2018-04-29 19:51:34

Hi.
I have heard from a lot of new members on the forum, that they are unable to write any comments or new topics. A lot of new people don't know that they should write a comment in the introduction topic to get approved, and others are saying that they even aren't able to post anything in the introductions room.
It's sad to hear that many people are having that much trouble, and therefore are forced to stay away from the forum... I think it should be carefully considered regarding to new members and how they are going to be approved. What do you all think about this? I haven't made a new account to see the approving system in action, but I think it's a huge issue when a lot of people are having this issue, and because of that are forced to stay away from the forum...

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-04-29 20:04:50

I think the introductions topic is sticky, however I think it might be worth mentioning in the rules or something for anyone registering to see. Speaking of rules, how long has it been since they were updated?

2018-04-30 07:31:13

It should probably be put somewhere in the e-mail you get after registering.

2018-04-30 12:59:41

It is mentioned in the first question of the site faq. I'd like to add it to the rules,  but I'm not sure how to edit the rules, that might need to be done by Sander since its a back end thing.

Other than that I'm not really sure what the problem is. I did test out the system myself with a new account which I deleted. I suspect people are just not realizing about the introductions topic and so not posting there, which is a shame, but I'm not exactly sure what to do about it.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-05-01 08:08:49

What to do about it? Well, remove the system and let people post as soon as their account has been created. The question is: Do we want to exclude people from the forum because they either: 1. Don't realize where to post to get approved. Or 2. They can't even post in the introductions room for some weird reason. The fact is that people are giving up, according to what people are telling off the forum, and they can't let us know because they can't post.
The blind community is quite small compared to the sighted community, even world wide. Therefore, I see it as a huge issue that some people who really wanna sign up and post on the forum aren't able to do it. Peoples computer skills are different, which in my opinion, we need to respect. In other words: When some people find it difficult for one reason or another, there is an issue, simply because there aren't many visual impaired around, and it is visual impaired people we need. So, is it the new members who are giving up who are having an issue, or is it the forum? People who are giving up have other places to go because they are forced to do it. The people behind this forum would like to get new members for sure, especially when members who are giving up are saying that they wanna sign up, because they have great things to share.
It's like running a business. If people find it too difficult, they give up and find other places to go. It's not a matter about if the current members or admins are finding it difficult, it's the new members who are giving up which matters. I have heard about this issue from 5 different people, and feer many more people are giving up, don't tell anyone about it and just find other places to go.
I don't hope you feel offended about my arguments, and it's of course okay to totally disagree. But that's how I see it.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-05-01 11:05:42

No offense taken Slj, airing opinions is always worth while.

The problem however is there are some fairly serious counter points.
The first is you state that "members cannot post in  introductions topic or know where to post"
The problem is that over 400 posts in the introductions topic, with new members coming nearly every day shows  there are new members who are making it to the forum.

if there is some sort of technical issue with the posting we do need to know about it, and people are welcome to email, if however people are simply not able to post in the introductions topic due to lack of computer skills there isn't a lot we can do.
I'll gladly write up help documents etc and give what assistance I can, but at rock bottom this is a web forum, and if one doesn't have the minimal internet skills to fill in  form with edit fields like the submission form, and reply to a topic like the introductions topic there isn't much we can do.

finally I'm afraid there is yes, the matter of spam.
Myself and the other moderators all give our time free, nobody pays us.  the few weeks before the system was put in place we were having spambots post which were truly destructive, posting hundreds of posts to many topics, all of which needed to be tracked down and cleaned out by myself and the other staff, often having to be deleted one by one to preserve people's actual posts.

Nobody wants a captcha system on this forum, besides how affective capcha systems actually are is debatable anyway.

the introductions idea is a sort of halfway house. It does not require members to do anything unusual like decipher some impossible to hear numbers  guess at a password, neither is it intrusive, popping up every five minutes  since once a member's account is approved it will stay that way.

However, it does! prevent spambot registration in a very real, very applicable way, and hell, its not as if we're asking members to do anything out of the ordinary by introducing themselves first off on the forum anyhow (my own first ever post on the forum was in the introductions thread).

So, unless there is a technical reason why people are having trouble registering, I'm not really sure there is anything we can do about the problem.

I do agree that either a link to the site faq should be posted in a more readily visible place, or a note about posting in the introductions topic should be added to the rules, but other than those things I'm afraid I'm not sure what else can be done.

Hope this makes sense.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-05-02 07:49:26

Well, yeah makes sense, kind of. It's your decission which I'll of course respect. Does the contact form on the audiogames.net main website goes to you? Then, I'll ask people in the future to use this contact form if they are having any issues.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-05-03 12:24:37

The contact form goes to Sander who forwards email  to myself and the other mods so yes it is a way to get in contact. We will look at having the need to post in the introductions topic made a bit more promenant by perhaps changing the rules or putting a link to the site faq on the front page.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)