Change to sign up process

[AJ Konlucko]

Following increasing issues with spammers and removed members joining back up, all new members must now be approved by an administrator or moderator.

(This has been discussed with the admins)

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm. My initial thought about this was that it might drive potential legitimate users away (because they'll think "Oh no, I have to be vetted" etc.)

However, if it keeps away spammers and serial troublemakers (i.e. people who were banned and who then joined up again under a different name), then it sounds like a smart idea.

[AJ Konlucko]

An update to this. All new members will now be limited to these groups until they have over 5 posts.

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[Terence Charles]

This doesn't seem to give new members many more options than visiting as a guest.

Will this really enthuse people to join the forum?

What happened to the area where members recently published work was noted?
Has this been deleted now as of no longer of interest?

[Rkcapps]

There's still a lot of content in the New to AWF forum. Enough to whet the palate.

We should add back in the published work. Paul said he'll be busy in December, and it's not the kind of thing I'm comfortable changing. Sadly, we'll have to wait for Paul. I'll look, but I don't know

[Terence Charles]

Rachel, it just seems like another negative knee-jerk reaction to place this restriction on all new members just because we had one person who enrolled who hassled PGB.

I could understand the concept of a vetting process where new members details were checked, but I fail to see the benefit of demanding 5 - 10 - whatever! Posts before a new member gets access to the forum.

Also why was the published works deleted without any discussions? Who makes these decisions?

[Rkcapps]

Terrence, there may have been a knee jerk reaction but it was a sound one. I apologise it seemed that way. Please trust us. PGB has been around 6 years. I have only been here 18 months. In my time, which is short by comparison, someone has attacked a member of the forum 4 times. We even lost a valuable member on one occasion. Imagine what PGB has seen? I have found most people duck in but don't stick around and that's completely fine. Real life always comes first.

And spammers bombard the forum weekly.

I have ensured there is enough content available for the transitory writers, there's weeks of material but they'll get better, more advanced stuff, if they choose to interact. I spend hours trawling for decent stuff, I only want serious writers, ready to commit writers, to get access to that. However, I am always conscious of the writer not yet ready to commit and meeting their needs to. I feel I'm doing that. Admittedly that's for novelists and I welcome anyone else contributing something different. There is more basic stuff available for a newbie and, for the advanced writer who is ready to commit, the bar is low to join.

I think the published works being deleted was a simple mistake. Thank you for pointing that out. We'll fix once PGB returns. I looked and I can't see how it's fixed. I handle the financial side, PGB the IT side.

[Enzed]

I joined the forum in 2011. From memory, I had to post a few times before I gained access to all forum threads. Peter ran it then so I suppose that was how he chose to manage the forum. I spent the waiting time reading the dozens of threads that were available to me. I learnt a lot reading those old threads, including the nuts and bolts of self-publishing.

The waiting period was pretty short as I recall. Most importantly, it gives the admin volunteers time to weed out the more obvious trouble makers (some are really abusive) and delete all spam so we don't have to read it.

[Terence Charles]

I understand Rachel, I'm just concerned that a only short time ago it seemed that encouraging new members to join was the biggest hassle the Forum faced, and now there are new regulations going to be enforced that may make a tentative new member decide its not really worth joining.

I'm just not sure what demanding five posts from a new member is supposed to achieve. Surely the BettyBoop type of scammer would send an intro, a thank you to anyone welcoming them, and then the remainder of 5 bland posts before starting to reveal their 'evil' intentions in any way.

I originally suggested having the 'Published Works' area hoping that it would give guests, new members etc., an opportunity to see the type of things that the members of the Forum are and have done with their writing, and perhaps it would encourage them to do likewise or provide a contact for them if they were in the process of producing something similar.

Perhaps you could encourage more of the current members to be available to you who can handle the IT problems concerned with the Forum when PGB becomes unavailable or out-of-sorts. It does seem that he waxes and wanes with his attitudes to the Forum pretty regularly.

[Rkcapps]

I'm sorry you feel that way, Terence. We do have another IT person but I try not to involve Peter. Peter used to own the forum but handed the reigns over to PGB. I try to respect Peter's wish to step down. I'm not asking you to be patient for long, especially over the Christmas period. Paul will be back, there isn't any need to involve someone else for the sake of a few weeks. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you this is a volunteer run forum which revolves around the real lives of it's members. It is not a business. We only accept voluntary donations. Therefore to expect 24/7 service, like a business, is unreasonable. This is normally Paul's busy time at work and his family time. We just need to respect that.

I hope you understand.