I think that new users should have a higher threshold to join. This should include, as a minimum:
1. A reasonable introduction
2. Putting the following items in their Profile before their first post:
a. Their native language(s)
b. The language(s) they are studying
c. The country where they are living (to be updated if they move)
3. A minimum number of sensible posts before they get full privileges.
Intensive listening
- tommus
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Re: Intensive listening
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Re: Intensive listening
tommus wrote:I think that new users should have a higher threshold to join. This should include, as a minimum:
1. A reasonable introduction
2. Putting the following items in their Profile before their first post:
a. Their native language(s)
b. The language(s) they are studying
c. The country where they are living (to be updated if they move)
3. A minimum number of sensible posts before they get full privileges.
As a newbie myself, I would agree with all of the above except the country bit. There are plenty of people worried about privacy already, and I would hate to scare someone off because of just that. For me, Google has all of my infos already, I really don't care that much.

That being said, most of that is already required. The only thing not currently required is the introduction. The answers from the registration question of the languages you speak are instantly transferred to your profile. I've already seen 2 new users (newer than me) answer 23 and 95 to that question, and they have 0 posts, so I'm assuming our fearless leader has been keeping them from posting. Thankfully.

I wouldn't mind an introduction requirement, especially since there's already a great thread and outline for that. Or a "you must reply to x posts before you can start a new topic, and the first few topics will be monitored". There's already the monitoring process, which is great, but already super hard for admins in the first place, trying to figure out who's real, who's fake, and who's scamming.
Someone else mentioned newbies getting frustrated with the requirements and leaving, but I thought everything was very clearly spelled out between the rules and FAQ. Someone who genuinely wants to join a community, imho, will go there first before even making an account. I definitely wanted to know what I was signing up for before I finally did it. Most other people will, too. Unless they're trolls, scammers, or bots.
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Re: Intensive listening
STT44 wrote:Question: how do bots get past the anti-spam challenges?
Generally you've got human "handlers" who managed the bots, who are paid basically to set up accounts, monitor captchas etc.
The goal is minimal human intervention, because zero is impossible.
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- zenmonkey
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Re: Intensive listening
I’m concerned that Covid and isolation has rendered many of our members operating with paranoid filters.
Are people detached from reality now buying into a pascalian simulacrum?
Add to that the general cynicism and it’s a bit off putting.
Occam’s Razor.
The bots are probably more active on Reddit or FB groups than a forum that requires “human handlers” vs people who post, see that they aren’t getting an answer and don’t really come back because a) it’s hard to log in b) the place isn’t exactly central station of feedback, c ) the email system doesn’t send out notifications.
And some of you want to make it even harder to post here!?
Great, that’s going to kill this place off.
Are people detached from reality now buying into a pascalian simulacrum?
Add to that the general cynicism and it’s a bit off putting.
Occam’s Razor.
The bots are probably more active on Reddit or FB groups than a forum that requires “human handlers” vs people who post, see that they aren’t getting an answer and don’t really come back because a) it’s hard to log in b) the place isn’t exactly central station of feedback, c ) the email system doesn’t send out notifications.
And some of you want to make it even harder to post here!?
Great, that’s going to kill this place off.
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Re: Intensive listening
I am slightly sad about where is the internet headed. I know, perhaps I should feel stupid first, about responding to a probable bot, but I don't. I am just a bit sad and worried that bots and similar techniques for marketing and opinion making are so ubiquitous and we should learn to recognize them. Really, antiutopias and similar scifi were meant as a warning, not a how-to manual.
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- MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Intensive listening
Back in the 80s a slightly futuristic TV series named Max Headroom was briefly popular. A friend lent me DVDs of the series. After watching a few episodes, I had to give up. The show's predictions about the future were so realistic as well as so grim that they have come to fruition. Every liar and huckster in the whole world now has an outlet on the Internet. For me only music on Youtube provides a sane refuge. 

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- leosmith
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Re: Intensive listening
I loved that show. Max has been in so many sci-fi shows since then. Did you watch orphan black?MorkTheFiddle wrote:Back in the 80s a slightly futuristic TV series named Max Headroom was briefly popular.
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- MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Intensive listening
No, I'm afraid I missed that. Maybe I can catch it later.leosmith wrote:I loved that show. Max has been in so many sci-fi shows since then. Did you watch orphan black?MorkTheFiddle wrote:Back in the 80s a slightly futuristic TV series named Max Headroom was briefly popular.
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Re: Intensive listening
zenmonkey wrote:I’m concerned that Covid and isolation has rendered many of our members operating with paranoid filters.
It's not paranoia, it's a detectable pattern.
Are people detached from reality now buying into a pascalian simulacrum?
Not sure what that means
The bots are probably more active on Reddit or FB groups than a forum that requires “human handlers”
The activity of bots is why we've been getting forced to log back in and answer captchas for years here.
We've had a rash of clone-post bots here in the past.
We're on phpBB, which is possibly the most common forum software online, so easy to design reusable bots for.
Quora doesn't seem to be quite as bad for this as it used to be, so it may be that their algorithm has picked up the pattern from the downvotes and learned to stop promoting this type of question, and the bot operators have moved on.
vs people who post, see that they aren’t getting an answer and don’t really come back because a) it’s hard to log in b) the place isn’t exactly central station of feedback, c ) the email system doesn’t send out notifications.
It's not a matter of one or the other though -- we've got both. This is why I propose just asking questions. For the human who's going to come back, it's actively encouraging them to participate; for the human who never comes back, it's irrelevant; for the bot, it means not getting the answers they're attempting to harvest, and perhaps even knowing it (because if I was programming a bot like that, I'd probably not use responses including question marks.
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