Not enough posts to partake in photo challenges

rainemac · 16-11-2014 6:12pm #1

As above, is there anyway that I can partake without having the 50 posts? I'm a member since 2012 but only using in last while. Mainly want to use for the photography section and I've come to the point where I want to start sharing and getting feedback on my photography.
Any advice appreciated?

Rainemac

Tokyo · 16-11-2014 8:05pm

Contribute 36 more posts. Not being smart, but that's not exactly a huge overhead, and you should use the time to get a feel for the forum anyways.

OldGoat · 17-11-2014 11:01am

This is an on-going problem for the Photography forum. Many of our users are lurkers rather than participants and have fallen foul of the revised publishing restrictions on Boards. Unfortunately the new ruling was put in place for a good reason and the benefits to Boards.ie of having the post-count far outweigh the nuisances affecting some users.

However by starting this thread you have increased your post-count and by responding to any of our comments will further increase it.
Ask some questions in the photography forum or answer some of the questions already posted there. We are a friendly bunch (mostly) and you'll find that clocking up 50 posts will happen quickly enough.

Meanwhile you could always PM one of the photography mods (me for example) and give me the link to the images you want to share and I can re-post them for you.

I wonder if there is any thoughts amongst Admin and the development team on lowering the post-count limit from 50 to 20? Would it still act as a spamtrap while making life easier on noob and lurker users?

Spear · 17-11-2014 11:06am

As a short term workaround, he can still post links, they just won't be clickable. They may need to have a space inserted to stop them triggering the block, but another user would just need to copy and paste them manually into an address bar.

rainemac · 17-11-2014 4:36pm

Thanks everyone! I'll get posting so! Just don't know if i've much to contribute of worth and don't want posting s**t but I guess it'll force me to overcome that concern.

rainemac · 17-11-2014 4:37pm

I might do as spear says if this is acceptable?

OldGoat · 17-11-2014 4:42pm

rainemac wrote: »

Thanks everyone! I'll get posting so! Just don't know if i've much to contribute of worth and don't want posting s**t but I guess it'll force me to overcome that concern.

Posting ****e is Boards raison d'étre.

Tiriel · 17-11-2014 7:19pm

rainemac wrote: »

I might do as spear says if this is acceptable?

Yep! Definitely post your link.

Do you use a site such as pix.ie or flickr to host your photos?

If so, post the link and then one of the mods will quote it for you fixing your link. That way you'll be able to get feedback/contribute until your post count is up.

rainemac · 17-11-2014 7:52pm

Thanks, I tried to post with spaces in the links and it still wouldn't allow so I cut to the chase and sent it onto a mod that'll post it at some stage hopefully! Another post up! whoop whoop!!

Tokyo · 17-11-2014 7:53pm

33 to go..

Harold Finchs Machine · 17-11-2014 8:16pm

Cut out all the http stuff from the link and paste the rest and people can then google and open.

rainemac · 18-11-2014 12:27am

Im nearly there, been busy this evening!!!

Harold Finchs Machine · 18-11-2014 12:46am

rainemac wrote: »

Im nearly there, been busy this evening!!!

Haha.

rainemac · 18-11-2014 6:17pm

only 14 pointless posts to go!!

Dav · 18-11-2014 7:06pm

I find it a little difficult to believe that on a site with about 800 forums covering all sorts of topics that you're reduced to making "pointless" posts.

Join in, you're welcome! Don't stand outside in the cold giving out!

rainemac · 18-11-2014 9:53pm

Dav wrote: »

I find it a little difficult to believe that on a site with about 800 forums covering all sorts of topics that you're reduced to making "pointless" posts.

Join in, you're welcome! Don't stand outside in the cold giving out!

I don't mean to seem as though I am giving out! For me I have decided I am going to use the photography forum, so through attaching photos from my flickr account or putting up photos that I might show to friends and family that may also use the site, I do not feel like I am going to be an anonymous user of boards and I do not want to comment on anything that is controversial or give my opinion on stuff that could come back on me in the future, personal or professional, or put me in a bad light to for example a future employer, its a bit OTT but I have used other sites in the past and become easily identifiable after a few posts so rather than make the same mistake, I am going to be identifiable but be careful about what types of threads I post on.

Whammy! · 18-11-2014 11:24pm

I too was in your position.
I joined boards ages ago but never really posted anything. When I decided I wanted to contribute to the photography section a year ago I was freely able to.
I stopped posting over half a year ago and a few months later I went to post a photo again but all of a sudden I wasn't allowed to link any photos.

I found that immensely odd as my account was a few years old and I was contributing to the forum.

Luckily at the time I was only 2 posts away from 50 so it was easily fixed.
I can imagine the inability to post photos could possibly deter anyone solely interested in the photography section from sticking around.

Obviously I understand the need for this feature.
Is there no way of adding a CAPTCHA feature for anyone under the 50 posts range? Or would this not be sufficient to prevent spam? I'm assuming all the spam is automated.

Anyways,
Thanks for posting in the challenge rainemac

Orion · 18-11-2014 11:43pm

I don't know if this is tehnically possible but could either of either of these be done:

A) reduce the post count for specific forums (after consultation with the mods of course)

give mods a button to allow links for specific posters in their forums. You could get a feel for a poster after relatively few posts and decide they could contribute well so allow them to do so without having to post randomly to get their postcount to 50.

Neither may be possible or if they are not easy but just throwing in my 2c.

Avada · 19-11-2014 10:59am

Whammy! wrote: »

I too was in your position.
I joined boards ages ago but never really posted anything. When I decided I wanted to contribute to the photography section a year ago I was freely able to.
I stopped posting over half a year ago and a few months later I went to post a photo again but all of a sudden I wasn't allowed to link any photos.

I found that immensely odd as my account was a few years old and I was contributing to the forum.

Luckily at the time I was only 2 posts away from 50 so it was easily fixed.
I can imagine the inability to post photos could possibly deter anyone solely interested in the photography section from sticking around.

Obviously I understand the need for this feature.
Is there no way of adding a CAPTCHA feature for anyone under the 50 posts range? Or would this not be sufficient to prevent spam? I'm assuming all the spam is automated.

Anyways,
Thanks for posting in the challenge rainemac

Not all of the spam is from bots unfortunately. It's also to stop re-reg trolls posting inappropriate content on the site afaik

Dades · 19-11-2014 11:18am

I'm not sure it's such a bad thing that people need 50 posts before posting their shots in the Photog forum. Some people are very quick to post for feedback without much inclination to reciprocate (not suggesting that's you, OP!).

And there should be an incentive to get involved and to know the place before peddling your wares.

Lovely Bloke · 19-11-2014 11:42am

Would it be possible to set up something similar to the Soccer Access system, where if n00bz want to participate in these kinds of things? Can permissions be applied on a per user basis? If someone posts a few genuine entries, could they be given the profile changes to allow themt o participate fully?

Tiriel · 19-11-2014 11:52am

I think for the Photography forum something should be done if at all possible. The participation rate in the forum has declined significantly - which is natural for for older members to post less frequently etc. but because there is a limitation on participation for new members, it means that the forum has gotten very quiet.

The random photo thread for example is purely for photos -discussion not encouraged. So new posters are being excluded which I don't feel is fair and the forum is suffering as a result.

Would love to see a work around.

OldGoat · 19-11-2014 1:26pm

^^^This.

The competition thread was also an entryway into the forum for new photographers looking to dip their toe into the forum.

When a new user with their first point&click is looking for pointers on how to improve it's rather difficult for the users of the forum to pass comment on the photograph without actually being able to see the photograph.

We're not saying that the 50 post-count is completely detrimental to the life-force of the forum but rather just voicing that it's not a great thing for everyone on Boards and as such that a re-consideration of the policy be pencilled in for review.

Dav · 19-11-2014 4:33pm

It'll certainly be up for consideration, we're kind of at the mercy of the platform's limitations too unfortunately.

But when we rolled it out, we had some very specific issues that needed fixing and this 50 posts/10 days limit has not only solved them but has reduced our spam monumentally overnight which is definitely a big tick in the Win box for us.

Honestly, I'd still much rather see people posting more anyway - 50 is a very small number and I'd be more concerned as to why people don't feel they can join ongoing conversations on any forum or community despite showing an obvious interest in contributing to another part of it - but maybe that's another day's discussion.

I will look into "exclusions" on a forum basis, but it may not happen this side of Christmas. It's also not easy to apply it on a per-user basis without manual intervention by an Admin (and at that we perform a simple re-write to modify someone's account to have a post-count greater than 50 and a join date of greater than 10 days).

OldGoat · 20-11-2014 9:52am

One positive consequence of the 50 postcount is that my mobiles battery life is much longer since I don't have to login numerous times throughout the day to remove bot-spam.

A Little Baby Elephant · 21-11-2014 6:25pm

OldGoat wrote: »

One positive consequence of the 50 postcount is that my mobiles battery life is much longer since I don't have to login numerous times throughout the day to remove bot-spam.

How do you know the spam is there or not if you don't log in??

KERSPLAT! · 21-11-2014 6:44pm

A Little Baby Elephant wrote: »

How do you know the spam is there or not if you don't log in??

E-Mail

Not enough posts to partake in photo challenges

Comments