Guests can view most forums and topics and can also reply in most forums, and post in some. Basicly it's just to give guests a chance to at least post before registering. It also gives trolls freedom of speech instead of having to delete/ban an account. Basicly, trolls are usually IP banned, but usually I'll be jerky with them and simply reply (defending our home) and close the thread, when I do that any member is welcomed to add something - just PM me.
When someone signs up, they are in the pre-member group and have most member access in exeption of uploading. That way someone can't sign up overnight and start posting viruses and stuff. Attachements are really the most dangeraus thing if abused, so they don't get to use them. When you first sign up to a forum to be a normal poster, it's rare you'll want to upload something right?
Then, only with administrations consent, which is me or Winstalker, they are validaded to the newbie group. This gives all permissions, but gives us the power to remove any in case of any abuse. Right now it's half-half, some forums allow attachements, some don't. Basicly, if someone at this points wants to do something malicious, they can, but they have to make it look obvious by posting in the wrong forum. A virus post would be considered OT, but the OT does not allow attachements... basicly that.
This group also holds zero posters (as of now, as it's a new group), so deleting them is made easier that way since they are in the same group.
Then, when a few specifics are met, they are premoted to member, which is mostly everyone's current status right now. It gives full access to the forum, oh yeah, and I forgot to mention stuff like PM limits and stuff, this is where the limits are reasonable. Even little things like editing your posts and stuff, are officially granted at this point. A member who signs up and participates well right away can fall in this category fast enough, but trouble makers will be easly spotted.
Now, a new special feature (drum roll please
).....Senior member! When you reach 1000 posts, you get promoted to senior member. Here, you get more PM space, shorter flood limits, ability to do more stuff such as remove "edited by", and you can even view the board while it's offline.
And I don't need to explain admins do I?
Ok, so we get full access to EVERYTHING, and we RULE!!! Just kidding...
Me and Windstalker are not here to boss no one around - but simply to keep the board running smooth. I'm proud to say that I did not need to ban anyone yet. I did did demote some people to guests (they still have their account - but it's like if they are a guest) for security reasons, but they now fall in the zero-poster category at this moment.
So as you can see, we take security to the next level to avoid troublemakers.
But we don't make it look like a jail ether. I seen a forum that uses an approach similar to this, but they also have private gossip forums to talk bad about "lower" members, None of that here.Now, I'll just mention the number of posts it takes for the different number of blue "boxes" which we may call ice cubes because of our theame.
Code: Select all
Rating #of posts # of "ice cubes"
----------------------------------------------------------
Newbie 0 1
Member 10 2
Advanced Member 100 4
Super Member 250 6
PC Addict 1000 8
Super forum spammer! 5000 10
Oh yeah, and anyone who comes from the old forum PC411 is in the Ex PC411er group, from there you can also get promoted to senior member at 1000 posts, this group has the same permissions as a normal member, it's just a different name.
Happy posting!
Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:240, old post ID:912