At 4/13/05 04:12 PM, jonthomson wrote: Either that, or only allow users to make their first post on a particular day of the week (which I've suggested before somewhere else), or have a newb forum which is the only place you can post until a mod whitelists you. But I think your idea would probably work better, on NG at least.

The n00b forum/mod approval of each user would be ideal, but this board really is too big for that. Gotta keep it simple.

At 4/13/05 03:51 PM, Captain_Bob wrote: I've posted this before, but I will post it here as James seems to be reading this thread.

New accounts should have some sort of delay for posting, either time based or possibly exp-based. For example, a new account wouldn't be able to post for a week, or before the account has 100 exp. This would stop forum spammers dead in their tracks and cut down on alt abuse and ban evasion using alts. This would also encourage lurking in the forums, essential for good posting habits right off the bat, and would get new users more familiarized with NG.

Ok i personally don't agree with this idea. I have been going on newgrounds for around a year now and I always read reviews so I know what is good and what is'nt in flash and i can review accordingly. I may only be 14 but I think that i know what sort of thing is important in flash. (if you dissagree read some of my reviews) I just recently decided to actually make a NG account, and i have alredy got 55 b/p points after a couple of days. I may only be a level 2 now but i am definitly NOT a noob. If we were to add a delay then those of us new to NG who know what thewy are doing will not be able to post, which does not seem fair. I agree that it would help with spam but I like to get my oppinion across too. And if you do not have enough proof that i am not a noob then my rankings are as follows: Exp. #104,356 of 722,637 and B/P. #38,358 of 722,637 and this is after 3 or 4 days.

And one thing i would like to see changed on NG is that ther should be a way to tell how many whistle points u have, and how many it takes to get to the next level. Im sorry if this point has already been brought up, i just didnt feel like reading this whole forum.

At 4/13/05 03:51 PM, Captain_Bob wrote:

New accounts should have some sort of delay for posting, either time based or possibly exp-based. For example, a new account wouldn't be able to post for a week, or before the account has 100 exp. This would stop forum spammers dead in their tracks and cut down on alt abuse and ban evasion using alts. This would also encourage lurking in the forums, essential for good posting habits right off the bat, and would get new users more familiarized with NG.

I agree with this idea - in principle...

At 4/13/05 04:12 PM, jonthomson wrote: Yeah, I don't like the way that people can just sign up for a new account and start posting straight away, we've had some problems recently with dicks creating multiple accounts just to spam/flame as each account gets banned.

...Yes I have seen this too...

Either that, or only allow users to make their first post on a particular day of the week (which I've suggested before somewhere else), or have a newb forum which is the only place you can post until a mod whitelists you.

I would suggest a different solution. Such as the forum you suggested where all the blam/exp depositing 'newcommer' questions etc are all dealt with there. And after the week, amount of exp 'whatever criteria' their profiles will be marked as allowed into the general population.

But I think your idea would probably work better, on NG at least.

I disagree on these reasons -
How do I level up? How do I 'x'- user gets bored, upset and tired after waiting for a week and leaves NG
What does 'X' mean? What does it do? - same again the person doesn't get the assistance they need and leaves.

As for the mods - Alot of users are added everyday. The mods will be run off their feet - and there will be no info to go on for 'knowing' who is who - in alot of cases. Background/history etc.

At 4/13/05 08:31 PM, The_Dark_Klown wrote: Ok i personally don't agree with this idea. I have been going on newgrounds for around a year now and I always read reviews so I know what is good and what is'nt in flash and i can review accordingly. I may only be 14 but I think that i know what sort of thing is important in flash. (if you dissagree read some of my reviews) I just recently decided to actually make a NG account, and i have alredy got 55 b/p points after a couple of days. I may only be a level 2 now but i am definitly NOT a noob.

You're talking as if Captain_Bob is suggesting preventing users from doing ANYTHING on NG for the 'trial period'. He's just talking about disabling posting.

If we were to add a delay then those of us new to NG who know what thewy are doing will not be able to post, which does not seem fair. I agree that it would help with spam but I like to get my oppinion across too.

It's only for a week or 10 days, that's hardly going to kill any user. And the fact is, that people like you who 'deliberately lurk' before creating account are a definite minority; and since you've waited for a year already to post, what's a few extra days in terms of hardship?

A large number of people coming to NG throw themselves, without thinking, into the BBS; and they often get banned on their first post, or within their first ten. Giving them a non-posting period would encourage them as Captain_Bob said, to read the rules and watch the forums to see what kind of behaviour is accepted here.

And finally, until you've been a mod dealing with a deliberate spamming spree by a user and his alternate accounts, I don't think you can appreciate what a boon it would be to disallow brand-new accounts to post. Hell, even a day's delay would be great.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm fully in support of Captain_Bob's suggestion.

At 4/13/05 08:56 PM, Denvish wrote: A large number of people coming to NG throw themselves, without thinking, into the BBS; and they often get banned on their first post, or within their first ten. Giving them a non-posting period would encourage them as Captain_Bob said, to read the rules and watch the forums to see what kind of behaviour is accepted here.

I think that this is completely foolhardy. Of course they get banned on their first post. But there's a little checkmark that says "I confirm that I have read, understood and will abide by the RULES of the NG BBS and that any infringements of those rules on my part could lead to me being temporarily banned or even in termination of my user account." For good reason. It means that they're taking full responsibility into their post and that if they don't post the way they were supposed to, then they deserve the ban. It shouldn't require a waiting period that long to read the rules, especially when the rules only take a few minutes to read. If someone clicks it honestly, or they click it knowing they haven't read the rules, then it doesn't matter. People who merely want to post will wait the period STILL not read the rules and STILL manage to get banned on their first post (or in a very short period of time).

Short version: A waiting period doesn't stop them from bypassing the reading of the rules and it certainly doesn't encourage reading the rules either.

At 4/13/05 08:56 PM, Denvish wrote: And finally, until you've been a mod dealing with a deliberate spamming spree by a user and his alternate accounts, I don't think you can appreciate what a boon it would be to disallow brand-new accounts to post. Hell, even a day's delay would be great.

That'd be great. Not only would it make spammers have to wait a long time before they can go through with their spamming, but having to wait a week may make them forget all about it and prevent some account-spam from happening at all.

At 4/13/05 09:51 PM, TheJoe324 wrote: That'd be great. Not only would it make spammers have to wait a long time before they can go through with their spamming, but having to wait a week may make them forget all about it and prevent some account-spam from happening at all.

Yeah... but (1) malicious people are going to be malicious anyway, because that's what they do... so when they start doing that, why not just get an IP ban?! Cause seriously, if they're here to cause that much trouble, they might as well just be permanently block off. And this leads to my second point (2) once they've waited a week for their spamming spree, what's to stop them? Reading the rules? Does telling someone who is a problem spammer with multiple accounts to read the rules stop them from their spamming?

At 4/13/05 09:56 PM, Atomicus wrote: Yeah... but (1) malicious people are going to be malicious anyway, because that's what they do... so when they start doing that, why not just get an IP ban?! Cause seriously, if they're here to cause that much trouble, they might as well just be permanently block off.

Mods can't IP ban. An admin would have to do that. And since there are 3 admins that would generally deal with that (From what I understand, Tim just manages the servers.) and the fact that Tom isn't really around that much to take care of things like that, that leaves 2 admins. liljim is busy implementing features and making sure the site doesn't run into problems, and Wade generally deals with complaints and things that people send. That doesn't leave much time to stick around and IP ban people. So someone can spam for an hour or two with 50 accounts and not get IP banned. There's also the posibitily that they use something like AOL, which has a dynamic IP, which would make it extremely difficult to stop them.

And this leads to my second point (2) once they've waited a week for their spamming spree, what's to stop them? Reading the rules? Does telling someone who is a problem spammer with multiple accounts to read the rules stop them from their spamming?

Like I said, if they have to wait a week most people get discouraged and will either give up or forget their usernames/passwords/email addresses they signed up with. Most people that spam here aren't that smart to save that kind of information and may forget it. Or, they may forget that they were going to spam it at all and move on with their lives. Also the fact that when they run out of accounts to spam with (let's say they make 10) it'll be another week before they can do it again. People could make dozens and dozens of accounts today and just spam with them.

At 4/13/05 10:07 PM, TheJoe324 wrote: Mods can't IP ban. There's also the posibitily that they use something like AOL, which has a dynamic IP, which would make it extremely difficult to stop them.
Like I said, if they have to wait a week most people get discouraged and will either give up or forget their usernames/passwords/email addresses they signed up with. Most people that spam here aren't that smart to save that kind of information and may forget it. Or, they may forget that they were going to spam it at all and move on with their lives. Also the fact that when they run out of accounts to spam with (let's say they make 10) it'll be another week before they can do it again. People could make dozens and dozens of accounts today and just spam with them.

I think that Tom and Wade might consider giving the mods that kind of power IF they could be assured that the mods were responsible enough people to do it sensibly. I don't think that they feel it's wise to give that kind of responsibility to a mod though, simply because of (and I don't mean any offense) the kind of place this is. However, I think that it would be beneficial to give that kind of power to the mods. For one, we don't really need all the mods we currently have. I was on once and was only trying to get my crew locked and I had to wait for at least an hour before someone was available. Yes, there's lots of users and yes it's hard to keep track of everything. But this kind of place does breed relatively senseless garbage.. it just does... and even some of the mods get into it. I think that with an IP ban, mods could more quickly get rid of problem people (some who might happen across NG again one day thinking "oh yeah, I have an account" and start their spamming spree then, since there is a "forgot your password" option). Because, honestly, there aren't enough of those REAL troublemakers to ask for a week long wait before they can post. Plus you might be discouraging some decent posters from returning. The kind of people that find the forum are the ones that probably find the site first and enjoy the flash, and then decide "Hey I'm gonna get an account!"... the week long wait might not discourage as many of the kind of crowd you're talking about. For those super-troublesome dynamic IP's then you get an admin to do it.

At 4/13/05 10:29 PM, Atomicus wrote: For those super-troublesome dynamic IP's then you get an admin to do it.

Obviously you don't know how dynamic IPs work. Basically banning someone is impossible with that without banning a block of IPs which would block thousands or even millions of people.

In any case, the main reason mods don't have IP ban powers is that the IP lookup causes a huge strain on the database, and if several mods were to run IP searches at the same time, it could actually crash a server.

What I am proposing is quite simple, and what you are proposing is complicated and difficult to implement.

From a mod perpesctive, disabling new accounts from posting for a week would be a HUGE help. Disabling new accounts from reviews for a day even would help a great deal there. Spammers are lazy and just want to get their message across as easy and fast as possible. There is actually something called the "Newgrounds method" that spammers use for this site, because it is very well known how easy it is to spam here. Even if mods get the spam quickly, a large number of people will still see the spam, so the spammers mission is accomplished.

Now allowing n00bs to post in a special forum so they can ask questions like leveling up, ect is not too bad of an idea, because people can't seem to read the damn FAQ which basically anwsers every possible question a new person could have about NG.

James has read my post, and said he would have to run this idea by Tom and Wade. So we shall see.

At 4/14/05 10:32 AM, Zendra wrote: Here might be a nice little idea:

I voted on a movie and I could saw a review, but that review was very abusive. And I couldn't mark it, because the movie which it has been reviewed for is still under judgement. So wouldn't it be nice if we would be able to mark reviews if the movies - which it has been reviewed for - are still under judgement? Maybe a little idea.

But yet you can anyway, you're not supposed to be able to but I find that by clicking the profile link in the latest review thing, then going to the guys review and marking it as abusive, it will say you can't make it because the review is under judgement but checking back, it was marked.

And then again, if we aren't supposed to see the reviews, why can we see the latest review on the voting page?

Because that's AFTER voting, when it no longer matters, if we could see the reviews BEFORE voting then we could maybe cheat the voting system a little.

You know I just realised something, a way to gaurentee that you would get the point when voting on an UJ movie, two browser windows, both the under judgement submission but with different proxies (maybe online or something.) the one not at risk just votes and see's the score, then the one with the point to gain votes right afterwards, isn't there a way to stop this? Which I doubt, maybe get major online bypassing proxies blocked from voting for anti cheating things?

At 4/14/05 04:00 AM, Captain_Bob wrote: Obviously you don't know how dynamic IPs work. Basically banning someone is impossible with that without banning a block of IPs which would block thousands or even millions of people.

Hmmm... you're right... but aren't there ways of preventing certain ISPs? (yes I'm making another stupid assumption) I mean there could be other ways around it.

In any case, the main reason mods don't have IP ban powers is that the IP lookup causes a huge strain on the database, and if several mods were to run IP searches at the same time, it could actually crash a server.

Well hopefully the idea is that you wouldn't need as many mods and certainly wouldn't need to run several searches... Granted, the size that NG is already enough that any strain is bad.

What I am proposing is quite simple, and what you are proposing is complicated and difficult to implement.

Ok, I'll agree with you that giving mods IP banning power isn't a good idea.

From a mod perpesctive, disabling new accounts from posting for a week would be a HUGE help. Disabling new accounts from reviews for a day even would help a great deal there. Spammers are lazy and just want to get their message across as easy and fast as possible. There is actually something called the "Newgrounds method" that spammers use for this site, because it is very well known how easy it is to spam here. Even if mods get the spam quickly, a large number of people will still see the spam, so the spammers mission is accomplished.

My question is... is the disabling effective enough? I mean... it doesn't stop them from waiting the week and coming in to spam anyway. Chances are a spammer like that is a regular spammer and that's their whole purpose. Plus is it worth turning away lot's of new members? You're discouraging spammers, but you also might be discouraging non-spammers from making healthy contributions. I mean, what kind of percentage is the "spam population" to put a kind of damper on those who don't?

Now allowing n00bs to post in a special forum so they can ask questions like leveling up, ect is not too bad of an idea, because people can't seem to read the damn FAQ which basically anwsers every possible question a new person could have about NG.

Now that's a good idea... instead of a complete disabling, give them access to one forum only. They still will get the chance to post and ask questions, AND it becomes easier to monitor spammers.

James has read my post, and said he would have to run this idea by Tom and Wade. So we shall see.

Sorry if I seem argumentative, I'm just offering up another opinion before some strange thing gets implemented without any opposition.

I think that the "Forum Jump" list should be added to the bottom of topics, so i wouldn't have to scroll up a very long page of posts to go to a different forum like what happend just 3 minutes ago :P

I think that the "Forum Jump" list should be added to the bottom of topics, so i wouldn't have to scroll up a very long page of posts to go to a different forum like what happend just 3 minutes ago :P

In a sense there is. At the bottom right of the topic beside all the other shortcuts there is a little buttom that takes you to the top. It's not exactly what you want but it will save you some time.

At 4/14/05 01:26 PM, The_Dark_Klown wrote:

I think that the "Forum Jump" list should be added to the bottom of topics, so i wouldn't have to scroll up a very long page of posts to go to a different forum like what happend just 3 minutes ago :P

In a sense there is. At the bottom right of the topic beside all the other shortcuts there is a little buttom that takes you to the top. It's not exactly what you want but it will save you some time.

Which gives me another idea, there should be a link at the top of every topic that takes you to the bottom of every page :)

At 4/14/05 04:00 AM, Captain_Bob wrote: Now allowing n00bs to post in a special forum so they can ask questions like leveling up, ect is not too bad of an idea, because people can't seem to read the damn FAQ which basically anwsers every possible question a new person could have about NG.

Cool thanks

At 4/14/05 12:24 PM, Atomicus wrote: Now that's a good idea... instead of a complete disabling, give them access to one forum only. They still will get the chance to post and ask questions, AND it becomes easier to monitor spammers.

Tak igen...

But to poke hole in my idea - there should be a way for accounts to be fast-tracked - only upon proper request of course, and by mods (who by definition responsible are enough) to allow users on. If the users are smart enough they will know how to properly ask and who. Oppose to spamming that forum with 'I wanna get mainstreme now' threads.
I say that because of - hacked accounts (Have to start anew). And other 'extreem' circumstances, I can't think of any others at the moment.

At 4/14/05 12:49 PM, Toocool100 wrote: I think that the "Forum Jump" list should be added to the bottom of topics, so i wouldn't have to scroll up a very long page of posts to go to a different forum like what happend just 3 minutes ago :P

I am 100% behind that idea.

A topic was made just now where somebody couldn't find an NG preloader. The link on the portal says "NG loaders N stuff" To me that doesn't make too much sense, it could mean something else than just a preloader (what, i have no idea). The wording should be changed to "NG preloader" or something :)

damn me on this double post!

but anyway, "Get the NG Flash Preloader" sounds the best, and least confusing :)

If you want to go to the top and bottom of the page just press the "home" key on your keyboard to go up, and the "end" key to go down.
Simple as that

At 4/14/05 12:13 PM, FrOzEn_FoX wrote:

At 4/14/05 10:32 AM, Zendra wrote:

But yet you can anyway, you're not supposed to be able to but I find that by clicking the profile link in the latest review thing, then going to the guys review and marking it as abusive, it will say you can't make it because the review is under judgement but checking back, it was marked.

That's pointless. Graveyard reviews are simply 'disconnected' from the system, and they aren't deleted. That's the problem... And it would require liljim to do lot of recoding if we want review mods to be able clean up the graveyard. Still, some get caught sneaking abusive reviews to crappy submissions on turd of the week ;)

At 4/14/05 03:35 PM, VeryProudofYa wrote: If you want to go to the top and bottom of the page just press the "home" key on your keyboard to go up, and the "end" key to go down.
Simple as that

Thanks! I'm still pretty new to PCs, and that was a very helpful tip!

At 4/14/05 01:28 PM, Toocool100 wrote: Which gives me another idea, there should be a link at the top of every topic that takes you to the bottom of every page :)

These are on your keyboard, they're called the "home" and "end" keys.

I think NG should have a setting where you have the option of a low-bandwidth, simple layout mode.

If they still have some of the older page design things kicking around anywhere, it would be easy enough to just copy them into an if statement in the page generation code.

This would probably be beneficial to the bandwidth of both NG and the end user.

However, unless they still have the old site layout pages, it might be a bit annoying to put together new ones.

Also, it could be annoying to decide what should and should not be turned off.

Another, somewhat more difficult to implement design would be to allow a user to turn ertain things on and off (Ex: for the BBS, you could have sig pictures, sig text, fancy BBS layout, level icons, etc.)

That could end up being a pain in the bitch to code though.

At 4/14/05 12:24 PM, Atomicus wrote: it doesn't stop them from waiting the week and coming in to spam anyway. Chances are a spammer like that is a regular spammer and that's their whole purpose.

Like Bob said, most spammers are lazy. This has been proven since the time limit between reviews has been implemented. When spamming, most people just want to do it and move on, getting as much as they can at once. With the addition of the 3 minute time liimit between reviews, most people make one review and move on to making another account to spam or giving up altogether... Because there's a big difference between spamming 10 reviews in a minute and spamming 10 reviews in a half hour.

There's also the fact that some people just spam for the hell of it with no intention of returning to the site. (A final spam to show how much you hate someone/something on the site.) Having to wait a week will probably make them forget about it since they would have moved on. And by the time they came back and remembered that they were going to spam the site, they might have forgotten WHY exactly they were going to do it, and what exactly they were going to spam. This would also prevent initial spamming right after a ban. If someone gets a week ban, they may make another account to bitch about it. If they had to wait a week to post on THAT account, their main one would be unbanned by then and there'd be no point to use it anyway.

Plus is it worth turning away lot's of new members? You're discouraging spammers, but you also might be discouraging non-spammers from making healthy contributions.

If people are actually dedicated to the site and plan on staying here, a week would be nothing. There's also the fact that most people probably don't sign up to use the BBS. So by the time they find it, if they had made an account already then the week long waiting period would have already gone. And if there's a forum for them like Bob mentioned, they'd be able to ask questions like "how do I get exp?" or "how d I blam/protect??" if they really needed to know.

I was cruising the portal when I noticed something.

If you have a flash that has a 3.00 rating, and a flash that has a 3.49 rating, they're both green. However, the .49 difference could mean the world in the quality a movie.

So why not stick a little peice of Javascript in there that would change the shade of green according to score. Like, if it a flash scores a 3.04 rating, it would be a light green. If it had a 3.45 rating, it would have a noticeably darker shade of green. It's subtle, but I think it'd still be effective.

Maybe even the same for blue and red...?

At 4/15/05 12:51 AM, Umsutfeersme wrote: If you have a flash that has a 3.00 rating, and a flash that has a 3.49 rating, they're both green. However, the .49 difference could mean the world in the quality a movie.

True, you raise a good point.

So why not stick a little peice of Javascript in there that would change the shade of green according to score. Like, if it a flash scores a 3.04 rating, it would be a light green. If it had a 3.45 rating, it would have a noticeably darker shade of green. It's subtle, but I think it'd still be effective.

That's a nice idea, I usually avoid low greens and go for the higher ones. However, I do not mind spending a few seconds hovering the mouse over a submission for the score.

Maybe even the same for blue and red...?

Not sure about blue, some get daily awards which allow people who get the PBot e-mails (or those who read the PBot postings) so they can see the submissions without visiting the portal (and therefore get enough publicity without the blue shading).

The red is a bad idea, it would be the same as showing the score. While now it shows it's close to being blammed, your idea would encourage people to vote depending on the shade of red.

I have a simple yet useful suggestion.

Have the /bbs/takepost.php file convert all less-than symbols (<) into &lt;. I've done that on RG, and it works well at preventing HTML tags from evaluating. You just have to watch the acceptable tags (<A>, <B>, <I>, <U>). It would make it a lot easier to help people with HTML questions, like the ever-present "how do I make a link" question.

At 4/14/05 03:42 PM, Maus wrote:

Thanks! I'm still pretty new to PCs, and that was a very helpful tip!

More than happy to help.

I really like the average score on the reviews.
Keep up the good work.

At 4/15/05 02:54 AM, ShittyKitty wrote: I have a simple yet useful suggestion.

Have the /bbs/takepost.php file convert all less-than symbols (<) into <. I've done that on RG, and it works well at preventing HTML tags from evaluating. You just have to watch the acceptable tags. It would make it a lot easier to help people with HTML questions, like the ever-present "how do I make a link" question.

Wait... You mean we should watch <A> and other tags, so the text somebody post would look like this...

New users <B>MUST</B> read the FAQ!

Come on. Just save the text on the hard drive and copy-paste it when necessary. It's not that hard.

At 4/15/05 09:11 AM, juraj wrote: Come on. Just save the text on the hard drive and copy-paste it when necessary. It's not that hard.

- Not everyone is as savvy as you seem to be.
- Not everyone has ability to save to the drive. A lot of the users here use school or library computers.

This is about making NG user-friendly. Not beating down people that are new.

I operate on a school network, there are also people who go to NG when at work (before starting, during the breaks etc.. *cough*). There are certain restrictions and configurations that are set. Such as the firefox topic I mentioned in the other thread. I've done what you've suggested incidently. But thats becasue I know how. Most people don't.
As Maus said - user friendly and accessable.