Limits on Forum Posts?

Over at the main branch of Mountain Project Worldwide Headquarters, we've been talking about whether or not we should have some kind of limits on forum posts. We're not sure we need them at all, or if they would work, but there are a few members (no need to name names) who seem to need help controlling themselves.

Some ideas:
- no more than 10 posts/day total
- no more than 3 posts per thread per hour
- no posts within 5 minutes of a prior post in same thread
- probably more...

We thought we'd throw the idea out there for everyone:

Do we need this?

Will it work?

What kind of limits would be effective?

Thanks for your feedback.

Please do. Or require a home address and we can send out a hit squad to "dispose" of the obnoxious trolls that post every 30 seconds. :) Good call Nick!

Yes, this is a good idea.

I think its going in the wrong direction. Its easy to avoid the threads that are polluted if one desires.

If someone wants to spend all day posting nonsense, and someone else can't keep themselves from reading said nonsense, then so be it.

This is the internet and nobody is being forced to be here. If you really feel an individual is not contributing anything positive to the site then excercise your power and axe their account. That would address the problem directly and have fewer unintended impacts to other users.

Wholeheartedly support! I feel like all similar decisions administrators have made in the past have worked really well.
If you enjoy flapping your gums unabatedly and dealing with pointless 1,000-post threads, head over to Supertopo!

Note to the Universal and Worldwide Headquarters of Mountain Project I just stay away or ignore them when they get huge due to mindless posting on the forums.

I do think it is a shame when an interesting and useful thread gets polluted and spirals off topic but I don't think I would limit posts.

On the other hand, perhaps folks would choose their words more carefully if they only had five posts per thread.

Hmmm. A lot of people would get a lot more done at work. My god you could get us out of the recession. OH NO. This could change the election results.

Good luck deciding.

I understand what you're trying to do but I think that the restrictions would do more harm than good. Sure - you'd stop pointless and nonsensical posts - but you'd also end up stopping valid discussions. For every one "rock and resole" thread, there are ten good threads that don't need these restrictions. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Great idea, love it. I'd leave it up to the admins to determine how many posts.

Just seems like more an more the forum is just... not a good part of mp. And it doesn't have to be like that.

Nick Wilder wrote:Do we need this?

It would definitely make the forums better!

Nick wrote:Will it work? What kind of limits would be effective?

I like the three-posts/thread/hour and waiting-five-minutes-after-each-post restrictions. The only problem that I see is that the edit feature might be abused with those types of limits.

It would also be nice if the community helped out those folks that can't control themselves by not responding to ridiculous threads. so i bootied a locker is only 15 hours old and contains five pages of ridiculousness.

Let's help out the admins with this project people! Don't feed the trolls!

Nick Stayner wrote:Wholeheartedly support! I feel like all similar decisions administrators have made in the past have worked really well. If you enjoy flapping your gums unabatedly and dealing with pointless 1,000-post threads, head over to Supertopo!

You don't go to the Taco often if that's your takeaway. Hearing about the FA on your favorite classic from the person who put it up? The best TRs, period? Unmatched photo threads? ST often represents the best in laissez faire management of a forum, although efforts to self police out of control politard threads sometimes need administrative help. So, yes, that often comes with a bit of campfire gabbing. Of course, every site has its own flavor. Your tastes may change, or not.

Oddly enough given my usual preference for the hands off approach, I sort of like time limiting the number of posts. Some people can't seem to condense their ideas and end up twitter posting. It's much easier to ignore one block of content rather than a shotgun spray of drivel that devolves into one bored RN, I mean, user talking to herself. I mean, himself. I mean...

Honestly I don't think that would help. And you would just get people setting up more fake accounts as well.

It's just a handful of people that are being mucking things up anyways. Might be better off maybe doing account suspensions etc. Like it was said...if we don't feed the trolls they will wither up and die.

How about a variation of the slashdot "Karma" system. Rather than limit their contributions, the low "Karma" score of the post and/or the low score of the user could be used to filter abusive comments/behavior out of the threads?

See Here. I'm thinking a simplified version of that where a user gets a score based on their past history. Everything they post is given their user score to start and can be modded up or down by users, who have limits on how many moderations they can do. The site admins/moderators have unlimited moderation points. If enough people vote a post/comment down, it's score drops, and when it gets below a certain threshhold, it is hidden. If a users posts are continually modded down low enough, their score will drop to a point where what they post is hidden by default.

I realize that that's a couple tons of back-end work for the site and probably won't happen, but i think it's a great solution.

why not just delete their profiles? like a bouncer or a game of Survivor.

I don't think it is needed and am not a fan of post limits. For the most part, I am a fan of limited moderation like on Supertopo.

I would like to see the deletion of the few troll accounts that come here just to make short "fuck you" posts and do nothing to enrich the community.

NC Rock Climber wrote:I don't think it is needed and am not a fan of post limits. For the most part, I am a fan of limited moderation like on Supertopo. I would like to see the deletion of the few troll accounts that come here just to make short "fuck you" posts and do nothing to enrich the community.

I'm sure most people remember the couple kids from the U. of Wyoming a few years back that got banned for trolling, intigating and generally being disruptive.

I think this is a good idea. There are many people who visit this site who are kinda overrun by the obnoxious few kids yelling the loudest to themselves.

Ideas:

Make one forum thread where they can chat with eachother and have unlimited posts.

I think 10-15 posts/day total is the best way to implement this because sometimes in the technical threads people are actually posting useful responses several times throughout the hour. If someone were actually posting too much garbage and insults on a thread or many threads, they would pretty quickly run into their daily limit.

Imagine Burt not attacking everyone because he ran out of posts! He would have to be much more selective in who is deserving of his compensating condescension.

Do you guys need some lotion?

"enrich the community"? Now that's funny!

i forget what the FLAG feature is for. does that do anything?

Eh not a huge fan of moderation. Like others have said, you know pretty quickly which threads are a waste of your time, so avoid them. I have a very boring job and therefore I get a lot of laughs out of the trolling on some threads. I have even been known to participate in it at times. So no I don't really like the idea but since MP is free I won't complain if you guys do limit posts. Still the best climbing resource out there.

Nick Wilder wrote:Over at the main branch of Mountain Project Worldwide Headquarters, we've been talking about whether or not we should have some kind of limits on forum posts. We're not sure we need them at all, or if they would work, but there are a few members (no need to name names) who seem to need help controlling themselves. Some ideas: - no more than 10 posts/day total - no more than 3 posts per thread per hour - no posts within 5 minutes of a prior post in same thread - probably more... We thought we'd throw the idea out there for everyone: Do we need this? Will it work? What kind of limits would be effective? Thanks for your feedback.

I think by doing this you're going to stifle some good conversation. If there are people that are causing a problem they should be removed from the forums. Instead of instituting posting limitations why not make a 3 strike policy? Start with a 30 day ban, then a 60 day, then permanent. I don't see how enforcing this would be too difficult, the people that need to be removed are pretty obvious.

Darren Mabe wrote:i forget what the FLAG feature is for. does that do anything?

Not that I've seen. Oops. Outed myself as a passive aggresive whiner there.