New Member Limited Account And A Full Access / Full Member Account Implemented

[Steve Herschbach]

New members now have limited access until they reach Full Member status. New members may not add profile information until reaching Full Member status - too much stealth spam is being created there. There is no ability to edit their own posts until they have made 10 posts and been a member more than 30 days. There is no access to posting classifieds until after 10 posts and 30 days.  Finally, the PM function is disabled until Full Member status is attained. To many scammers joining just to PM people junk.

Any new account that has not posted at all in the 30 day period may be deleted. Anyone with more than one but less than 10 posts will simply remain in the regular Member account status indefinitely. The accounts that make at least ten valid posts and have been a member at least 30 days will automatically be promoted to the new Full Member status. This will give access to the Classifieds, remove the PM block, allow full profile editing, allow links and post editing, preset "signatures" and more.

This does not affect any existing accounts!! Any current members with less than 10 posts etc need not worry as all accounts as of this morning were promoted to Full Member status. Anyone with no posts however should at least post once or lose your account after 30 days have passed.

This was done to stop the excessive spammer activity after consulting the current membership over the last month. It should pretty much put a complete halt to that sort of thing, while also encouraging new members to be more active. Lurkers are welcome, but will need to post at least once.

Thank you everyone for the valuable feedback on this subject.

I will monitor the new setup but if anyone experiences anything odd due to the new setup, please let me know. I changed quite a few forum settings and hopefully got it all right.

Finally, I want to say why I am doing this. It is to protect the core participating members from spammers and scammers. It is to help insure that you are dealing with good people on the Classifieds. The idea of this forum has never been about having lots of members, it is about having high quality members. In that I think it is succeeding - kudos to you all. 

[Hard Prospector]

Sounds good Steve,  practical yet still fair to new-b's with good intentions

[mebeep]

I'm new to this posting side of things, but have really learned a lot from Steve and others on this forum. Thank you!

[Valens Legacy]

Thanks Steve,

I know that you have been working hard on this to make this site safe for everyone and I for one appreciate it.

 

[NorCal]

Working good for me. Thank you.

[Gold Seeker]

Working on my end now!

[Steve Herschbach]

A person just reported trying to register, and a box popping up and asking for a credit card number for "verification". That IS NOT anything to do with this website and if anyone gets such a thing, then your system has been infected with a virus or malware. The only thing required to register here is an email address. Which I never give to anyone, ever.

[MsMollified]

Hi,

Does replying count as a post? Or does it need to be a new posting?

Thanks.

[Gold Seeker]

1 hour ago, MsMollified said:

Hi,

Does replying count as a post? Or does it need to be a new posting?

Thanks.

If you notice that under your user name it shows 1 post now that you replied in this topic, so yes your reply counts as a post.