So last night a friend of mine who just joined (yet keeps posting but ends up in the moderation queue) said that he's getting this message when trying to post. "Due to abuse in the Mod of the Month Polls we have introduced a limit in the Article Discussion forum. As much as we like to welcome new members, we need to ensure that voting is fair by limiting it to regular readers and contributors. For this reason we are introducing the following restrictions: Firstly let me address the part about abusing the polls. It's no secret that during my years on the internet I have picked up a lot of internet friends. I also posted on Twitter, asking my personal friends and family to join up and vote for me. I can't see anything wrong in that, given that when we vote as a country our politicians rally for (and advertise for on the TV at the most annoying times !) votes. I can absolutely assure you 100% that every single user that joined up and voted for me is accountable for on various other forums on the internet and I could prove this beyond refutable doubt by linking to accounts on other forums with plenty of active posts. However, because of what I said above about voting being democratic I should not have to. How can there possibly be anything wrong with asking my friends and family to vote for me? it's not even like I have done so on this forum or any other forum ! I've seen mod of the month nominees asking for votes publically before. The second issue. Why is it that B-T seems to be doing everything in its power to stop people joining up and becoming part of this amazing forum? my friend Gareth (Cenedd) has been trying to actively join the community but keeps having to wait in the moderation queue. I can absolutely vouch for him 100% he's the person who has basically held my hand through every stage of my build. I see lots of people complaining that B-T is a shadow of its former self, how there are hardly any members left etc. Surely you should be promoting it rather than locking it behind a door?
Getting people to sign up just to vote for you is hardly worth it for the community as a whole. Lots of one post, dead accounts are of no use to the owners or the community. I think the rules on post limits for the polls and the marketplace are a good idea. I agree that the 10 posts thing is a deterrent for new members, especially given the length of time it takes for the backlog of messages to clear. I do recall it being a major pain in the arse when I joined. Its been brought up a number of times and moderators insist it's preferable over the amount of spam accounts that get set up, so it's unlikely tot change. A member referral scheme would be a good start and surely it would be helpful to moderators who the wouldn't have to moderate ten posts from newly referred users. People referring one post wonders are no good obviously so keeping the post limits on the polls/ marketplace should still apply. That's my two cents.
The people joining up are very active posters I assure you. They're also quite intelligent and could really add to this place. I don't mind the limits, more the tone of it. It's like I am cheating or something when in reality all I have done is what happens in a democracy.
I don't understand why winning is so important to you. I mean its not exactly a Nobel prize. Right now there are 70 votes for mod of the month. Without any restrictions it would be quite easy for someone to set up a bunch of dead accounts and vote themselves to win. There is no way to determine if someone is a legit new forum member or just a dummy account set-up for the purposes of cheating. Therefore the rule has been set up. Even if you are not cheating, someone else could cheat. The rule is sensible and makes the competition fair.
I don't want to win. In fact, being completely honest I would not benefit from winning at all, given that it is DDR4 in red which would be useless to me. The only rig I have that is DDR4 has £50 worth of XSPC memory coolers on it and is quad channel. It's also the rig that has been nominated, and if you've seen it you would see why red DDR4 would be useless to me. However, what I want is a fair stab at it. Being locked down to a click is not very fair is it? especially when you have your local favourites. So I asked my friends and family to vote for me. I would imagine Tim also did the same. TBH if it's this much faff then I will ask not to be nominated again. I don't care about winning and nor am I competitive (kinda like money it makes people act like holes) but I also find it a bit unfair that I can not ask people who have loved my builds on other forums to vote and they find they can't. I've achieved what I wanted to, and that was simply to be nominated for a build that was not created on a million quid's worth of tools and machines and actually cost less than £200 to mod. And I am very happy with that. Also? as for this abuse? when I was nominated for "monthly modding update with Corsair" I had absolutely no idea I had even been nominated until I had won. Dogbert sent me a message saying Anthony would be in touch and I had to ask him wtf he was talking about as I had been so busy modding that I had not logged into the main site nor seen the front page. And I won, fair and square without "abusing" anything. People who know me know what I am about. And I have a ton of internet friends that I have had since the dawn of it. I want to know why it's "abuse" asking them to vote for me.
Then maybe it could have been worded a little differently? I don't really disagree with any of it apart from how it is worded.
It's worded fine. There has been abuse of the Mod of the Month polls; the membership requirements were introduced to address said abuse, which they have done. I'm not sure if you think the message is specific to you and your friends; it is not. Anyone registering a new account and attempting to vote for anyone without reaching the membership requirements will receive the same message; they are not being accused of abuse, they are being informed of restrictions in place and the reasons for said restrictions (i.e. historical abuse.) Your reaction, though, does suggest that you're not quite as sure that inviting friends to join the forum specifically to vote for your projects isn't abuse as you're claiming - otherwise why get so het up? Oh, and one last thing: no, this isn't a democracy; democracy is a system of governance, and bit-tech is not (yet) in charge of the country (but wouldn't that be lovely? We wouldn't have bloody Brexited, for a start.) Even if bit-tech were a democracy, democracies also have restrictions on who can vote: here in the UK, you're not allowed to vote if you're under 18 (15 in Scotland), are not a citizen of Britain, the Commonwealth or RoI, are a convict serving out his or her sentence, are a member of the House of Lords, or have been found guilty of corrupt or illegal election practices within the last five years. Why are these restrictions in place? Well, some of 'em are there to prevent abuse, of course. A political party can't boat in a load of foreign nationals to swing a UK election their way 'cos there are restrictions on who can vote specifically to prevent that sort of abuse; Mod of the Month nominees can't boat in a load of posters from elseweb to swing the MotM vote their way 'cos there are restrictions on who can vote specifically to prevent that sort of abuse.
I'm not het up Gareth. If I come across as annoyed it's more because my friends are trying to post but can't. Maybe I have taken it a little personally so I apologise for that. And honestly, without sounding rude I would like to be excluded from future competitions please. I say that with absolutely no malice, but competing is something I do not do. I don't even play games with friends online unless they are co op FFS. It just makes me ill with stress which I don't need. As I said, I have achieved something that has been on my bucket list for many years now and for that I am eternally grateful
There's absolutely nothing stopping your friends from posting in the forum. Their first ten posts will be moderated, as everyone's are; after that, there are only the additional restrictions in the Article Discussion and Marketplace sub-fora which require minimum post counts and/or minimum membership length. Things like Mod of the Month, and indeed the Marketplace, are by the community and for the community. "The community," here, meaning bit-tech members. Your friends are your friends, but they're not members of the bit-tech community; if they join and contribute - and, let's face it, you don't have to do much to reach the minimum posting limits for access to the Article Discussion sub-forum - then they're members of the community and can do anything a member of the community does. I'm guessing that's something you'd have to talk to Antony about; I'm just 'ere for the news! Alternatively, just don't post project logs ('cos then nobody can nominate them,) or if you want to continue posting project logs then just ignore them if they're nominated (if you win, tell Antony to give the prize to the runner-up.)
I'm still waiting for Anthony to contact me. I heard he's a busy boy, so haven't tried to contact him or mention anything else. I'm sure he will see this though at some point TBH after this last mod I don't think I have many left in me any way lol. Had I known how much work it was going to be when I started it I would have not done it. Still, another thing off the bucket list. When it leaks all over the floor I will be reminded of why I said I was never going to do a proper water cooled rig
Wait, let me try and understand this. VT encourages his friends to sign up to BT to vote for him in Mod of the Month, but actually he's not competitive and doesn't want to win anyway? Personally, I think that post-moderation and the restrictions on voting, article discussion and the Marketplace are fine.
I don't see what relevance that has, to be honest. I'm just curious as to why you'd recruit other people to this forum to vote for you, but at the same time say that you don't actually want to win.
If you can put forward a half decent reason why I should have to explain it to you I'm all ears. Yes and to think I didn't explain the part where I took a shotgun around their houses (all over the world) and forced them to vote for me. I like competitions about as much as I like selling stuff. That's pretty much why I give most of my spare stuff away for nothing.
^This. It doesn't matter who signs up - their first 10 posts will be moderated regardless of who they are friends with on the forum. You would not believe the amount of spam that would make it onto the forum if there was no moderation queue. As for the message your friend received - if you click the FAQ/Rules near the top of the screen and check this section http://forums.bit-tech.net/faq.php?faq=new_faq_item#faq_poll_voter You will quite clearly see that you are not being persecuted but in fact are just being asked to play by the rules which have been the rules for years...
I would believe amount of spam that would make it onto the forum without moderation but wouldn't using a circle of trust method that allows new, referred members (referred from existing members with say 150+ posts) to skip the moderation queue not cut down the work load of the moderators?
