Hey, we need our entertainment sources as well ~

Then wouldn't it be more fun to ban them from posting in a thread, but still let them view it? That way we can taunt and ridicule them without fear of retaliation.

But that's boring Alice, if you're going to hang shit on someone atleast do it so they can respond. It's a bit cowardly otherwise.

p.s. can you thread ban me from here? I want to see what it looks like! =D

Yeah! And then people poking fun at said person will also be banned for derailing! Awesome!

olololol

Of course, Unbreakable was banned FOR THAT VERY SAME REASON!

It must also be fun to ban retards.

Anyways, I think this'll be an alright idea depending on how it's used. It's pretty easy for 1 or 2 retards to ruin a perfectly good thread (for example, the Nintendo Revolution thread has been remade THREE TIMES now because of certain people fucking it up), as opposed to ruining an already awful thread.

Haha~ some of you got a little too worried over this. These small thread bans won't count in our banning system. They're just a way to get rid of annoyances. They'd work good in the my stuff forum too, like blah said.

and Alice, they can still log out of their account to view the thread if they feel the need to sooo bad. The only problem is they still can't post in it unless they register another account. And of course they'll have to ponder if its worth it or not because doing that would only get them a global ban. So all they can really do is watch in frustration and maybe learn their lesson. :3

I have a great idea, just ban all zero posters from viewing the Requests section of GFF until they make a post, that way we won't have >50% of our members as zero-posing leeches (it's getting really close to being over 50% now).

Is there any difference between a zero-poster and a member with one, or two, or ten useless posts made just for access to the trading forums?

More importantly, what does that idea have to do with this thread?

Ya know, there's such an easy way to do that. Just set up an automatic usergroup promotion from "registered user" to "active user" which kicks in when the member in question makes level 2. It's a very simple thing to do, then set the forum permissions so that "registered users" can't read or post in the trading sections of the forum. I'm astounded you don't do that already.

The only problem with it is that you might get people spamming their way to level 2, but dang if that doesn't happen anyway. On forums that implement the reputation system, it's also possible to downgrade members back to "registered user" if their rep drops too low. However, the rep system is of questionable value, as coded in stock vBulletin 3.5.x forums.

What I've been wondering is just how hard it would be to hack a new kind of promotion/demotion into the codebase. What I see as being the ideal solution is to look at how many posts a user made in the last month. If that ever drops below about fifteen, then I'd say it's fair to downgrade them to "registered user" and lock them out of the good stuff.

Put simply, there are ways to keep non-contributory leechers from gaining access to the good stuff. The vBulletin promotion system has the potential to be very useful, if a few extra bits were added. Of course, I'm just a noob around here. What do I know?

If you actually want an answer, I'd say that this thread has to do with a proposed method for improving the quality of discourse. So does sega.co.jp's suggestion. I think that it's a great idea. The people who establish FTP sites and other trades have limited bandwidth. Why should it be sucked dry by people who don't contribute?

I don't get why people are speaking against this. Do staff seem that fickle to you? :(

Personally, this is a godsend for the gaming forums. Instead of wasting pages and pages of derailing posts consisting of "Stop being an ass" "I'm not" "Yes you are" "Ok, I am, but so is he" "No, he's not" "Yes, he is", the pesky one can simply be removed from that particular thread without a hassle. They can then take the hint and go elsewhere, or take the hint and take it to PMs with the moderator, which is fine too.

There is a distinction between "troublemaker" and "zero-poster", and the subject both of you are bringing up isn't quite relevant to the main purpose of the new feature. Many FTP owners are perfectly fine with having leechers use their bandwidth -- after all the objective is to share. The "persistant leecher" I'm talking about is someone who sits on the server all day and selfishly hogs available slots. We've had a member like that before (his name escapes me at the moment) who was banned along with his subsequent dupe accounts.

But while we're on the subject, this issue has been discussed many times in the past, with the overall consensus being that restricting access by postcount is simply not a viable solution. There are people who actively do trades, but don't post on the forums. Setting up postcount/activity barriers won't really serve to deter "non-contributory" leechers -- it's not really that hard to come up with useless, redundant and boring posts that manage to clear the spam threshold -- yet it will likely drive away honest traders who simply don't want to participate outside the trading forums (and we don't have a policy against that, either).

One possible solution to this is to employ a points system much like phpWind which rewards the user based on actual contribution rather than postcount, but that'll open a whole new can of worms. We'll have to carefully think this through.

What is it with you and your obsession with postcount equating to quality? Are you really that miserable a user, sega?



As for you, less crimethink plz.

Great idea, then you'll have a cluster of leechers posting Welcome threads just to get into the Request forum.

Except that Welcome, Welcome threads don't count to the post count.

Well then, you'll have random leechers heading to places like General Discussion or somewhere where itt does count, cluttering up the forum just to get themselves into My Stuff.

I know it sounds negative, but that would probably end up happening if users were required to post at least a single comment before they're allowed in.

Yeah. I did say "if you want an answer". I was proposing a specific solution to a stated problem. I do recognise that the problem that was raised is not the actual problem. It's my own belief that contributing to the quality of discourse on a forum is more important than using that forum as a platform from which to trade music, but I recognise that this does not reflect the opinion of the administration.

Interesting feature. Do thread creators get to ban people from threads they made? :D

No. Thread creators have no choice but to watch as www.sega.co.jp/spam goes to work on their threads, all in the name of respectability.

I heard the report button actually works now, though.

How often do you see people banned from servers come back to a thread and spam it to death? In the 2+ years I ran my server, that never happened to me.

To build upon this, should the thread creators have the ability to ban members from viewing their threads?

Well I would definately love to see it possible in the MyStuff forum and select other forums (like Community Commons).