Entry to HiFivsion Forum .. some rules needed ??

[Spidey]

Dear Mods and members,

Do we need RULES regulating entry of new members to forum?
Our prestigious forum is going through a rough patch and there is almost a anarchy or possible breakdown.

Also we see "new" members posting irresponsibly and starting threads for bashing a company, serving selfmotives, etc etc..
(Ref : threads started by two first posters on bashing 20North and LynxIndia in their FIRST post.. and the guy who posted on 20 north had bought some shavers,blades ,electric toothbrushes and what not which he was starting a thread with a blatantly negative "feedback " here !!)

Mods need to follow a stricter entry and posting rules like :

1) All new registrations need to tell the forum WHY THEY WANT TO BECOME A MEMBER AND ARE THEY INTERESTED IN HIFI
--> I have seen a forum where applications for new registration are cancelled upfront if mods feel the new member is uninterested/frivilious.

2) First tier of membership is ONLY BROWSE through the forum. The register person will become a member and the forum can add as many members as they want ; their member names will appear on who is online but they may not post.

3) This restriction of posting and starting new threads should be lifted when the mods scutinize the new member's registration.
--> I have been on another forum Team BHP where i was allowed to be "only-browse membe"r for a month , and my application for full-fledged membership rejected twice based on my "essay" why i want to be a member till i got it right.

4) Such stringent measures ensure exclusivity of the forum, prevent frivilious posters and starting of meaningless and hapazard threads.

5) When you have to wait for a month to post on a forum , you respect the forum and its rules and care for your membership.

well some people may argue,
how will a newbie post how to build his setup or configure it in so and so budget?

Well, arent there ENOUGH threads discussing on starting system configs from 5k to 15lacs...
shouldnt the browse it first ?
Or else everybody gets up and starts thread , i have a budget of 20k etc and how to build etc etc...
**#@ During the new members "WAITING PERIOD" before he can post, he will get ample time to read the threads and then post Intelligent Queries... when he starts posting.

Well as i read in signature of one our members " Search the forum before posting " or something like that or even in computers etc they say RTFM ( read the f*** manual) first !!

 

[corElement]

Too static for something as dynamic as the internet.

 

[vinay]

In-fact during this rough phase there has been some regular and leading members though being on line just did not participate with their views while some of them were just making a mockery about the pain phase. I think there is something like moral obligation.

On the other hand there are several members who have a lot of knowledge but will not help the fellow members but when they have a query they will just not hesitate to seek assistance. For them It is more of taking then giving back, this does not make the world a better place, ethical seeding is the way to go forward.

V.

 

[spirovious]

I can suggest,like other forum,if member is not active for a long,after notification,his membership can be canceled.
I found very long list of members & many are not logging in.
After they get answer from forum,they give up.
Pls.note this.

 

[santhosh]

Spidey, I concur with your views on new threads, but not on points 1 to 5.

Apart from having to post the same info again and again, it also spreads the information across the forum thus diluting it. It would be great if we can merge newly started threads to existing threads on the topic. Also, a note from the mods, asking them to search before they start a new thread.

3) This restriction of posting and starting new threads should be lifted when the mods scutinize the new member's registration.
--> I have been on another forum Team BHP where i was allowed to be "only-browse membe"r for a month , and my application for full-fledged membership rejected twice based on my "essay" why i want to be a member till i got it right.
[/COLOR]

But, no entry essay or any other criteria please. Even I am a member of Team-bhp and I have never seen another Indian forum moderated so well. I also agree its rules and tight moderations helps in maintaining quality of the posts. But, I also know how this has been criticised heavily on some other forums and many of the points made sense.

 

[thevortex]

Spidey - I am a member of an auto forum which does exactly what you describe. And believe me, it is not very well appreciated for these things. In fact many people believe that the website administrators are a bunch of snobs - which need not be true.

We are still young despite our growth and number of hits. I dont think we need exclusivity at the cost of keeping people from posting. If you look at regular posting members, I still think we dont have more than 10 or 15 of those. We need more.

About those new threads with questions and all that - I guess some strong moderation is required in the sense that the threads are closed and the members asked to refer to relevant threads already opened on the same topic. That is the only way.

There is one other way. For all members who have less than 50 posts, when they try and start a new thread, it has go through moderator approval. This is more work for the mods but this might not be such a bad idea. Something to think about for the community, I guess...

 

[vinay]

Well there are some members who create new thread at the drop of a hat. I hope the modertor etc does not expect us to bring this also to their notice.

V.

 

[santhosh]

Nice points Bala, moderation is the answer to many of these issues but will be an overhead for the mods considering how busy they already are.

I was wondering whether some of these mundane tasks can be delegated. Can we have a role like "Volunteer" or similar just like we have "Super Moderator" and "Moderator". The "Volunteer" is someone who is interested in making the Forum better. They can have much lesser access privileges that the Moderator, but can advice the member to search and then report a thread to moderator for deletion or merging. The mods can initially check before pressing the Delete button. Once they have gained confidence on the Volunteer's ability, they can just do a "select all and delete". Not sure, what the vBulletin software allows, but something in these lines would ease some of the load for the Moderators.

 

[Sujit]

We were largely a self moderated forum for a very long time. I wish we can continue that way! Too many rules will only throttle!

 

[svenkateshsmart]

1. Also we see "new" members posting irresponsibly and starting threads for bashing a company, serving selfmotives, etc etc..
(Ref : threads started by two first posters on bashing 20North and LynxIndia in their FIRST post.. and the guy who posted on 20 north had bought some shavers,blades ,electric toothbrushes and what not which he was starting a thread with a blatantly negative "feedback " here !!)
2) First tier of membership is ONLY BROWSE through the forum. The register person will become a member and the forum can add as many members as they want ; their member names will appear on who is online but they may not post.
3) This restriction of posting and starting new threads should be lifted when the mods scutinize the new member's registration.
--> I have been on another forum Team BHP where i was allowed to be "only-browse membe"r for a month , and my application for full-fledged membership rejected twice based on my "essay" why i want to be a member till i got it right.
4) Such stringent measures ensure exclusivity of the forum, prevent frivilious posters and starting of meaningless and hapazard threads.

I can suggest,like other forum,if member is not active for a long,after notification,his membership can be canceled.
I found very long list of members & many are not logging in.
After they get answer from forum,they give up.
Pls.note this.

There is one other way. For all members who have less than 50 posts, when they try and start a new thread, it has go through moderator approval. This is more work for the mods but this might not be such a bad idea. Something to think about for the community, I guess...

Well there are some members who create new thread at the drop of a hat. I hope the modertor etc does not expect us to bring this also to their notice.

V.

I was wondering whether some of these mundane tasks can be delegated. Can we have a role like "Volunteer" or similar just like we have "Super Moderator" and "Moderator". The "Volunteer" is someone who is interested in making the Forum better. They can have much lesser access privileges that the Moderator, but can advice the member to search and then report a thread to moderator for deletion or merging. The mods can initially check before pressing the Delete button. Once they have gained confidence on the Volunteer's ability, they can just do a "select all and delete". Not sure, what the vBulletin software allows, but something in these lines would ease some of the load for the Moderators.

Hi,

Brilliant points, just made a compilation of suggestions by all of you. I am sure mods are looking at this.

My 2 cents - I feel there should be more moderation as to creation of new threads. A script which makes the member 1) Select the category 2) Necessitates some search on previous topics (like we need to wait 30 seconds) will reduce lot of redundancy and denies if there is existence of threads on previous topics.

Cheers!

 

[gobble]

Indeed I think we forum members need to learn how to post and follow some forum manners like searching for an existing thread before creating a new one.

Besides TeamBHP another great forum where decorum is wonderfully preserved is http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com.

I think HFV members can benefit a great deal by perusing that forum and observing and learning how forum members post and contribute to an Internet forum in a mature manner.

The forum has a good rule I think HFV can observe and mods can be really more proactive about:

--------
Checklist before posting New Topics
New members are requested to please check the forum for threads that already have content relating to any questions/comments they may want to post and post questions on there. This may require some lurking and reading through forum posts. If anyone has questions related to technology, future developments or any other simple queries, please post them in the Question Board folder.

The forum has a lot of traffic and too many topics fill up the forum too fast, unless we can all cooperate to keep the number of threads down to a manageable level. Sometimes there are questions that have no easy answers, and people get the impression that their question is not getting the attention it deserves because there are no answers. That is wrong. Also, please remember that there is no competition on to see whose thread gets the most traffic. This is an internet forum and no special status is granted to a public personality over a regular member. Ultimately the content of each member's posts and his/her ability to contribute positively in a harmonious fashion are recognized by other members.
-------------------

I seriously think we should reduce the clutter of so many threads and mods should pro-actively work towards restricting creation of new ones. Of course all members have a special case - " I am looking for .. my budget .. what should I buy?" question and these type questions should go to question board. The mod can act like a Traffic Cop and direct the member to the appropriate thread. This will help those who are not Internet search savvy and cannot find things for themselves. Nip a thread before it grows like wild grass.

I think forum members should also pause before posting and consider if their post is frivolous or does not add further insight to the topic. Of course I have been guilty on occasion of posting just to crack a joke, but jokes aside, the moderators should observe and PM the OP that his post was frivolous, much like a parent reminds a child not to forget his manners. Over time the habit of frivolous posts will die out in the members. We can even have a button only visible to mods so they can do it with one click. But the results of the click can be visible to all as a "Frivolous post" to generate some social embarrassment to the OP as a "cease and desist" motivator The we can score the member with the most number of frivolous posts and reward him with a trophy every quarter like a mock Oscar parody

Just my Chaar Annas

HTH
Regards

 

[HiFiVision]

Thank you all for your insights. We will definately consider your comments and see how we could incorporate them to make India's Audio Video Home Theatre and Hi-Fi Discussion Forum a better place for you all.

The thread is now closed.