Private forums and board quality

[Terr]

Okay, basic idea. You need at least three people to make a forum. These three need to each fulfill some minimal (as yet unknown) membership requirements in terms of time/posts/etc.

A request to make an Private Forum is submitted. It must be approved by an administrator. The forum is created, and any founder can change the description and the 'invite' list for posters. The forum is read-only for uninvited people. The founders can assign moderator status within the forum. In order for the forum to be deleted, all three have to register that they want to get rid of it. (This prevents some twisted sibling from taking your account through a cookie and deleting your forum.)

Ideas, comments? This *would* cause some stratification of the board, but I know that some of the older members are getting somewhat tired of reading posts consisting of "Nice post" comments, etc.

[stflook]

I think that private forums would be a good idea, if non-members get read-only access. The only thing I think they need to prevent is guests posting something stupid. Speaking of stupid posts, I think we need a "How do I hack Hotmail" type forum available for the guests and newbies. That way, all the script kiddie questions are in one place, ready to be flamed by the members.

[pooja]

Seems Dishy, as long as i'm invited to post my comments!

[ZeroOne]

What if the criteria to post in the forums were the status of AntiPoints? If you don't have a positive AntiPoints balance, you can only read the forum. Second criteria could be that the writers must be Members (Or something in between Member & Senior).

-ZeroOne

[Shmoo]

I agree if stflook, I just don't want to see a rule where you have to have 200+ posts, to post.

[stflook]

I never suggested a rule like that. A rule like that would be ridiculous. I just want to make sure that guests can't come in and ask "How do I hack Hotmail?". We can set aside a guest forum for that. For the rest of the forums, membership should be required.

[stflook]

Originally posted by ZeroOne
What if the criteria to post in the forums were the status of AntiPoints? If you don't have a positive AntiPoints balance, you can only read the forum. Second criteria could be that the writers must be Members (Or something in between Member & Senior).

-ZeroOne

I disagree. I went through a period where I was getting royally screwed over with antipoints. I would get nailed by negative points for posts that were in any way controversial, and I never got any good points for even my most thoughtful posts (some of those got negative points too). What's to stop this from happening to somebody else? I don't want to see people blocked from forums because somebody is using antipoints to get back at them for something.

Plus, if you are blocked from the forums because of antipoints, how are you going to get positive antipoints if you can't post anything?

[Terr]

Well, personally, I don't trust antipoints. I have already found a bug to assign as many as you want to whomever you want, including yourself. (JP has since tackled the issue.) Furthermore, APs are really no substitute for a real person's evaluation. Those are the main reasons that I don't really trust APs as any sort of access-qualifier. As a quick-glance-for-people-who-haven't-read-much-of-person-X... sure. Also, I'm just leery about the possibilities for AP abuse. Someone could concievably make a ton of registered personas and automate a AP-attack over the course of several days, gradually but insistently whittling down a choser user's rating...

At any rate, I'm just opposed to the use of automated access controls, unless the forum becomes truly humungous, which I would doubt.

[Simon Templer]

Terr, I like your idea on the private forums, I think it would alleviate a lot of the useless posts, and allow for more intelligent conversation.

I don't agree with the idea of using the number of Antipoints as eligibility to post. There are a lot of intelligent helpful people on this forum that unfortunately doesn’t have as high of AntiPoints as they should (There is also the issue as mentioned by stflook of getting "screwed" by people). I think basing eligibility on the number of posts, and account age is a good idea!

stflook - I thought the Newbie forum was for the "how do I hack hotmail" questions?

[TeKRoMaNCeR]

My thoughts... I think a private forum is an excellent idea.. And.. number of posts.. and antipoints should not be the factor of determining whether or not someone may join the private forum..
You should be invited.. obviously a private forum would be very selective.. hence.. private.. It should take several invites.. let's say 3-5.. So.. if Terr read a new members posts.. and liked what he had to say.. he could invite him.. and.. if the new member starts flaming people, Terr should be able to cancel the invite before 2-4 more people invite him.. ANd.. If Simon Templar likes his posts.. then that's another invite.. just 1-3 more invites.. as long as Terr or ST don't cancel before he is officially in.. Certainly however... you WILL need some humor in the private forum.. OH YES.. You WILL need it..

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