It was recently discovered in another thread that a particular user was posting under various names. Members of this forum suspected and cited some of the aliases that were being used by the user and asked me to investigate. It turns out the problem was much more extensive than originally thought. The user in question posted under no fewer than 11 different names over the course of the last year and it seems likely that even more names were actually used--it's just not possible for me to prove it. But the 11 I discovered are confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt.

Things have apparently gone too far for too long. This forum has grown significantly over the years and unfortunately it is no longer possible to leave the forum as open as it has been in the past.

As a result I have implemented a few changes.

1. REGISTRATION REQUIRED TO POST. Only registered and logged-in users may post from now on. Registration is, of course, free. Hopefully this will reduce the number of hit-and-run posts where someone asks a question, doesn't provide enough information, and never comes back to follow-up.

2. KARMA/MESSAGE SCORING IMPLEMENTED. I have implemented a "Karma" or "message scoring" feature. Most of you have probably seen similar systems on other forums. How it will work is that you may score any message based on its usefulness (or lack thereof). Positive scoring will increase the message's score by 1 point while negative scoring will decrease the message's score by 1 point. In addition to affecting the message's score, the scoring of each message will affect that users' "Karma Score" which can be viewed in the user's profile. The user's karma score will be the sum total of all scoring done to his messages.

COMMENTS REGARDING SCORING:

1. You may score a maximum of 5 messages in a 24 hour period.

2. You may score only a single message by the same user in a 24 hour period and a maximum of 3 messages by the same user in a one-week period.

3. You may only score a message that is less than 4 days old.

4. You may, of course, only score a given message once.

The above rules are preliminary and are meant to keep users from going out on vendettas against users they just don't like in an attempt to lower their personal karma score. We may change these rules in the future if the scoring system is abused and/or have a review system to determine if users utilize the scoring system in order to attack users rather than to simply score the usefulness of a given message.

WHO MAY SCORE MESSAGES:

Currently, anyone that logs in with an account that has existed for at least 6 months. At some point in the future the criteria will be that only people with a certain karma score will be able to score other messages. This will mean that members that have contributed meaningfully to the board will be able to score messages for their relative value. For now, the ability to score messages is based on longevity at 8052.com. In the future, once the scoring system has had a chance to settle in, it will be based on meaningful contribution to the forum.

We will also remove the ability to score messages from any member that abuses it.

PURPOSE OF SCORING:

Right now the real usefulness of this is marginal. You will be able to see the score of each message and you will also be able to check the "karma" each user has accumulated. As such there may be some minor pressure to post more useful messages so as to avoid getting scored negatively.

Once the system seems to be working in a stable fashion and we see how things go, presumably I'll modify the system to further take advantage of this information. One idea I have is that a thread whose first post receives a bad score is flagged as such on the main menu so that people can outright avoid it. Another idea is to give members the option to adjust their profile so that posts from users below a certain karma score aren't even visible to them. Yet another idea is to have messages posted by a user below a certain karma score be hidden until they are specifically approved by either Steve or me.

Of course, if you have any additional ideas on how to improve the system, please let me know. This is a work in-progress for now and we'll see how it goes. Please report any bugs to me via email. Suggestions and general comments are welcome here in this thread.

For the time being I would just ask that members please not abuse the scoring system. The system exists to encourage useful posting and discourage useless posts and flaming. Do not use the scoring system simply to attack someone that you don't like. Users that are discovered doing this will lose the ability to score messages.

Comments and suggestions about any of these changes or the administration in general of this forum are welcome in this thread.

Regards,
Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster