March 15th - It's time for our Friday Highlights! You can check them out here!
Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.

Proposal: New Members Shouldn't Be Allowed to Make New Discussions

Comments

  • DagmarHDagmarH Posts: 68 Member
    Worst... idea.... ever....

    Thanks for making the Sims Forums the most hostile and useless forums for "new members" out of any pc game forum I have ever encountered. No one "new" can post asking help on anything. I can't even make a simple post to find out if the hired gardeners are restricted tending to interior greenhouse gardens. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a company like EA would think this was good thing @@
  • Hadron1776Hadron1776 Posts: 330 Member
    edited May 2017
    I thought there was a specific thread for new members to post their questions etc. I could be wrong though.
    In any case, the off-topic section is a good place to rack up posts and points. Or you can do what I did, and just try to help other simmers where you can.
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    edited May 2017
    @DagmarH wrote: »
    Worst... idea.... ever....

    Thanks for making the Sims Forums the most hostile and useless forums for "new members" out of any pc game forum I have ever encountered. No one "new" can post asking help on anything. I can't even make a simple post to find out if the hired gardeners are restricted tending to interior greenhouse gardens. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a company like EA would think this was good thing
    There's a reason for this and it's got nothing to do with hostility. There were very annoying - awful and tasteless at times - attacks going on here a year or two ago by trolls. They had to come up with this solution to avoid that and I'm glad they did. It sure is annoying for new members, but you'll soon have enough points to become a member and be able to start topics.
    5JZ57S6.png
  • stilljustme2stilljustme2 Posts: 25,082 Member
    DagmarH wrote: »
    Worst... idea.... ever....


    Note this thread is from late in 2014 -- we were having major issues with people creating accounts only to post disgusting pictures. Since this forum is open to anyone 13 and up, EA could have gotten in serious trouble if they didn't do something regarding that content. This thread was just people trying to brainstorm possible solutions. As far as I know, new members can still start discussions -- they just have to be here a while participating in the community before posting images.

    Welcome aboard -- you might need your flame-🐸🐸🐸🐸 long johns but we're generally a decent sort of folk. B)
    Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
    Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
  • Hadron1776Hadron1776 Posts: 330 Member
    edited May 2017


    Ok.
    New members can't start discussions, but they can post in them. Once they have made 30 posts and gotten 50 points (though maybe just the 50 points; I've seen a full member with 20-some posts earlier today), then they can make discussions and post pictures. At least, I think that's how it works.
    DagmarH wrote: »
    Worst... idea.... ever....

    And welcome to the forums :)

  • lisasc360lisasc360 Posts: 19,225 Member
    Hadron1776 wrote: »

    Ok.
    New members can't start discussions, but they can post in them. Once they have made 30 posts and gotten 50 points (though maybe just the 50 points; I've seen a full member with 20-some posts earlier today), then they can make discussions and post pictures. At least, I think that's how it works.
    DagmarH wrote: »
    Worst... idea.... ever....

    And welcome to the forums :)

    All new members need the 50 points and 30 posts and an account older than 24 hours to start new threads. The threads that you might had seen from a new member may had been created before the moderators/Gurus/Staff members had disabled the New Discussion button due to last years spambot attacks. Now I have seen some New Members posting links and/or pictures and I believe that might be due to the fact that EA had added the SimGuruGraham Corner for everyone to be able to discuss the new Eco SP coming out. So they may had allowed for new members to be able to post their links/pictures so that they could be heard and seen as well as the full members.
  • nanashi-simsnanashi-sims Posts: 4,140 Member
    lisasc360 wrote: »
    Hadron1776 wrote: »

    Ok.
    New members can't start discussions, but they can post in them. Once they have made 30 posts and gotten 50 points (though maybe just the 50 points; I've seen a full member with 20-some posts earlier today), then they can make discussions and post pictures. At least, I think that's how it works.
    DagmarH wrote: »
    Worst... idea.... ever....

    And welcome to the forums :)

    All new members need the 50 points and 30 posts and an account older than 24 hours to start new threads. The threads that you might had seen from a new member may had been created before the moderators/Gurus/Staff members had disabled the New Discussion button due to last years spambot attacks. Now I have seen some New Members posting links and/or pictures and I believe that might be due to the fact that EA had added the SimGuruGraham Corner for everyone to be able to discuss the new Eco SP coming out. So they may had allowed for new members to be able to post their links/pictures so that they could be heard and seen as well as the full members.

    It prevents spamming. I think a captcha for commenting and a time restriction to a post a day, could've sufficed. Glad I got in before the lockdown... that's all I'm saying :joy:
  • DagmarHDagmarH Posts: 68 Member
    It's still the worst idea ever. I understood there was a spam issue earlier that prompted this but this is an incredibly lazy, poorly thought out solution. And yes it is hostile to new players. The intent and purpose is irrelevant to that. Hamstringing new members from relying on the forums as a resource for help, something that isn't done in this way on any of the over hundred other game forums I have visited, is hostile by its to them by nature.

    There are basics to forum moderation that apparently have escaped this company for some reason. They don't even use Captcha, one of the most basic and effective spambot filters on the internet, in the registration process and it's been around for years. They can also simply limit other features other than starting discussions like the have, such as posting links and embedding pictures and videos. For written text there are anti-spam plugins that they can have applied to new members. This is all on top of being dutiful as moderators and doing frequent sweeps, reviewing the spam queue regularly throughout the day and banning accounts and deleting content. Deputize some of your most senior, trusted community members and give them limited moderation powers that allow them to move posts off the forums and into the spam queue and temporarily remove access to accounts for review and pending action by the moderators.

    The worst "solutions" to forum spam are those that hurt usability and this one hurts usability for new members in an extremely substantive manner.
  • LyricSimsz15LyricSimsz15 Posts: 13,136 Member
    Wait,don't you need to make 30 discussions to become a member? So does that mean nobody can post unless they are already a member?
    pN7cZBV.gif
    Just vibing...
    Check out my stories The Diversity Club and Lost Pride here on the forums!
  • Hadron1776Hadron1776 Posts: 330 Member
    You need 30 posts and 50 points.
  • rosemowrosemow Posts: 163,479 Member
    Wait,don't you need to make 30 discussions to become a member? So does that mean nobody can post unless they are already a member?

    Hello @LyricSimsz15
    New members need to make 30 posts in threads. They don't need to start 30 threads. They also need 50 points.
  • Savage_Patch_KiddSavage_Patch_Kidd Posts: 2,937 Member
    Quite a bump here :open_mouth:

    I joined early 2015 & even then the trolling was still pretty bad, followed on by bot attacks last year too. It's too easy for trolls & bots to make accounts hence the restrictions. It's harder now though to become a member since activity has dropped immensely over the past two years.
    tumblr_oy1xa2eHV31uvsi7jo2_1280.gif
  • StormsviewStormsview Posts: 2,603 Member
    > @CutiePie550 said:
    > Well, you make a fair point... but not all new members are bad people. I'm listed as a new member, but I've had a Sims Account since 2011, and I'm not a troller or anything of the sort.

    You should never judge the whole new group by what a few do. If you are mean to the New ones, soon you will have just lots of old mean ones. Then even the nice older players will become afraid to post. Remember you are just people playing sims as well. I have been playing Sims from.the first Sims game.
    we'll give you a full refund. Just make sure you make your request within 24 hours after you first launch the game, within seven days from your date of purchase, or within seven days from the game's release date if you pre-ordered, whichever comes first.
    Who said EA doesn't have a sense of humor
  • SimburianSimburian Posts: 6,902 Member
    Stormsview wrote: »
    > @CutiePie550 said:
    > Well, you make a fair point... but not all new members are bad people. I'm listed as a new member, but I've had a Sims Account since 2011, and I'm not a troller or anything of the sort.

    You should never judge the whole new group by what a few do. If you are mean to the New ones, soon you will have just lots of old mean ones. Then even the nice older players will become afraid to post. Remember you are just people playing sims as well. I have been playing Sims from.the first Sims game.

    You know you're nice. How do we know that?

    I just bit the bullet and started commenting but there are some very nice people on the Activity pages.
  • superkyle221superkyle221 Posts: 1,119 Member
    What is a point and how does somebody get one?
    I don't remember how to change my signature.
  • lisasc360lisasc360 Posts: 19,225 Member
    @superkyle221,
    What is a point and how does somebody get one?
    Points help New Members become full members and then they really don't do much afterwards except put some members on the leaderboard which is nothing but a popularity contest type of thing. People get points when other members either hit Insightful, Like or Awesome on your posts. You also earn points by earning badges as the badges give out points to goes towards your point total... :)

  • superkyle221superkyle221 Posts: 1,119 Member
    > @lisasc360 said:
    > @superkyle221, superkyle221 wrote: »
    >
    > What is a point and how does somebody get one?
    >
    >
    >
    > Points help New Members become full members and then they really don't do much afterwards except put some members on the leaderboard which is nothing but a popularity contest type of thing. People get points when other members either hit Insightful, Like or Awesome on your posts. You also earn points by earning badges as the badges give out points to goes towards your point total... :)

    Thanks!
    I don't remember how to change my signature.
  • lisasc360lisasc360 Posts: 19,225 Member
    @superkyle221,
    > @lisasc360 said:
    > @superkyle221, superkyle221 wrote: »
    >
    > What is a point and how does somebody get one?
    >
    >
    >
    > Points help New Members become full members and then they really don't do much afterwards except put some members on the leaderboard which is nothing but a popularity contest type of thing. People get points when other members either hit Insightful, Like or Awesome on your posts. You also earn points by earning badges as the badges give out points to goes towards your point total... :)

    Thanks!
    You're welcome... :)

  • LyricSimsz15LyricSimsz15 Posts: 13,136 Member
    I wonder though - Can new members currently make new discussions? I want to share my legacy challenge but i can't find the button anywhere.
    pN7cZBV.gif
    Just vibing...
    Check out my stories The Diversity Club and Lost Pride here on the forums!
  • lisasc360lisasc360 Posts: 19,225 Member
    @LyricSimsz15,
    I wonder though - Can new members currently make new discussions? I want to share my legacy challenge but i can't find the button anywhere.
    No, New Members are unable to start new discussions now due to last years spambot attacks. New members had the ability to do so until spammers/spambots went and ruined it for all New Members. So now you must wait until you get 50 points, 30 posts and an account older than 24 hours. But even if you have the requirements, there is an issue that's not allowing new members who have the requirements to be promoted to member. And I believe that this issue started last week when they did an update to the site last week. So others have been posting over on SimGuruDrake's wall about it in hopes that she will get someone to look into the problem... :)

  • JumpingTrainsJumpingTrains Posts: 442 Member
    I love how the person who started this "brilliant" idea is no longer even active here...

    Thanks for ruining the experience for all new members and then never loging back in since September 2014 <3

    ...

  • lisasc360lisasc360 Posts: 19,225 Member
    edited May 2017
    I love how the person who started this "brilliant" idea is no longer even active here...

    Thanks for ruining the experience for all new members and then never loging back in since September 2014 <3

    ...

    I really don't think that the OP ruined anything as it was up to the moderators/Simgurus/staffmembers to decide what to do to keep out the unsavory people who kept posting the nasty images to this site when it first opened. The OP and others was just throwing out ideas on what could help with the ones that was trying to ruin our fun on this site. If they had of went and used a hosting site that needed a game registration, then this system wouldn't be put in place to begin with but EA chose this hosting site instead. And I'm pretty sure that they OP probably had decided not to log back into the site when we had having New Members posting nasty unwanted and illegal pictures either as their avatar or in their posts.

    Edit to say that "New Members" were able to start new discussions up until last November when we had the spambot attacks that took place all last year since it is so easy for people to join the site without registering any Sims games. So if someone gets banned, then can easily turn around and make yet another account to troll on or to spam with.
  • DagmarHDagmarH Posts: 68 Member
    It was a bad decision by the forum team as they didn't even try and still have not implemented very common practices to deal with spamming. Forget about the fact that they don't even require anyone to register an EA product to get a forum account, they didn't implement and still don't even have a basic Captcha filter for creating forum accounts. They may as well have put up a thousand SEO paths to the forums saying "SPAMBOTS WELCOME". @@

    I'm also beginning to wonder what kind of resources are even dedicated to the forums because it seems very very minimal, which would explain in part why they seem incapable of dealing with things like spam the way the overwhelming majority of forums on the internet do. I noticed certain forum features in general getting broken over the past month and many still remain broken. The updating of new member accounts to regular member accounts also hasn't worked for around three weeks or more. It seems like whatever number of people they have dedicated to maintaining the forums is skeletal by comparison to most forums.
  • StormsviewStormsview Posts: 2,603 Member
    > @superkyle221 said:
    > > @lisasc360 said:
    > > @superkyle221, superkyle221 wrote: »
    > >
    > > What is a point and how does somebody get one?
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > Points help New Members become full members and then they really don't do much afterwards except put some members on the leaderboard which is nothing but a popularity contest type of thing. People get points when other members either hit Insightful, Like or Awesome on your posts. You also earn points by earning badges as the badges give out points to goes towards your point total... :)
    >
    > Thanks!

    > @Mchap353 said:
    > Stormsview wrote: »
    >
    > > @CutiePie550 said:
    > > Well, you make a fair point... but not all new members are bad people. I'm listed as a new member, but I've had a Sims Account since 2011, and I'm not a troller or anything of the sort.
    >
    > You should never judge the whole new group by what a few do. If you are mean to the New ones, soon you will have just lots of old mean ones. Then even the nice older players will become afraid to post. Remember you are just people playing sims as well. I have been playing Sims from.the first Sims game.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > You know you're nice. How do we know that?
    >
    > I just bit the bullet and started commenting but there are some very nice people on the Activity pages.

    OMG, Just because you post Nice do not mean you are nice. Some think the best way to Pretend to be nice is to post nicely. And I agree, No one knows this better than Evil or sneaky people lol. Do you really think just giving in to something that is* unfair to New Customers * New Members?? No Sorry get it straight We are New Customers. This is Not Free To Play. Who Treat Their New customers badly?. Who Makes Their New Customers go find Old customers to post-kiss ups ?. haha, Lot of people have lots of old accounts, so if they want to spam they can spam on one of the old accounts, or one they had just made just to spam. OK lose the new (made to spam account) they do not care they still have the account that everyone thinks they are so sweet on. I think New Customers Should Talk directly to Owners, trying to get something done here will not work, They do not see it. and its seems only ones making decisions here are old Members? funny. Someone said anyone can just make a new account? to post? haha too funny and can they just make up a cute name too so all can think they are nice?. I hope it's not that easy. You all should talk to (Daddy Max) maybe he will protect you like he does his toddlers. right. lol. let us hope so. (( Can I Please get the link to "Sims on Line" Please)) this Post is @ everyone that it should be @ You know who you are. be yourself, stay sweet if you are? haha.
    we'll give you a full refund. Just make sure you make your request within 24 hours after you first launch the game, within seven days from your date of purchase, or within seven days from the game's release date if you pre-ordered, whichever comes first.
    Who said EA doesn't have a sense of humor
  • StormsviewStormsview Posts: 2,603 Member
    edited July 2017
    > @DagmarH said:
    > Worst... idea.... ever....
    >
    > Thanks for making the Sims Forums the most hostile and useless forums for "new members" out of any pc game forum I have ever encountered. No one "new" can post asking help on anything. I can't even make a simple post to find out if the hired gardeners are restricted tending to interior greenhouse gardens. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a company like EA would think this was good thing @@

    > @DagmarH said:
    > Worst... idea.... ever....
    >
    > Thanks for making the Sims Forums the most hostile and useless forums for "new members" out of any pc game forum I have ever encountered. No one "new" can post asking help on anything. I can't even make a simple post to find out if the hired gardeners are restricted tending to interior greenhouse gardens. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a company like EA would think this was good thing @@

    I like what you said here. It is a" useless forums" What are Old Members doing that's so important they can not help a new one. oh right, send them to a page for new only. haha. Answer is The Gardener will care for all growing plants or flowers that need to be cared for.
    Post edited by Stormsview on
    we'll give you a full refund. Just make sure you make your request within 24 hours after you first launch the game, within seven days from your date of purchase, or within seven days from the game's release date if you pre-ordered, whichever comes first.
    Who said EA doesn't have a sense of humor
This discussion has been closed.
Return to top