A couple of suggestions

[Nixt]

Yo.

Just a couple of suggestions, things I wanted to look at before I left. I mentioned them to James I think so he may already be considering them. Take them, leave them or w/e!

Bans - so a lot of bans are completely ridiculous in the context of the rules today. Some of them are downright unfair, as most people who have been in Forum Management will know bans from people such as ---MAD--- were for ridiculous things such as "Constant negativity" just because you told him that he was Hitler.

More often than not, a member would appeal a ban from a while ago and it would be lifted. Why? Because in today's context we would look at it in disbelief and think, what the hell?!

So my suggestion is this, and it will require some work from the administrators, which is in fairness enough to rebuff it. Although if you're willing to put in a bit of work, it could be beneficial. I propose that you spend some time reviewing any bans over say, six months old. Review these bans and evaluate their fairness - this is generally easy to tell (ban by MAD, probably going to be lifted). A kind of amnesty, but not quite the whole "unban everything and everyone" as suggested before. Then if the member has a current account (Dandertaker is a case in point here btw!) then you merge the unbanned account with their current account.

At the same time you could do a big public drive, encouraging members to appeal their ban if it is over x months old because it's likely it will be lifted, offering them also the chance to have their account merged into their current one.

Would need proper planning and execution but that's an outline.

Code thing for new members - Remove it!! Seriously it's nothing but detrimental to new member retention. People just can't be arsed with this. Notably the individuals you are trying to appeal to. It's pointless, as long as the moderators are competent (they are) then they can deal with spam bots quickly and effectively.

Correct me if I am wrong, but when you sign up you have to fill out exactly the same code you have to fill out for your first five posts anyway? So surely if a spam bot can get past the thing at registration, they can get past it when they post?

There are better ways, I hardly ever see spam bots at CHF with the image thing we have on registration.

It's seriously off putting and you would do better to do away with it altogether.

[immense]

traitor.

wait i read it and it says something about bans. i agree. unban me.

[Callum.]

I think you should be able to change names to something that is taken but hasn't been used in 5 years and has 1 post. Can't believe you left before doing that Garion .

[AgnesIO]

The spam bots can apparently not get passed the five post CAPTCHA - and to be honest I doubt they are even 'bots'.

But surely you remember, before anything like this was in place you got spam bots on a weekly basis, and they were never banned etc till 4 o'clock when the MOD's got back from school/college/uni/work.

[Grig]

Yes yes, it is much more down to the rules. It's time to open up a bit, and look at it with a more rational perspective, rather than going straight for the ban. It's more like a sort of institution with a bunch of rules, that can be interpreted in many ways and that's the stimulant to many arguments nowadays.

[Nixt]

I think you should be able to change names to something that is taken but hasn't been used in 5 years and has 1 post. Can't believe you left before doing that Garion .

Lol the name change rules I implemented were the only fair way of doing it. Although a potential user name clear out or member prune would make sense but higher management are against it. Thinking about it though if an account hasn't been active for 5 years then changing their posts to say "guest" isn't going to make a big deal, nobody really reads the old threads. It's only for recent members it becomes an issue.

The spam bots can apparently not get passed the five post CAPTCHA - and to be honest I doubt they are even 'bots'.

But surely you remember, before anything like this was in place you got spam bots on a weekly basis, and they were never banned etc till 4 o'clock when the MOD's got back from school/college/uni/work.

We still get spam bots now. Or if they can't get past the five post captcha, a human hired to register the accounts does. And that's why I suggested implementing a more effective system for registration - i.e. the image rather than the random letters.

[Samantha]

I think you should look over bans.

I know I'm banned and that happened like 9 months ago, and now I have been relatively behaved over the forum.
I think you should look at people who persistently break the rules.

[AgnesIO]

As a pointer if you unban people who have been permed, perhaps only do so if they have not had an infraction over the past 6 months?

Warnings are fine.

[Nixt]

As a pointer if you unban people who have been permed, perhaps only do so if they have not had an infraction over the past 6 months?

Warnings are fine.

It would be up to management. I'm not suggesting that you unban everyone with no past infractions (most of them will have been wiped anyway with expired infraction removal). I am suggesting ban reasons are reviewed - some of them are for things like "Constant negativity" which is stupid. Another ban appeal I recently responded to was because a user was banned for making one minor racist post. Unacceptable, yes. But ban worthy? Not really. I'm basically saying look out for the harsh bans (in today's context) and remove them. But obviously some common sense would have to be applied so as to not unban people who are clearly trouble makers.

Just unban where the ban is obviously far too harsh, as was often the case in the past. I'm suggesting this as a kind of middle ground thing. Obviously a mass unban is out of the question, so a mass review is essentially the next best thing.

[Inseriousity.]

retired and still churning out the essays

lolol, I think it would raise public morale to review old ban's and merge harmless ban into their current accounts although I wonder how many 'HOW COME I WASNT UNBANNED' requests we'd see and a set of criteria would then have to determine whether a ban should be removed or not. Perhaps this is something that can be arranged fairly with members and forum management to avoid said problem occuring in the future. And not just take every suggestion but adapt and adjust to ensure a compromise on both sides (those who want to be unpermed will give any criteria they can to get out of their ban!).

As for image capture retention thing, I don't really mind what way. Bottom line is they type in what an image is or what letters are. It's still going to be mundane and a bit of a struggle. I'm not sure if there is or even if it's possible but maybe a better idea is to put a little message underneath it saying 'Don't worry, after 5 posts, you won't have to do this anymore!' which is better motivation than changing it to an image of a butterfly surely.