LPSG Members: become part of the solution.

I'm not sure that I like the idea of closing ann account out after X amount of time. An example, I left for a few months so my account would have been closed, but what if someone noticed and registered my old name? Then he may have been able to pretend to be me...

Removing the ability to right click and save photos would prevent anyone from stealing photos. That way they couldn't use them as their own or post them on another website. This sort of thing has caused some stink here.

I agree on the spammers, but that isn't allowed now, is it?

I agree being able to view thumbnails in the gallery can encourage people to become paying members or post pics of their own.

I agree on deleting inactive members after a certain length of time. Maybe a warning email first would be good. This would free up a lot of space on the server. If they don't want to be active they don't need to be members.

As far as age verification, I don't know. Anyone can access a credit card these days.

I have to credit big dirigible for the Bear Pit idea. It has been around on other fora I'm told, but I saw it first at his.

Arrg, I was going to be brilliant and tell you about the "Save" feature, but Mindseye beat me to it.

I think that vBulletin actually supports a "Reputation" system, which sounds similar. I swear it was a vB site where I saw it before, and was actually going to suggest it to Big Rob before, but not sure that I ever did. So, I guess this is my chance.

I actually belong to other sites, where your first __ number of posts are actually moderated, and it's only after they get a sense of you, that they lift that for you to post unfettered.

I would like to see a more developed members profile space. Gaydar has a good profile space, something along those lines would give users a bit more of a space to write about themselves and others of an idea as to who they're chatting with.

To your points, Jeff and SR, here's a suggestion: 1 post per hour (or per four hours, if you prefer), maximum, for anyone with less than 100 posts. No creating new threads until one reaches the 100-post mark.

This would make trolls work really hard to do their trolling.

Once that is implemented, the mod team could be reduced to one or two mods whose sole duty would be to ban minors.

So long as underage people are kept out all is fine with me.

One thing that I can think of is just not allowing guests to view pics. That is probably the reason there is always more guests online than members. I think if you made it so guests could not view pics unless they became members (thumbnails) and members couldn't view full sized pics unless they paid then you would have more gold members. As far as I know as of right now the guests have the same gallery viewing ability as the goldmembers. I'm sure some of those guests would be willing to pay if they can't look for free. It doesn't really bother me either way I just think it would help the site out.

Agreed.

I have high-postings, but mostly because I'm addicted to some of the word games in the Fun and Games forum. (On the other hand, I do post meaningfully... well, sometimes!)

ANd I wish I'd searched the forum better before starting a couple of rather stupid threads. So I say, give it a MONTH!

(Bow down, scrape the floor.... forgive my newbie intrusion)

Firstly I’d like to say thanks to Rob, I’ve never seen a paying site take this step before, secondly to say that despite all the moaning I think in many ways that the site has got it about right and thirdly I’d like to say why I think some of the suggestions wouldn’t work before saying which suggestions I do think might be a good idea:-

Ideas I don't think would help:-

1- Taking a harder line against individuals who derail threads wouldn’t work because what one person sees as a derailment another person would see as an interesting tangent. This would be very open to individual interpretation and tightening this up would just give people who disliked someone another reason to call for their banning. Also many of the threads invite the odd funny exchange which most of us enjoy but have nothing to do with the thread subject and often wander off course in a very rewarding way.

2 – A moratorium on non essential duties would be disaster, at the moment we’re all aware that there are mods in the background and I’m afraid that without this knowledge some people would use this as an opportunity to be vicious and turn into psychotic net stalkers. We shouldn’t need mods as we’re all adults isn’t a valid argument; we shouldn’t need police we should all abide by the law but how soon would society become a lawless wasteland filled with self appointed vigilantes if the police were disbanded, this would be what the site would be like, there’d be a few people who would gleefully see this as an opportunity to be as unpleasant and hurtful as they could, there’d be repeated harassing of the people they had a bone to pick with, hurtful comments left on photos. A site this large has to have mods with the ability to ban on the rare occasions it’s needed.

3 – A formalised public ban notification procedure sounds ok at first sight but many times the people who would be under this warning would be people who are disliked and this would make them a target for being baited into bad behaviour so that they are banned.

4 – Ban nominations by other members just wouldn’t work, a new member can easily step on someone’s toes and the existing members side with an old member in voting him off or different ‘factions’ would spend weeks in insisting that each group be banned. The removal of one member would likely result in retaliatory calls for removal of some of the people who asked for his banning.

5 - Lurkers in the chat room might well be chatting privately, you can’t force someone to join in a conversation so let them have their enjoyment privately they’re not hurting anyone and there isn’t a limit on room size so far as I know.

6 – Removing access to galleries in any form for non gold members. The one thing that paying members get that non paying members don’t is access to large size photos, it therefore stands to reason the only thing that would tempt someone into paying is the availability of photos, so to say that a non paying member who posts photos shouldn’t be classed equally with a paying member and shouldn’t have gallery access doesn’t quite hold water, we more than pay our way here. It’s been said that pictures aren’t the only reason for LPSG but they are the only reason for anyone to become a gold member so I feel that I contribute quite as much as someone who has paid and therefore I deserve to see the thumbnails at the very least. In the old ToS it was stated that every member was of equal importance and I feel that this should be put back into it.

Ideas which I think deserve consideration are:-

1 – Banning to go through a set routine in every case for spamming, trolling or harrassing someone, a warning pm, a suspension during which time the person suspended would be able to present any evidence that he wasn’t guilty in the case of trolling or harrassment (it’s not always as clean cut as it first looks) and if the behaviour is continued then banning. Bannings on here are so rare that this is practicable.

2 – Probation period for mods, it’s sad to say that sometimes if someone’s promoted to moderator they go on a bit of a head trip.

3 – Demotion of mods who don’t put a certain amount of time into the site. I’ve never seen some of the mods on the site, if they don’t regularly input into the site they can’t have any idea of the dynamics and their input as a moderator when they do show up is likely to be resented, so any mod who visits the site or posts less than a certain amount be demoted.

4 – The facility to delete your account.

5 – Spammers should be banned, however I do not see posting a site that has some relevance to the subject being talked about, or that people think other people might enjoy as a problem, or even inviting people to join your own website, it’s when the website is being touted for the sole purpose of gaining paying membership that it pisses me off.

6 - I agree that filling out a profile should be mandatory, and I also think that certain fields (sex for instance) should be unable to be altered once filled in.

7 – As part of the membership process there should be a field specifying whether or not you want the reason to be made public in the event you are banned, this puts the issue of privacy with the only person who should have any say in it. There could then be just a short heading – banned for trolling/banned for spamming/banned for whatever.

8 – People who post stolen pics as their own should be banned, there are a number of posters on here who are excellent at spotting this (Alex8 comes to mind), of course there will be people who accuse someone of being a fake just because they’ve pissed them off, but if, for instance, people actually post the site where the pics have been stolen from this should be looked into by a mod and if there isn’t a reasonable and credible explanation forthcoming (for instance they have pics on another amateur site is reasonable, I am Jenna Jameson isn’t reasonable) they should be banned. Any form of communication shouldn’t be based on a lie.

9 – New posters can’t post for two weeks, it has been mentioned that they could just join and then not use the site for two weeks but believe me, if someone joins site of this nature a lot of the time they want to jump right in J

10 – The reinstatement in the ToS of the conditions regarding dragging a grievance from thread to thread and not starting a thread with the sole purpose of dissing someone, these were very precise and easily understandable and in my opinion in the last few days I’ve seen this start to happen increasingly. It helps enormously if there are precise guidelines on what isn’t permissible.

As far as I know, only paying (gold members) can view full sized pics.
Guests cannot.

I don't know if they changed it but before I joined I could view full sized pics. Once I joined I couldn't and I didn't understand what was going on.

Agreed. I get a LOT of PMs... from who or what it's sometimes hard to determine!

It's true. It's almost a "penalty" for becoming a member. I get a lot of pm's from people who've never seen how ugly i am when then enlarge my pictures (!!!), so I wish this was different somehow!

Maybe CHEAP membership and PREMIUM membership.

I am not going to try and find it, but there were some posts about this back when this occurred. This was about the time you joined. The gallery had been opened several times over the course of a couple of weeks. I don't know if it was intentional, to attract more members, or if it was due to work being done on the server set up. Most of those here when this happened know about it. It wasn't supposed to be that way, and it no longer is. You must be a registered, gold member now to view full sized pics, or any videos.