenience done by the offending spam.

[Mak213]

Yes well this is a unfortunate side effect. We have to do all that we can to protect our members but at the same time we have to allow the most freedom possible. So in the end there is always a trade off.

We allow our users not to be spammed but now users with less than 40 posts can not PM.

All we can say is contact them VIA Email or IM. Right click on the user name and when the profile page comes up you will see if they have EMail support or not. If so send them a PM via that. It will go thru the forums to them.

If there was another way to stop the spam we would. But this is something that we feel we have to put in place. We have tried everything up to this point to stop it. But when Pr0n PM's are being sent. We have to take action and sometimes that action is not always fair to new users. For that we are sorry. If we could come up with a better solution we would.

We are open to suggestions. We have a forum just for that just a few down from here.

[Drizzt5]

I have a sugggestion...

In our worlds potentially longest thread
Potentially the longest thread in history...
you can make a quick post in there requesting to be PM'd or have someone get them to PM you :P

[Trotter]

People with less than 40 posts can't post in Off Topic.

[Drizzt5]

Never mind then, sorry.

[veedubfreak]

Pretty sure you can still pm mods right?

[Trotter]

NO, all PMs should be inactive for anyone with less than 40 posts.

There is an option on members' profile screen that would allow them to send an email (if they have the "allow email" option selected). I have mine on, and can be reached this way if need be.

[Mak213]

Yes as i described in my post the email option is on for almost all Mods. I received one from a member with only 5 posts today for contact and to get a issue resolved. So that method is the preferred method to reach a Mod.

As i have stated this is to prevent PM spam. Even if a user receives a PM there is a way for them to send one out then. We were still getting PM's from users with less than 40 posts who were not supposed to be able to PM.

If a person can figure out how to use this method then we will still have PM spam. Which we can not have. There has been a high amount of them lately and some rather untasteful ones. This is the best method we have right now to prevent this type of Spam.