Okay dokey guys it seems there needs to be a shakeup to the forum.
Im gonna go ahead and make some drastic changes but hopefully you guys can moderate it here before I do something too stupid.
I will try to justify most of what I do in this thread and after a day will make it all go live.
1. So first of all I am going to increase most of the admin permissions to our wonderful longtime admins Shadowbuild, Tankgirl and Outdoors30. These will allow them to take over alot of the management of the forum of which I am getting increasingly less time to do.
2. Secondly I am removing the intro requirement. Our spammers have stopped and our membership is too hard to get going for most people. Given the reduction in demand for private trackers as well as poor management by me our forums are in severe decline and we need to make it easier for people to join. This is not to say intros will be permanently gone. They will be back once we get momentum going again.
3. Next we will revise the requirements of the user ranks. This is to still make it hard to get into the invite sections of the site and give time for the admins to vet bad members.
Changes are in bolded, brackets, and underlined for your visibility.
= this is where users are before their introductions are accepted(this is where people are after they register)
= this is where users are after their introductions are accepted (this will be a 30 post requirement and a 20 rep requirement + 10 day requirement)
= 50 posts + 25 reputation + 30 days = access to '33% Giveaways' forum. Able to make requests in the Requests section. (this will be a 70 post requirement and a 30 rep requirement + 40 day requirement)
No change on the rest of the ranks.
3. Thirdly we will restore some seo functionality to the site. I removed it a while back because vbseo was becoming too taxing on the server. We will now implement it with vb's own internal fancy url thingy.
4. We will change some of the forums to keep up with the changing times in p2p. I feel like an area to talk about streaming services .. netflix, popcorntime hulu etc and how to get the best deals outta them would be beneficial.
5. We will be getting a facelift... *mystery music*
Regards,
Dave
*edit*
@dntx @Mickey_D @duketom @Poopderp @TankGirl @skyguard @Coal and everyone else
I definitely took into your feedback during the vote which is why it has taken so long to come back with a decision.
The facts are that a tiny tiny percentage of people are now converting from starting to 10 percent. There is less stuff to talk about on the forums because there are less members to contribute. We are not meant to be the super secretive part of the bittorent world. That is for the private trackers. We are meant to be softening the barrier to entry and I feel like we have lost that. New members are being confused and frustrated by the time it takes to enter.
Of course if it turns out we are letting a heap load of cheaters in we will reimplement the old system. We are in fact now looking at a smart way to implement the intros into the giveaway section only.
Secondly the post/rep/time requirements are actually a greater test and hurdle than a simple introduction. It allows you the members to report something shifty in their post quality and it is of course up to you members to rep them up and in. It is easier however for newcomers because they can see incremental gains and can actively work towards their goal. Sitting around doing absolutely nothing but wait on an intro drives people away. Again our vision to implement the intros to the invite section only, solves both these problems.
For now I can only ask you to back the decision until you have solid facts that it is a bad one. If you can present those of course I will listen. Doomsday predictions will benefit no one.
Lastly there is no one stopping you from implementing your own checks in your giveaway threads. These can imitate the intro requirement to the letter if you like. Our staff have also been told to be more strict in their own checks.
Im gonna go ahead and make some drastic changes but hopefully you guys can moderate it here before I do something too stupid.
I will try to justify most of what I do in this thread and after a day will make it all go live.
1. So first of all I am going to increase most of the admin permissions to our wonderful longtime admins Shadowbuild, Tankgirl and Outdoors30. These will allow them to take over alot of the management of the forum of which I am getting increasingly less time to do.
2. Secondly I am removing the intro requirement. Our spammers have stopped and our membership is too hard to get going for most people. Given the reduction in demand for private trackers as well as poor management by me our forums are in severe decline and we need to make it easier for people to join. This is not to say intros will be permanently gone. They will be back once we get momentum going again.
3. Next we will revise the requirements of the user ranks. This is to still make it hard to get into the invite sections of the site and give time for the admins to vet bad members.
Changes are in bolded, brackets, and underlined for your visibility.



No change on the rest of the ranks.
3. Thirdly we will restore some seo functionality to the site. I removed it a while back because vbseo was becoming too taxing on the server. We will now implement it with vb's own internal fancy url thingy.
4. We will change some of the forums to keep up with the changing times in p2p. I feel like an area to talk about streaming services .. netflix, popcorntime hulu etc and how to get the best deals outta them would be beneficial.
5. We will be getting a facelift... *mystery music*
Regards,
Dave
*edit*
@dntx @Mickey_D @duketom @Poopderp @TankGirl @skyguard @Coal and everyone else
I definitely took into your feedback during the vote which is why it has taken so long to come back with a decision.
The facts are that a tiny tiny percentage of people are now converting from starting to 10 percent. There is less stuff to talk about on the forums because there are less members to contribute. We are not meant to be the super secretive part of the bittorent world. That is for the private trackers. We are meant to be softening the barrier to entry and I feel like we have lost that. New members are being confused and frustrated by the time it takes to enter.
Of course if it turns out we are letting a heap load of cheaters in we will reimplement the old system. We are in fact now looking at a smart way to implement the intros into the giveaway section only.
Secondly the post/rep/time requirements are actually a greater test and hurdle than a simple introduction. It allows you the members to report something shifty in their post quality and it is of course up to you members to rep them up and in. It is easier however for newcomers because they can see incremental gains and can actively work towards their goal. Sitting around doing absolutely nothing but wait on an intro drives people away. Again our vision to implement the intros to the invite section only, solves both these problems.
For now I can only ask you to back the decision until you have solid facts that it is a bad one. If you can present those of course I will listen. Doomsday predictions will benefit no one.
Lastly there is no one stopping you from implementing your own checks in your giveaway threads. These can imitate the intro requirement to the letter if you like. Our staff have also been told to be more strict in their own checks.
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