Disable New Members? !! PLEASE VOTE !!

[Shelldragon]

Shell thinks: Good IDEA +++!!!

I think everyone's already covered the pros and cons repeatedly to death.

Merhaps you could come up with an alternate filter solution than contacting you to ask for an account.

example: a little question page before the sign up part, not very many questions, - maybe three- They don't even have to be very good answers. Questions like:
1) Why do you want to be a part of the MMLS forums
2) How often do you intend to visit and post
3)What do you like best about the Megaman Legends series

Just a little bit of something to filter but it wouldn't be too difficult. They could sign up right away after submitting the questions and then it would be up to mods to delete them later or not.

[pitch]

MMLEStaffer said:

I'm also for this idea - eliminating accounts that go idle for more than 2 weeks. I make a habit of posting AT LEAST once every 3 days...if I have the opportunity to, everyone else should be able to. If users don't care to participate anymore, then why should they clutter up the members list? (May sound a bit mean...)

Dude... I was gone for like 2 months, but I had computer troubles like crazy. If I were to be removed because I was innactive I'd never come back here again. That's not just unfair, it's seriously uncool.

Anyway, while I'm not entirely against the Disable New Members idea, I gotta re-Mphasize, make it simple. Why would someone who's never been here before - and as a result has no idea how cool it is ;D - wanna go through a grueling long process to sign up? Even a really big Legends fan would be turned off by that idea. I dunno, just make it something simple enough, and it should be fine.

[GustaffGlyde]

Eh, insomnia… couldn’t get to sleep so I wasted time doing this and that for hours on end, and now that I’m bored I’ve decided to go over this again… Eh, just don't bore yourself with this if need not be...

+ Members looking to join would have to confirm that they have read the rules, understand them, and agree to follow them.

Granted, this may cause some to read the rules, but it’s easy to simply say you did without actually doing so. I don’t know how many of those “user agreements” there are that I’ve never even bothered to read. I simply say that I agree and ignore them.

+ New members who bother going through this extra step are more likely interested in actually being an active member.

Really, that’s not necessarily so. Time passes and people forget. That’s just how things are. Even with this rule, people will join and then fade away as time continues. This would only mean that people would be more likely to at least post once instead of not at all, and that’s even worse. Most forums just have a system where they send out an email to inactive members after a certain period of time (usually half a year to a full year) and if no one responds or they decide that they don’t want the account to stay, it gets deleted.

+ Assuming member quality improves, the mods have less work to do and can post more instead of using their forum time for duty.

Well, I already pointed out that this won’t necessarily improve membership quality, so I’ll point something else out. Feldinaut and Pharaoh seem to be able to post just fine. Sure, sometimes there’s some SPAM that needs attention, but if they really want to say something they do so. The only two people who don’t post regularly are fab and Blyka. This proposal would put more of work load on fab which would worsen the situation, and I’m guessing this won’t affect Blyka much at all as he’s probably working on some project like Launch the Drache anyways.

I’m sure it may seem like a good idea, but it’s only plus is that it’d get rid of inactive members more quickly, and there are far better ways to go about doing that. Maybe you could make a simple news letter that would be emailed to all members once a month or so. You know, just saying what’s new on the site and forum. People forget about things, and if you remind them they’ll come back. Going through such unnecessary methods for such a simple goal just isn’t logical. Placing a restaurant in the middle of the sea (the Baratie aside) simply to avoid bad customers isn’t a good idea at all because you’ll lose both bad and good and be left without anything. I mean, just because your cooks say their overworked isn’t any reason to do something such as this as then they’d have nothing to do at all and, with time, the restaurant would die.

If the situation were truly bad, if SPAM was omnipresent, then such a measure would be more than justified, but such is not the case. We may have a few cases of SPAM a day, usually a random message or a misplaced thread, and occasionally you get an Ally, but you pull through and do your job.

I mean, if double posts and posts with less than four words annoy you so, then just install a code or something that’ll either delete it or merge it to the poster’s first post automatically. Once again, a more logical options…

If you want proborads codes/hacks, go here… they can really make a forum look nice (that is a proboards site…) (List of codes and Double posting code. I haven't the slightest how they work, but I'm guessing fab knows). Eh, well I’m off again… don’t really know if that helped or if it was just a waste, but eh, it’s what boredom will do to ya.

[pitch]

GustaffGlyde said:

Granted, this may cause some to read the rules, but it’s easy to simply say you did without actually doing so. I don’t know how many of those “user agreements” there are that I’ve never even bothered to read. I simply say that I agree and ignore them.

I think the idea is that fab or someone else on the staff would ask members questions about the rules before they join. Just to see if they looked at them. I dunno, when another site I'm on did this, that's what they did. fab could have something entirely different in mind.

Everything else you said, though, seems pretty solid. That newsletter idea is cool, too. ;D

((who was Ally? this is like the third time I've heard it mentioned, but I don't think I was here...))

[fAB]

Okay... First off, this thread grew so fast, I'm amazed! Thank you all for voicing your opinions! There's so much ground covered here, if I try to quote and respond to everything I'd probably have to double post to fit it all.

So, I'm gonna try to keep it short and simple, let's see if I succeed...

One thing I want to clear up is the frame of mind behind this thread... Some people are responding as if the mods were complaining about what a tough job we have and how rough things are. Not the case! Not the case! I did mention it in regards to modding, yes, but the intention here was simply to "consider" a "possibility" that "might" make the forums a more pleasant place for everyone--not trying to make the staff's job easier necessarily, even if I gave that impression. The forums look different from the position of admin, trust me, and that's why I wanted to see what everyone thought on this subject.

Now, as to the results... As I said above, there's a lot of ground covered in this thread. Several good points made in favor of each side... And yet when you get right down to it, I can sum up the whole thread and my conclusion in just one sentence:

I wouldn't want to imagine the MMLS Forums without GustaffGlyde, Fire Griffin, aarond, and JMC47.

No amount of pros or lack of cons can argue with that statement, IMHO. So, sign-ups stay the same for now. As for alternative suggestions that have been made, I'll keep them in mind...