It is weird that lots of post threads are locked for non-reasons. In the self-introduction section, some users only post once, then, his introduction was locked by the admistrator. Why?
The main threads that get closed are the ones in the 'introduce yourself' section, around the rest of the forum there is a number of reasons for the thread to be locked, such as duplicate post or a discussion has already been had about something.
In the introduce yourself section though, they get locked after a couple of days to stop people just posting 'Hello' messages and hence there post count rises without giving any true content or interaction with the rest of the community.
For the introduction section, I don't think there's any bad effect of people coming to say "hi" to new members. Instead, a lot of "one-time" show-up members dissapeared after the self introduction. It is weired.
For the introduction section, I don't think there's any bad effect of people coming to say "hi" to new members. Instead, a lot of "one-time" show-up members dissapeared after the self introduction. It is weired.
You would be surprised!
Some members used to "copy and paste" their "Hello, Welcome" messages into each individual "introduce yourself" thread. At one stage we had whole pages of replies by individuals attempting to artificially inflate their post count.
For other browsing members not only was this an annoyance, it devalued our content, thus we put a stop to it by closing the introduce yourself threads after a few days. More over the section only serves to let members meet each other and say Hello, the real contributions/sharing/learning starts when they join in discussions or ask their own questions through the other sections of the forum.
Would it not be possible to make it so any posts in the introduction section do not actually go towards your post count? I have seen this implemented on another forum and it works quite well. Although, many new members rely on their introduction thread to gain enough posts to use the private messaging system.
Would it not be possible to make it so any posts in the introduction section do not actually go towards your post count? I have seen this implemented on another forum and it works quite well. Although, many new members rely on their introduction thread to gain enough posts to use the private messaging system.
It's probably possible but I think that over complicates an issue that has already been resolved. We keep an eye on people that post in that section, just in case of abuse but its mostly been eradicated now that we close them off after a few days.
Linear Mode
March 2010
