A note regarding double-posting

[DJ Omnimaga]

Recently, there have been a very huge increase in double-posting on the forums, with very small time difference between the author posts. This might be mostly due to the arrival of several new forum members, but later we noticed established ones have taken a habit to post multiple messages consecutively with only about 10 to 30 minutes between each posts. This is what prompted us to update the board rules page with the following:

3: The only time double-posting is allowed (posting two messages in a row in the same topic) is either if there has been 6 hours since your last post, 3 hours if your thread has been bumped out of the New Posts page, 1 hour if it's a project update or immediately if you need to upload more than 10 file attachments at once. Otherwise, update the last post using the "EDIT" button. It will be marked as unread for all members (altough it won't bump the thread).

However, this seems to have been missed by most people, as there were no news posted about the rules update. We are generally tolerant towards double-posting on the forums compared to other TI forums (some forums requires a 24, 48 or even 72 hours delay, others disallow DP completly, even for project updates), but we still ask members to not abuse it either. The only times where it is not discouraged is those specified in rule 3. Otherwise, we ask people to use the button. In cases of extremly large posts, the author needs to state his need to double-post within short intervals in one of the reply.

On another note, we also ask members to try not to go too off-topic or extremly random in their posts, especially in question threads. Example: an entire post saying "I like your avatar", "very carefully" or "use moar desu" in reply to "how would I display 12x12 sprites with xLIB?".

Thanks for understanding and we hope that you continue enjoying the forums and making new projects.

[Silver Shadow]

I edited the first post:
"On another note, we also ask members to try to go too off-topic or extremly random in their posts, especially in question threads." was changed to "On another note, we also ask members to try not to go too off-topic or extremly random in their posts, especially in question threads."

Otherwise, people will think that we deliberately ask them to post off-topic.

[DJ Omnimaga]

oh thanks, major typo of my part

[noahbaby94]

This seems.......
Bacon.

[DJ Omnimaga]

^
This seems spam

[SirCmpwn]

Which is why it has negitave respect.
Spam is getting quite prevalent these days, I really don't like it.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah same here. I expected newer people to maybe do it, but now I noticed it's more common from the older members. Seems like some people got bad habits. Randomness is ok from time to time, but it has to be done moderately, else it's no longer fun. Plus it can hurt our reputation regarding post quality content. There's a forum dedicated to spam for members anyway.

[Galandros]

Someday appear an online campaign against spam, off-topic, double post, necro post and other forums hazards. Most probable is it exists already, you just have to search.

We still have quality posting, the problem is it is distracted by off-topic (especially local memes).

[DJ Omnimaga]

true

I think the issue though is that we were more lax but need to make sure people won't abuse either, so we don't have to start being too strict either (like on IRC during Fall 2006 and Summer 2009 )

[trevmeister66]

Is it possible to have a mod that prevents someone from posting in the same thread more than once in a certain time span? But I guess if we that, it would cause more problems than it solves, so maybe that's not a good idea.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah there is, I was thinking about adding it at one point, if it won't conflict with other mods and works on every theme. However, I am not sure if it's possible to set it by board. The major issue is that there are certain occasions where double-posting is allowed, for example when you want to post 100 attachments. I could simply allow that many attachments per posts but when uploading that many stuff the serrver freaks out sometimes, so it's better that I make people upload in bulk of 10 files max for a max of 16 MB. I guess if I figure out a way to solve this issue, I could always add the dp mod, though.

[trevmeister66]

Yeah I understand needing to do double posts for large + multiple file uploads, so that kind of mod would get in the way of that. I guess it should probably stay the way it is, and people should just follow the rules more.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah, usually I merge bad double posts anyway, and if someone really abuses double-posting to raise his post count for example, I can always reset his post count to zero

[trevmeister66]

Haha well they would get what they deserve.