i usually go on trap17 at 7-8pm australian eastern standard time, and there are at least a few people to talk to (especially sonesay, who is a kiwi therefore my friend by default ). however, last night i went on trap17 and this is how i was greeted:



although heavily compressed, it is easy to make out that the only users online were the newest member and i (and 500 guests).

i believe that this may deter some people from joining trap17 - when they see inactivity in the forums, they think we are dodgy.

also, there are no mods around at this time, and although i do my best to welcome new members and help people with their issues, there are some things which it is impossible for me to do as a standard hosted member.

let me give an example of one of the changes i believe should be enforced:

the other night (and kobra500 is a witness), there was a spammer on the forums. i warned him via both the shoutbox and pm not to spam, reported his posts etc., however due to the fact that there were no mods online, the only thing kobra and i (average hosted members) could do was watch in despair as this person continued posting things copied directly off the net. in the end, he managed to make approx. 20 posts, then decided he had spammed enough. he was banned the next morning.

in this case, a good change to the forums would be the following: if three or more members report the same post of the same member, he should be immediately banned.

just some of my thoughts

This post has been edited by bthaxor: Mar 18 2008, 09:14 AM

I think that could be a little harsh. I mean, this could easily be abused. Let's say a flame war or argument breaks out and one person gains the extreme hatred of 3 other people who then report him. And let's say, for this example, that they argued by the books. Though it could be considered flaming, they all brought up valuable points in the argument. Then they (the 3) report the one guy. He's now banned, and screwed out of a website over an argument and report abuse. Now I'm sure everything would be sorted out in the end, but that's way too much of a hassle to go through. I say we get more mods to patrol the nights / early mornings (this is by North American times...don't know what time it is over in Australia). The problem is that it probably won't happen. I mean, mods are people to and they can only stay awake so long. On the other forum I go to, we've gotten spammed heavily...I'm talking to the point of either 40 threads on a 50 thread per page on on part of the board, or someone making chat threads that consisted of literally "lol hey" "wassup lol". (that user literally had "lol" in all of their posts and had the worst grammar imaginable) I was relieved when a mod showed up and cleared all the BS out. But I'm no angel when it comes to spam. One night on that board we had literally filled the page with the same thread, and it said about how funny it would be if everyone made the same thread. I got perma banned on my main account after that. >_< But I learned since then, spam = bad....especially when there's no mods in sight.

So to sum up my senseless wisdom cubing, mods at night early morning is a good idea. We need them....just in case....of spam.....and stuff. Yea.

a system like that would never work. also if there is nobody online then there won't really be anyone to see the spamming or whatever is going on. a mod should be get on before too many people have ever noticed.

something that would perhaps be more useful would be to limit the number of posts a new member can make in a small timeframe.

always good to suggest new ideas though.

It's true I saw it all ! lol

No it was annoying and like bt sed he wouldn't stop copy pasting and I woulsn't mind because he was new however, he was warned and wouldn't stop which was the annoying bit!

I think we need mods in a different time zones because if you think about it and thats the problem australia is about 11hours in front of me! the only time I see haxor is very late or very early and there isn't always mods on @ that time and it was hours and hours later till a mod finally logged on and its a shame because if there was a mod it would have been easier to sort out in the end!

This post has been edited by kobra500: Mar 18 2008, 02:22 PM

I'm also a aussie, and whilst users and readers from around the world do read this forum. The hosting company is US based, so naturally more people from the USA would be members of the forum, but there would be a large world-wide contingent as well. Getting on-topic, whilst a good idea to stop spammers and the like, i'd have to agree that the system could be abused for reasons stated by other posters. Perhaps, restrict new members to certain parts of the forums and/or not allow them to post in the shoutbox could be a start.