New User Personal Message Limitations

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Michael Wechsler

Michael Wechsler

Administrator
Staff member
In order to prevent new users from immediately sending mail to our active members' mailboxes and causing an excessive flood, I have disabled private messaging for new users until they have reached a post count of 10 forum messages. By that time they should have taken the time to search, post appropriately and also read the forum rules and tips. I will also be posting a new, conspicuous, FAQ/Knowledgebase in the top right column this weekend.

This one has been a long time coming and glad to have this finally added. I will also be doing one for the "message wall" on your personal profiles or, at the very least, providing an adequate notice that walls are not for dropping legal questions yet again - that's why we have the forums! Thank you all for your patience and let me know if there is a problem with the latest addition. I hope this once again renders the mailing system here usable.
 
LOL, you're welcome. Right now the new user gets the following message when trying to contact a forum poster. It's just so overwhelming that it rendered my PM box useless as well. Dozens of messages every day with just "a short question" or thought which really couldn't be answered properly except to say not enough info, belongs in the forums, etc.

Sorry - due to excessive flooding of user mailboxes, you cannot send private messages until your post count reaches 10. You can contact the administrator who may be able to help or use our support center. But remember, your general legal questions belong in the forums! Don't flood posters mailboxes or message walls - they see your posts in the forums and will eventually get to it! Thanks for helping us help you!
 
Same here Jacks - I am not sure what is going on... TLP are the new settings in production or are they still in staging?
 
OK - I have just tested this now. I'm not sure how or why there may have been a blip in the workings of the filter but it works now:

1) The new user I tested could not post a visitor message on visitor walls until 10 posts are reached. Just too much dumping of questions going on!

2) I've just tested the ability to email. Same limitation. I will continue to monitor this to make sure there isn't a conflict with what we've installed.
 
I have also limited the sending of personal email as well. Again, let me know if these don't seem to work as at times they may need to be reset. So far, so good and no more endless messages. You'll see a ton of new stuff this weekend added, all the things that were backed up on the agenda and more. :)
 
Will do. TLP - thanks for the new features. I love the links below the postings and the cute messages on the reputation power squares!
 
presutin said:
Will do. TLP - thanks for the new features. I love the links below the postings and the cute messages on the reputation power squares!
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You're welcome...hehe... get ready for October. Promise it will be exciting. :)
 
I hate bugs!!!! OK, I've shut down the ability of general members to use personal messages. When users attain a certain level they will be moved to another status and we'll do that manually until this works properly. Until then, many of you will not be affected and I'll make sure this is the case. Just give me some time tonight. :)
 
I believe this problem is SOLVED! We've worked on it so that anyone who has 10 posts or greater is moved into a new group which allows personal messaging. Thank you everyone for your patience. I can't wait for you to see the new additions coming in October, the first being this coming weekend. :) You will be impressed. Let me know if you have any issues with this first one and a happy New Year to those of you celebrating the Jewish New Year.
 
gnarly_joe25 said:
I find that this is a little uneccesary. It is only going to increase the number of the useless posts.
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Unfortunately then I will have to raise the limit to 20 or 30. :) Take a look at my message wall on my profile - I've got *dozens* of pages of people just throwing up their questions without even posting in the forums! I used to get dozens of emails a day from people - without even a hello - throwing questions at me. And it gets better - I put up IM just to be in touch if needed instantly - and I'll get several messages each day without a hello and just a blurb on what they want answered. While I can appreciate a sincere, sensible person like yourself wondering as to the necessity of this implementation I can assure you that it is 100% necessary!

So far it seems like it works and I'm glad I've received no complaints thus far!
 
gnarly_joe25 said:
New users should be able to post a link
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I'll have to reconsider this but here is the problem - this site is a page rank 5 or 6 site, depending upon the day. You have no idea how many unscrupulous marketers will hire people in India to work for them for $1 an hour to do nothing except create accounts here and throw links in posts and signatures - now very creatively by using smiley graphics to hide external links. Fortunately with the great help of other people here, we can usually spot the phonies posting nonsense and then delete the posts and ban the account in order to prevent the spam.

Combatting link spam has become an every day task that gets worse as your site grows. For those who need to post a link, I'll be setting up an easy way to get admin approval if you're under the necessary amount of posts. The majority of people here don't need to do so.

Thank you very much for voicing your concerns. It really helps to hear what our community is thinking.
 
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