Registered Visitor User Group Changes

I have disabled people with less than 20 posts from putting in Custom User Titles. This is, in part, to keep people from dropping by, putting in a couple posts, and then putting in a company name, web site or whatever.

Essentially, when people register the software puts them in the 'Registered Visitor' user group.

http://elsmar.com/jpg/Registered Visitor User Group General Settings 080721.jpg

There is a 'Promotions' system in the vBulletin software which allows a person's user group to change based upon certain criteria. For years this has been the setting:
http://elsmar.com/jpg/Registered Visitor Promotion Settings 080721.jpg

A change in the future will probably be to allow people who have a significant number (significant is yet to be defined) 'help' posts (where the person helps others with specific answers (pointing someone to the poster's web site is NOT a 'helping' post) to their questions.

If you want examples of people who might (this is being discussed, among other things, in the moderator's forum) fit this category, please see the posts Wayne (http://elsmar.com/Forums/member.php?do=getinfo&u=17641) and Bob (http://elsmar.com/Forums/member.php?do=getinfo&u=3292) have made. They help people here. I want a way to recognize those that help and this is one way I think we may be able to ease up a bit on the current TOS.

It is probable that I will be changing some other restrictions and use the current setting of 20 posts before someone can get 'Visitor' messages, have 'Blogs', make 'Social Groups', and have picture 'Albums. These changes will help reduce forum spam, I believe.

I entertain your thoughts and comments.

I think this is a great idea and great change. Thanks Marc.

FWIW: Maybe making this poll anonymous might be a better idea.

FWIW: Maybe making this poll anonymous might be a better idea. I thought about that, but I sorta feel that if someone votes, especially on something like this, anonymity isn't a big deal. I'd sorta like to know how different people feel.

I do understand what you're saying, though. A public poll typically will not draw as many voters as an anonymous poll will.

Heck. It's just an opinion poll and if someone is afraid that others will use the vote in this simple poll against them for some reason, there's a deeper problem.

Marc,

Would a "trial run" be an idea? See what the changes will do?

In addition, let's think about ways to make The Cove Forums better known.
I am surprised that so many folks in the quality and related professions are not aware of this great resource.

Stijloor.

Since this is about user groups, I'll share with you all of the settings a user group has. Each of these is 'tailored' for the specific user group, but each user group has the same main options.

The below are the current 'Registered Visitor' user group settings as of 21July2008@~8pm:
http://elsmar.com/jpg/Registered Visitor settings 080721pm.jpg

If any of you have any suggestions for any settings, jump right in this thread and we can discuss.

Bear in mind, at 20 posts the user is 'auto-magically' moved to the "Involvement Access - Posts" user group which has different option settings. NOTE: This is done by a 'cron' which runs every hour at x:45 am/pm, so the user group change isn't immediate when someone posts their 20th post.

I haven't really gone through all the options in every user group in a while. As you can see, there are a LOT of options... I'm starting to go through them thoroughly this week.

As I said, if you have feedback, this is the time and the thread to do it in.

Your thoughts on knocking the 'Promotion' down to 10 posts instead of the current 20?

Would another 'Promotion' level be a good idea?

Here are the options (strategies):
http://elsmar.com/jpg/Promotion Options_600.jpg

Post 5 (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=261203&postcount=5) updated. 21July2008 at about 8pm.

To remind everyone: It is probable that I will be changing some other restrictions and use the current setting of 20 posts before someone can get 'Visitor' messages, have 'Blogs', make 'Social Groups', and have picture 'Albums. These changes will help reduce forum spam, I believe.

I continue to entertain your thoughts and comments.

Your thoughts on knocking the 'Promotion' down to 10 posts instead of the current 20?

I think this is a good figure. By the tenth post, we'll have a pretty good idea about the 'user'.

I think this is a good figure. By the tenth post, we'll have a pretty good idea about the 'user'. That's what I was thinking. After 10 posts, we pretty much have some sense of the person's intent.

I could put in a promotion at 50 or 100(?) posts to a special User Group that we could set as the threshold for a company name in a User Title or avatar. I want to give people an incentive to participate and a company name in a User Title or avatar isn't really a big advertising issue to me. It's a decent trade-off in my opinion.

To put this into 'context', it's not much of an 'advertising' issue to me if someone has been posting 'helpful' posts (as opposed to someone registering and, rather than giving specific help in posts, directs people to their web site for paid help). In some cases it's a small company or a sole proprietorship.

I keep coming back to Content.

Marc,

I think it is a good idea to make these changes. Is there a way to make users more aware of these changes and how to make these changes? I visit the forum on regular basis and make contributions, whenever I can. However I never thought about these options.
I would suggest to have a tab informing users about these possibilities and options.

Amjad Rana

Marc,

I think it is a good idea to make these changes. Is there a way to make users more aware of these changes and how to make these changes? I visit the forum on regular basis and make contributions, whenever I can. However I never thought about these options.
I would suggest to have a tab informing users about these possibilities and options.

Amjad Rana

Amjad, thank you very much for your statement. For what it's worth, three moderators commented today about learning new stuff and features that we did not know before. Just last week I learned of the link in the Search feature for threads with no responses (unanswered threads).

Marc really tries to let everyone know about features and stuff. I would make a few suggestions. First, when you have time, scroll through the threads in this forum. There is a lot of information, here, on many of the different areas. Second, please feel free to post a question in an existing thread or a new thread. We're all here to help and learn together.

Finally, if you're really interested, you can search the Internet for VBulletin discussions and information. Although, there may be features and such that are not utilized here.

There are just so many things that it would be nearly possible for me to list every feature. I have tried to address the major features and how to use them in the Instructions --> How To Use the Forum Software (http://elsmar.com/Forums/forumdisplay.php?f=86) forum.

NOTE: In this thread, the User Group settings you see are settings that I have to set as the administrator. Only myself and those on the Board of Directors can see or change any of these options.

I think this is a good figure. By the tenth post, we'll have a pretty good idea about the 'user'.

I agree. I think 10 is a good number.

I could put in a promotion at 50 or 100(?) posts to a special User Group that we could set as the threshold for a company name in a User Title or avatar. I want to give people an incentive to participate and a company name in a User Title or avatar isn't really a big advertising issue to me. It's a decent trade-off in my opinion.



I think that's a good idea. If the software can automatically do that and not require interaction from someone, that's really great. Fifty non-coffee break posts are sufficient, IMHO.

To put this into 'context', it's not much of an 'advertising' issue to me if someone has been posting 'helpful' posts (as opposed to someone registering and, rather than giving specific help in posts, directs people to their web site for paid help). In some cases it's a small company or a sole proprietorship.

I keep coming back to Content.

Agreed. Offering incentives like that is a good thing. For those visitors and such looking around at these threads....

The reason Marc mentions things like this is because the number of people visiting the Cove is increasing. It is greatly appreciated when you contribute, help people out, offer documents and such. In turn, you would be able to have people see your company information. And... if you have been helpful and such, that will make for good company exposure.

I'll work on it this weekend. I'm only 1/2 right now, so it's kinda hard for me to focus.

I hope to get this finalized and configured this weekend. I'm running a bit behind.

Good idea Marc, other forums I use have the same initial restrictions, and it seems to work well.
Paul