New Users: Can't PM or post links until you have 5 posts.

[MustangV10]

Haha, even though it says Administrator I am forced to wait till I hit 5....I think this should bring me up to par.


EDIT:

Yup, that got it!

Congratulations. Funny how that was coded up, haha.

[Victor Leigh]

I've just lowered this down to 1 ...

Why 1? I would have thought raising it to 10 would be fine. I mean this will give the new members a bit of an incentive to be active. Also should give the mods a chance to weed out spammers. It's easier to keep a closer eye on the new members with less than 10 posts.

[DarthVader3257]

Thanks for sharing! I actually wasn't aware of that until I tried PMing someone that helped me out during the early stages of joining this site. Now that I have a lot more than 5 posts, I can easily PM whomever I would like. I appreciate the support!

[agoodwriter]

Hey.

This doesn't really help us to stop spammers, you should rise up the limit for 10 or more, then spammers get bored and they go oway. That's only a suggestion.

[Smokey]

This is actually a good thing. This will prevent users from signing up and spamming people with PMs and links to other sites right off the bat. It will require them to do a little work first and if their posts aren't good and they aren't here for the community you'll know right away and be able to ban them accordingly before they can even PM anyone with spam.

[Snrm]

Are there any rules to changing your avatar before you get a certain amount of posts? As I said in my introductory post, I am unsure why the system will not let me add an avatar. No matter what file type I put it keeps saying invalid file. I would imagine it would say "You need more posts to do that" if this was the case but I am just trying to make sure.

[masteraljon]

i agree, this would be a bright idea to stop spammers.

[Darwin]

Are you using these plugins?

Grab an API key from stopforumspam.com and the plugin
URL limiter
No More Proxy

Also I found a little trick that stops spammers in their tracks at registration - try adding an adbrite full page script to the registration page - as it breaks to the advert the spambots get all hot and flustered and cannot register so move on or get stuck in a cycle.

All these I have found to cut out 99% of spam - you get the occasional smartass human who will make a few posts on your limiter but they are so easy to spot - broken email addy's such as er.ic999.bolands@aol.com so you can just quickie delete their ass's

[Rob]

Hey Snrm,

Give it another shot now.. i raised the weight limit..

Are there any rules to changing your avatar before you get a certain amount of posts? As I said in my introductory post, I am unsure why the system will not let me add an avatar. No matter what file type I put it keeps saying invalid file. I would imagine it would say "You need more posts to do that" if this was the case but I am just trying to make sure.

[Rob]

Darwin,

Yep - we have the stopforumspam plugin - sent someone there this morning btw that got through That, and the keycaptcha seem to stop most of the bots..

We are still using the plugin for PMs/links also. I'm usually finding the spammers like to load up their sig and their 'homepage'.. so a search through the db finds probably 95% of them..