Creation of new threads restricted to 1/person/day in OT

[embalmer42]

Count another dissenting vote from someone who has yet to start a thread here....although I doubt it would make a difference how many people raised their voices in objections. As they have pointed out in the past, this is their site and they will do what they want.

How sad.

[Alexander's Horse]

The real reason they are doing this is that a lot of the other forums are dying and they want to force the OT posters to go and liven them up.

Eh? That can't be true, can it?

[Bill3000]

I suggest we have a petition on this. Count my vote in! (I'm on the Light Side, Ming, AH's, Imrans, etc. )

[Bird]

AH: What the hell are doing, siding with popular opinion. I'm sorely disappointed. I think you're just jealous you couldn't start a thread suggesting Mark G's remedy and thereby create all this commotion.

I'd like to see an example where someone posted two threads in OT in one day and the forum would be worse off if one of them were not there. And if everyone is worried about thread hijacking, why can't someone who's interested, but who hasn't already posted a thread, simply be the one who starts the new thread?

[Frodo83]

MarkG, I believe you said that your objective was to stop people posting 10 threads per day (when those who do fail to include quality) on the off-topic and screwing things up.

If that's the case, why did you make the limit 1 thread? I think a compromise would be a better solution. Most people have suggested something a bit less restrictive, like 2 or 3 threads per day. People still won't be able to post 10

[Giant Squid]

I would just like to add that I, too, am shocked, dismayed, horrified, perplexed, saddened, distraught, distressed, annoyed, irritated, and confused about this new policy. The last time there was real spamming in OT (unless I missed something) was over a month ago. For 1 person over 1 month, are you going to prevent 100 frequent posters from discussing the things they are interested in eternally? I've seen some bad decisions around here, but this one has to take the cake. You can already ban spammers...don't seriously restrict "good" posters as well!

Besides, now any would-be-spammer is going to have to spam the on-topic fora, which you are likely to like even less than spamming off-topic.

[connorkimbro]

Ehhh, i don't like this idea. One day is way too long. As ming suggested, one hour is MUCH more reasonable, but even that shouldn't be necessary.

Since you asked, i on average post less than one thread a day, but sometimes i get some ideas for more than one thread. Only one per day per poster will slow down the OT TOO much.

Try it i guess, but you got my NO vote already.

[Black Dragon]

I'm not talking about importing battle.net's 2 posts/2 hours rule, I'm talking about using whatever hacking technique is being used to institute a 2 threads/day rule.

[Tsk]

Problem: Your favourite threads are knocked into page two because of "spam".

Solution: Click on the link to page two.

There, that wasn't hard, was it?

[Alexander's Horse]

Of course this idiotic new restriction is just an open invitation for people to create D/Ls. I'd say just with my current IP accounts, logons and computers I could create at least 10 double logins without any chance of detection.

Someone just with AOL could create 5 on just 1 account.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it

[Urban Ranger]

I also think this restriction is too severe. It could easily backlash. For starters:

1) More DL to get around the restriction
2) Invasion of on topic forums by spammers and others

I understand that there is spam, but spam is always there. You can't eliminate spam unless you totally prohibit postings. I hardly think that's what you want to do.

In general, restrictions can be seen as challenges by bored people, and they will try to think of ways to circumvent it.

As I pointed out somewhere else, many spam because of post count. If you want to minimize spam, just get rid of the rankings and lift all (or most) restrictions on the OTF.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Mark - I think I've started about 6 or 7 threads here in as many months, so the rule doesn't affect me directly.

It does affect the feel of the place - if I'm working 12-14 hours in a day and AH puts up 3 email spam threads - I know I'll probably get a laugh and a stress relief. It doesn't bother me in the least.

Most times, it's the regulated's sense of over-regulation, more than the actual effect, the has the impact. People will either migrate to other fora or sites, go out of their way to subvert the rule with D/Ls, or get on ICQ and ask others to initiate topics for them. Do you then warn or ban someone for creating a topic for someone who's at the limit? I understand the intent behind the rule, but I think the silliness factor outweighs the utility - and it just begs the OT crowd to run amok. A 2 or 3 per day limit would be reasonable, and a total posts per day limit would definitely cure spam. 1 new topic per day, but unlimited posts, won't do much but trigger some reaction from OTers.

[Jasonian]

"Argh. I'm upset. Do this. Do that. I don't even understand the problem. Blah blah blah."

Ok, I think this thread has become a battleground of posters vs MarkG. How annoying.

MarkG, will you please breifly sum up what exactly it is you want this to acomplish so we all aren't taking wild stabs or cheap shots?

[MichaeltheGreat]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Bird on 06-14-2000 07:43 PM</font>
I'd like to see an example where someone posted two threads in OT in one day and the forum would be worse off if one of them were not there.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Realistically, you could get rid of any thread and it wouldn't make a difference. It's not the threads, it's the posters. And if the degree of regulation gets annoying enough, enough posters will leave that the forum becomes worse off.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by MichaeltheGreat (edited June 14, 2000).]</font>

[embalmer42]

...or could that be his intention: to kill off OT completely?