Get the front page under control - About xda-developers.com

The front page is completely unhinged. Many articles come off extremely sponsored or the very least are pointless and filler. Sponsored posts are fine but mark them sponsored. The front page is the first thing people see and tells you what kind of site you are visiting. It feels less like a developer site and more like a general tech site as of late.
The disqus section is littered with bots. Do what other sites do, limit new commentors first few post to moderator review before they can be seen. Don't have anyone to moderate the front page comments? I'll do it.
Spoiler
@MikeChannon

SyCoREAPER said:
The front page is completely unhinged. Many articles come off extremely sponsored or the very least are pointless and filler. Sponsored posts are fine but mark them sponsored. The front page is the first thing people see and tells you what kind of site you are visiting. It feels less like a developer site and more like a general tech site as of late.
The disqus section is littered with bots. Do what other sites do, limit new commentors first few post to moderator review before they can be seen. Don't have anyone to moderate the front page comments? I'll do it.
Spoiler
@MikeChannon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@a.cid Sir, above might be of interest to you.

SyCoREAPER said:
The front page is completely unhinged. Many articles come off extremely sponsored or the very least are pointless and filler. Sponsored posts are fine but mark them sponsored. The front page is the first thing people see and tells you what kind of site you are visiting. It feels less like a developer site and more like a general tech site as of late.
The disqus section is littered with bots. Do what other sites do, limit new commentors first few post to moderator review before they can be seen. Don't have anyone to moderate the front page comments? I'll do it.
Spoiler
@MikeChannon
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Click to collapse
All sponsored posts are posted under the Author "A word from our sponsors", and the social media posts around them are marked as [ad] too.
The others are not sponsored.
Filler -- feedback noted. We have changes upcoming to the front page that will give less visibility to filler content. The unfortunate situation that we are in is that filler content is needed if we are to have a fighting chance with Google and how SEO works. It may appear as filler to you, but it serves a purpose. Our authority content (stuff like regular news, forum content, apk teardowns, reviews etc) will not have a chance at performance if such "filler" content did not exist.
Re: disqus, this is a fresh spam wave that happened this weekend. I've cleaned up the section, banning multiple hundreds (yes, hundreds) of spam accounts. The wave has been rather relentless, and what you see is after me cleaning the sections up thrice over the weekend. To outsiders, it may appear that we aren't doing enough.
Re: limiting comments -- these accounts are actually 230+ days old in case of the sock puppet comments and 30+ days old on the main comments. They also have a bunch of comment activity. So unfortunately, our existing spam filters (we already have a fair few in place) are unable to catch it. We're exploring more means to get it under control. This happened over the weekend, so give us some time to assess solutions.
-- Aamir Siddiqui, Editor in Chief, XDA Portal

@a.cid
Thank you for the indepth response. Again if assistance is needed let me know.
Sorry I didn't tag you initially, I misread your title as retired for the Portal Team, not moderator

The spam comments issue should now be under control, fingers crossed!

Related

Is it just me or are we getting a lot more trolls lately?

Hi, First let me say that I love this site and have learned massive amounts of stuff by reading and searching and the occasional question.
I have noticed lately that the number of people who have been members for 2 weeks and have 1700 posts is rapidly increasing. I also see a lot more posts like:
"yeah I think my bro had a progam like that once whre you had to move thing diffrnt LOL maybe LOL "
and
"yeah that would be so cool if someone could do that, too bad i don't know how to program LOL "
and surely a lot more posts getting jacked by flame-wars and outright trolls. I know that this is somewhat inevitable when a site like XDA offers so much. IT will get hugely popular and sooner or later the AOL'ers arrive and turn it to ****e. I really, really hope that doesn't happen to my favourite site...but it kind of feels like it's starting to go that way....is there anything to be done? Some kind of flag on people who get senior member status within 6 hours of joining? Some kind of age-verification system before allowing new members? Some kind of post-filtering algorithm that auto deletes any post with more than 5 smiley's and two LOL's in it??
Seriously though, maybe I'm being a jerk, but does anyone else notice this lately? Any thoughts?
Hello mlalahoi.
As you can see by the 'Join Date' on the top right of my post I have been here a while.
Yes this forum used to be different but it also used to be a lot smaller.
But word of unofficial WM upgrades, iPhone themes and free unlockers travels fast.
Combined with the growth in popularity of HTC it self and WM OS in general the number of users on this site has increased significantly in the past 1.5 years or so.
The administration of this site strives to keep it as free and accessible as it always was so instead of limiting user registration they increased the number of moderators to cope with the onslaught of junk posts that inevitably accompanies the increase in user base.
But we still can't catch every post, specially in general forums where there can be as many as 3 pages of new threads per day.
This is where you and other users who care about this site come in. In the top right corner of every post there is a '!' button.
You can use it to report posts that are offensive, wrong or plain SPAM. The moderators will get a notification with a link to the post and will take appropriate action.
Lets all keep the forum clean together!
thats a good point to be raised. one has to flip so many pages just to view some serious and productive comments.
help
why is it that i try to download but get an attachment.htm file that doesnt open but my desktop or where eve i save it
xda27 said:
why is it that i try to download but get an attachment.htm file that doesnt open but my desktop or where eve i save it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably (a) you're either using a download manager (don't) or using 'save as' (don't) or (b) you've posted this question in the wrong thread by the way (i.e. it should have its own thread I think).
Disable any download managers. Free Download Manager is one that I use and makes this mistake on attachments if I let it.
Sorry for the semi-sarcasm - wasn't a genuine flame mate. Enjoy the attachments, very important part of the site.
(Oh, look - my posts just went up by one!! )
Hi mlalahoi i do agree i joind when i first got my hermesthanks to my teachcher showing me the wounders of XDA-Dev and I essecialy agree with the silly posts that flood xda....
XDA statuses are not something to flash off (even though i carnt wait to upgrade )
What i dont agree with is this:
mlalahoi said:
Some kind of age-verification system before allowing new members?
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Click to collapse
Im not as old as others on this website but XDA has inspired me to try C+ programming everything...
I can agree that it is probibly the young population that causing the flood... but not all of us are alike!
Couldn't agree more with this thread. I am among those who might soon attract derision from some of you true 'senior' members. I recently joined and I am happy to say that all but 4 of my posts have been helping other members. Of the 4, 2 were questions and 2 were comments. But I would hardly say I am even close to being senior in my knowledge, yet here I am getting awfully close on post count alone.
But since I have joined and taken an active interest in the titan pages where a lot of work is going on at the moment, I have seen at least 10 ppl become senior members by asking dumb questions and making completely erroneous advice that in some cases could almost brick a device - all in name of their beloved post count.
For an interested novice (but definitely not a noob) like myself I would welcome a ranking system whereby you could see the seniority of a poster not by their post count but by their reputation for actually helping others or doing useful development.
At ppcgeeks they have a system whereby you can vote for ('rep') a post or poster to indicate if it was useful or just drivel. This way you have a more democratic system than just relying on the poor overworked moderators to do the filtering. These 'rep' votes increase your reputation as a useful poster.
It's very unlikely this system could be abused because you can't 'rep' yourself. This would really weed out the trolls.
Rank a post, Rank a poster
maccaberry said:
. . . I would welcome a ranking system whereby you could see the seniority of a poster not by their post count but by their reputation for actually helping others or doing useful development.
At ppcgeeks they have a system whereby you can vote for ('rep') a post or poster to indicate if it was useful or just drivel. This way you have a more democratic system than just relying on the poor overworked moderators to do the filtering. These 'rep' votes increase your reputation as a useful poster.
It's very unlikely this system could be abused because you can't 'rep' yourself. This would really weed out the trolls.
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Click to collapse
This seems like a great idea! I wonder if this forum's software has this feature available . . . ?
Edit: I just checked out the ppcgeeks forums - another nice feature is Multiquote - really slick way to respond to 2 or more posts at once, rather than having to cut and paste like here.

Sponsored Adverts

As a forum owner myself, I appreciate the need to fund the site, however adding a sponsored advert between EVERY SINGLE POST within a thread is just ridiculous.
It devalues the forum and makes printing a page very frustrating, as well as simply reading a page!!
Please please reduce it to every 3 posts at maximum?
Thread Moved to About Forum.
Moderators don't have any say over adverts so you'll have to wait for the Site Admin to comment... (I think )
Ta
Dave
ashleyhall said:
As a forum owner myself, I appreciate the need to fund the site, however adding a sponsored advert between EVERY SINGLE POST within a thread is just ridiculous.
It devalues the forum and makes printing a page very frustrating, as well as simply reading a page!!
Please please reduce it to every 3 posts at maximum?
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Click to collapse
Hmmm, do you also complain about the wallpaper in your friends home when you visit them?
Anyway, if you want it ad-free, use the PDA version of the forum !!!
Junner2003 said:
Hmmm, do you also complain about the wallpaper in your friends home when you visit them?
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Click to collapse
If its terrible...yes! But thats irrelevant and a completely different context - this site is designed for its users, and putting adverts between every single post is entirely OTT - I had complaints after sticking an advert at the base of each entire thread, I wouldn't dare stick them between posts as I ultimately don't wish to devalue the quality/visual aesthetics of my forum.

Want to be an Author on my blog?

Ok well I'm looking for some good quality authors who can bring some good stuff to my blog.
**Link removed**
It's mostly about Android but I'd like to make it do with everything technology related. From product reviews all the way to interesting graphical work.
I need someone who will be dedicated and who can help get more and more visitors on my blog.
I've had my blog for only a month now and already got over 70000 views, a lot of the visitors on my blog are from this forum but I need visitors to come from all over the internet and from a lot of different forums.
If you think you could help me get my blog out there or would like to become an author email me and let me know.
[email protected]
Am I right in thinking that any link on that site generates revenue for you?
Please confirm.
WB
Nope not any link.
Only the ads.
Thread closed as the soliciting for paid work on the external site and the nature of the site itself constitutes advertising a commercial site/service which breaches XDA rule 11.
WB

Similar to "Thanks" button, please add "Unhelpful" or "Dislike" button

Similar to "Thanks" button, please add "Unhelpful" or "Dislike" button
Some forums on here have grown out of control with nonsense and useless posts and it is too much and even unnecessary work sometimes, for mods to have to deal with. The thousands of users that read these posts daily are perfectly capable of judging these posts and should be able to + or - a post based on its usefulness. This +/- button could be attached to every post similar to the way the "Thanks" button is. It wouldn't require every post to be +'ed or -'ed, but usually the REALLY HELPFUL posts would be +'ed (similar to being thanked) and the real BS posts would be ranked down. Simple.
People who don't bother to read or search first before posting something are an annoyance for many in this community.. and posting stickies at the top of every page titled "PLEASE READ FIRST" or anything similar just doesn't work. Users then "flame" one another, and that doesn't help in correcting the problem either. Additionally, the mods shouldn't have to be monitoring posts like they would a kindergarten class.
Allowing users to simply rate posts with a +/- like on many other sites, would improve the visibility of helpful posts on this forum greatly, while allowing nonsense posts to be hidden. When a posts receives an overwhelming number of -'s as opposed to +'s, that post will be automatically hidden so that other users may ignore it. There is already a "Thanks" button to thank users for being helpful; I think it's unrealistic to not include a way to flag unhelpful posts as well since there are just as many of those. (These aren't always derogatory or negative posts that SHOULD be reported to mods, but instead just wasteful and nonsense posts that add nothing informative to a thread).
Yes, this is a community where we are all here to help each other. In reality though, some users just don't care about anything except what they're here for and end up cluttering the forums with questions that have been answered several times before, or posting in wrong sections, etc . Those posts should be able to be flagged or ranked down by us users (this can be limited to even junior/ senior members for those worried of abuse in such a system, which is really not a threat at all [I explain in a post further down]). Please consider this improvement.
Thoughts?
Love it.
TechReport.com does a similar thing, and if you get five downvotes the post isn't automatically displayed.
Would streamline the site immensely, although I have a sneaky feeling something along these lines may well be implemented in the future.
This would cause so many problems too... All it would take is a few pissed off kids to downrank a helpful/brutally honest/ROM post into oblivion.
I think the way it is is fine, Although I wish they had a "Report as Trolling" button so we could send those ****ers into space somewhere...
posts like this
Not at all. If other users see a post getting downranked and they think it shouldn't be, they can just + it and if the overall community thinks the post shouldn't be downranked, enough people will + it to unhide the post. You sound like you have no faith in the community to do something right. It is such a large community that it will take a large number of posters to downrank something. And the general consensus about the post will eventually trump inappropriate downranks. It's so simple but difficult to explain. Also, this wouldn't require every post to be ranked. It's just there as an option.
Check out some androidandme posts for example. It works wonderfully on there.
IISiDeK1CKII said:
This would cause so many problems too... All it would take is a few pissed off kids to downrank a helpful/brutally honest/ROM post into oblivion.
I think the way it is is fine, Although I wish they had a "Report as Trolling" button so we could send those ****ers into space somewhere...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point Sidekick (Hi btw ) but I do think this would occur much less frequently than the opposite (ranking down trollers and threadcrappers, myself included )
Also, 'sensible users' could easily just rank it back up.
^^ Exactly. It's already a system in place on many sites, and it's obviously used because it works.
I'm in for this. We all know XDA has grown too fast for moderation to keep up. Let the users help out.
This is definitely a really good idea, it would bring up the quality of posts especially on the development related threads. +1 from me
Aspeds2989 said:
Some forums on here have grown out of control with nonsense and useless posts.
The issue of lazy people who don't bother to read or search before posting something annoys a lot of people in this community.. and posting stickies at the top of every page titled "PLEASE READ FIRST" or anything similar just doesn't work. Users flaming one another doesn't help in correcting the problem either. The mods also have enough on their hands to have to worry about monitoring and deleting and moving wrongfully placed posts.
So, in an effort to better the experience for everyone, why not allow users to simply rate posts with a +/- like on many other sites. When a posts receives an overwhelming number of negatives, that post will be automatically hidden (check androidandme.com for example).
I think this will be a more effective and simple way for the community to keep tabs on itself. There is already a "Thanks" button to thank users for helping one another. I think it's unrealistic to not include a way for users to rank down unhelpful posts as well. The report button just unnecessarily pushes more work onto the mods.
Yes, this is a community where we are all here to help each other. In reality though, some users just don't care about anything except what they're here for and add nothing positive to the community. Those posts should be able to be ranked down by us users.
Thoughts?
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Click to collapse
How about a [Solved Button]? For those Damn threads you read about a Million Replies to just to find out Help is No Longer Needed!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1178716
PMGRANDS said:
How about a [Solved Button]? For those Damn threads you read about a Million Replies to just to find out Help is No Longer Needed!
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There is actually another thread about this in here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1178716
Unksi said:
There is actually another thread about this in here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1178716
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I know... Sorry!
I actually Started the other thread!
Lol, just trying to Promote the Idea!
Yea.. I didn't think anyone would listen either :-! Oh, well. I tried.
Preach it! This system would be extremely helpful for everyone, especially since there is alot of cluttering going on.
Ehh.. I think writing an essay was enough for me. If people like this maybe they can just keep bumping it until it catches attention.
Aspeds2989 said:
Ehh.. I think writing an essay was enough for me. If people like this maybe they can just keep bumping it until it catches attention.
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I Hear that... I Feel the Same way as you do with my Idea! I actually thought I'd have a lot More comments than I have in my thread. But oh well... Lol!
meeeowww..
Potential for abuse = Huuuge...
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face......
Realistic threat of abuse = Non-existent
Again, I refer to a site like Yahoo that uses this in their comments section that sees multiple times the amount of traffic than does this site and.. EDIT - nevermind
Aspeds2989 said:
Realistic threat of abuse = Non-existent
Again, I refer to a site like Yahoo that uses this in their comments section that sees multiple times the amount of traffic than does this site and.. EDIT - nevermind
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First off, I apologise, I did not pay attention and therefore my last post was irrelevant, allow me to respond properly....
Also, I hope that you didnt decide to edit your post because you noticed I was a mod, contrary to popular belief, users DO NOT receive bans/infractions for speaking their minds
Aspeds2989 said:
People who don't bother to read or search first before posting something are an annoyance for many in this community.. and posting stickies at the top of every page titled "PLEASE READ FIRST" or anything similar just doesn't work. Users then "flame" one another, and that doesn't help in correcting the problem either. Additionally, the mods shouldn't have to be monitoring posts like they would a kindergarten class.
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Click to collapse
Couldnt agree more....
Aspeds2989 said:
That is why allowing users to simply rate posts with a +/- like on many other sites, would improve the quality of posts on this forum greatly. When a posts receives an overwhelming number of negatives, that post will be automatically hidden so that other users are aware and may ignore it (check androidandme.com or any Yahoo news articles for examples). I think this will be a more effective and simple way for the community to keep tabs on itself. There is already a "Thanks" button to thank users for helping one another. I think it's unrealistic to not include a way for users to rank down unhelpful or even negative posts as well. It's like not wanting to acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of nonsense posts throughout the forums. And the report button just unnecessarily pushes more work onto the mods and the majority ignores it, so it's not effective.
Yes, this is a community where we are all here to help each other. In reality though, some users just don't care about anything except what they're here for and add nothing positive to the community, and end up cluttering the forums with questions that have been answered several times before, or posting in wrong sections, etc . Those posts should be able to be flagged or ranked down by the community. Please consider this improvement.
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Im not sure if this is possible with the version of VB that XDA uses. It probably is but then there is always the possibility that it may not work smoothly due to the existing amount of tweaks to the system that are already in place.
The problem you describe is due to the "gimme gimme gimme" mentality of the current userbase and we are currently taking steps to address this.
In the meantime please alert us to any such posts and we can remove duplicates and tag items as [SOLVED]. We dont mind doing it if people are willing to let us know that it needs to be done.
IISiDeK1CKII said:
This would cause so many problems too... All it would take is a few pissed off kids to downrank a helpful/brutally honest/ROM post into oblivion.
I think the way it is is fine, Although I wish they had a "Report as Trolling" button so we could send those ****ers into space somewhere...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could be an issue, there will always be a certain "fanboi" mentality that would be inclined to abuse such a system. Some of the developers can be quite blunt (and rightly so) when it comes to people asking dumbass questions in a thread, I would hate to see for threads to be tarnished with downvotes (even if it is just one) all because some asshat wasnt happy about receiving a public dressing down.
There is already a Report button... Use it, we dont like trolls, they will be promptly escorted off the premises.
Aspeds2989 said:
Not at all. If other users see a post getting downranked and they think it shouldn't be, they can just + it and if the overall community thinks the post shouldn't be downranked, enough people will + it to unhide the post. You sound like you have no faith in the community to do something right. It is such a large community that it will take a large number of posters to downrank something. And the general consensus about the post will eventually trump inappropriate downranks. It's so simple but difficult to explain. Also, this wouldn't require every post to be ranked. It's just there as an option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with the bold part at the moment.
I think that too much of the current userbase just want the easy option and want it now.
I think that we would need to adress the issue of discipline and improving the content of posts before we could implement a system like this, we are currently doing this but it will take time.
karnovaran said:
I'm in for this. We all know XDA has grown too fast for moderation to keep up. Let the users help out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to help, drop us a PM when you see something that needs attention or use the report button.
I think its unfair to say that XDA has grown too fast for the mods to keep up, we have a highly dedicated and hard working team of many moderators who give up their free time to keep this place running. New moderator applications are being processed at the moment as well, so expect to see a few more jackbooted, goosestepping, uptight internet rent-a-cops strutting around sometime soon.
The problem lies not with the amount of users we have to deal with, it is the amount of stupidity and ignorance displayed by some (too many) of them.
I guess that is going to come off as a pretty negative post but I am not against such an idea, I just think there are more pressing matters to attend to first.
If you havent already done so I suggest you read the forum announcement by Svetius outlining the roadmap for the site.
/rant

Why So Hostile?

Hi!
I really enjoy the forum but why is it so hostile to new users? For example, being forced to do a CAPTCHA every time I write a new post, and when I wanted to share my desktop in the share your desktop thread in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 forum I was blocked because I'm new, and then when I went to fix a typo in a post I'd just made, it told me I had to wait FIVE minutes! Believe me, I understand what a problem spammers are. I am a moderator on another tech forum and I used to be a moderator for MTV. I get it. But treating all your new users as if they are spammers and making them jump through hoops or blocking them from being able to do simple things like share a screenshot just gives off a "we hate new users, we know you're all evil spammers so we hope this frustrates you enough to drive you away" vibe.
I understand that your rules are your rules and respect that, and I like it here. I just wanted to put in my two cents about the impression it gives new users.
BretonGirl said:
Hi!
I really enjoy the forum but why is it so hostile to new users? For example, being forced to do a CAPTCHA every time I write a new post, and when I wanted to share my desktop in the share your desktop thread in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 forum I was blocked because I'm new, and then when I went to fix a typo in a post I'd just made, it told me I had to wait FIVE minutes! Believe me, I understand what a problem spammers are. I am a moderator on another tech forum and I used to be a moderator for MTV. I get it. But treating all your new users as if they are spammers and making them jump through hoops or blocking them from being able to do simple things like share a screenshot just gives off a "we hate new users, we know you're all evil spammers so we hope this frustrates you enough to drive you away" vibe.
I understand that your rules are your rules and respect that, and I like it here. I just wanted to put in my two cents about the impression it gives new users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
even though ive given you a thanks or this, i do believe its set correctly. This forum has soooooo many existing users plus the new ones joining everyday its very suprising how little advertising,spamming goes on here and i do think its contributed by the new user rules.
I myself have only ever been a mod for a 200+ forum and the amount of spam we had to delete each day was a joke, imagine how many links around the web lead to xda....the amount of spam this site would be suffering had they not placed these rules the xda maybe not what we all cherish today
edit "NOTE", lol just wait until you accidentally post in the wrong section
I understand your situation, considering that you have been a forum moderator in other forums
But when I was a new user i never got to enter any captcha or so !
I have no clue that Captcha was being used on XDA to be honest!
But one thing that can help you is that you can answer others's questions in the Q and A forum of the device(s) you own. Helps to get that 10 post thing done early, especially if you know enough to help someone else out
Anyways all the best and you can PM me if you need any more help or you may contact a senior admin
just my 2 (+1) cents p) and Peace!
I've never been a moderator for any forum and even I know the effect spammers can have if the proper procedures don't take place.
But you gotta know, it's only for a few posts...it's not like you'll be entering captcha codes in forever and never be able to share weblinks or screen shots.
Just ride it out, we all had to
Well, this is a touchy subject.
Being such a high traffic forum we really do need aggressive anti spam measures.
As for the restrictions on the development sections.... We'll that's also a touchy subject but for entirely different reasons.
Once upon a time XDA was populated solely by developers, developers who developed for no other reason than the love of developing. Then the smartphone became accessible to more and more people, which led to more and more members who weren't developers. This led to lots and lots of questions, many of which were placed in the development forums, which isn't the right place for non development related questions. Therefore a system was put in place which prevents new users from posting in the development sections with the intention of giving them the opportunity to get to know how XDA works before jumping straight in and spamming up the hallowed halls of the development forums.....
That's about it really.. Check out the sticky in this section for a more detailed explanation
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face.....
I appreciate everyone's replies. I have no problem with the 10 posts before getting access to the developer's section. You certainly don't want anything but quality in a section like that.
I also understand the spam issue. One of my day jobs is as a staff writer for a blog hosted by a company that makes anti-spam software. I know more than I ever wanted to on the subject!
This is a great forum!
I agree
The forum is very anti-noob. I hate entering capta images that I can hardly read, can only post every 5 minutes, this really sucks. I hope when I hit 10 posts this crap goes away
I like the spam features that this site has in place, I think more forum sites need to put something like this in place. It's not that hard to get 10 posts if you're helping people out.
Chaotic Peace said:
I like the spam features that this site has in place, I think more forum sites need to put something like this in place. It's not that hard to get 10 posts if you're helping people out.
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Click to collapse
most new users on this forum are looking for help , so i guess most users first 10 post will be for asking help and not giving .
i kind of like the idea of captcha on the first few post i may use it on my site. i have a xbox modding site and it generates a bit of spam from time to time.
webjunky said:
most new users on this forum are looking for help , so i guess most users first 10 post will be for asking help and not giving .
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Click to collapse
Yep, and at the same time most new users don't understand the concept of searching the forums so their first 10 posts which are asking rather than helping would probably have already been asked previously. i.e. forum gets cluttered up, which is pretty much a form of spam.
Chaotic Peace said:
I like the spam features that this site has in place, I think more forum sites need to put something like this in place. It's not that hard to get 10 posts if you're helping people out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah exactly! And making ten posts isn't that time consuming either at the same time.
webjunky said:
most new users on this forum are looking for help , so i guess most users first 10 post will be for asking help and not giving .
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Click to collapse
This is true as well. But if they need help they should be posting in the Q&A sections of their device not the development section.
I think the rules are there for a reason and the MODs and Admin have thought a lot on this issue and its only for first 10 posts.
It's not too bad, it's worth it.
---------- Post added at 10:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 PM ----------
I think if people were able to sign in with their google accounts though there wouldn't be need for all this...
conantroutman said:
This led to lots and lots of questions, many of which were placed in the development forums, which isn't the right place for non development related questions. Therefore a system was put in place which prevents new users from posting in the development sections with the intention of giving them the opportunity to get to know how XDA works before jumping straight in and spamming up the hallowed halls of the development
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And now they post Questions in the general forums =.=
Sent from my E15i using Tapatalk
We're always trying to make things better on the forums. This means we have to try stuff to see if it works. It's basically trial & error for the most part.
The spamming has decreased alot the past couple of months with the new captchas and 10 post rule. Still, we need to find a way to make it less difficult to join our forums and more difficult to post spam. Ideas are always welcome of course.
Annoying for non noobs
I still haven't made my 10 posts because all the stuff I want to respond to is in the developer forums so now I have to search the boards for things to reply to to actually find something to respond even though I've been a member for over a year and a user of this website for a few years!
Whilst I understand the reasoning security vs usability can sometimes be a massive P.I.T.A
Slotty_AU said:
I still haven't made my 10 posts because all the stuff I want to respond to is in the developer forums so now I have to search the boards for things to reply to to actually find something to respond even though I've been a member for over a year and a user of this website for a few years!
Whilst I understand the reasoning security vs usability can sometimes be a massive P.I.T.A
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Is it so much to ask that you read for a bit first, pick up some knowledge and experience, help a few people in the 90+% of the site which is completely open to you such as your devices General or Q&A forums or any of the General discussion forums, to participate with quality posts instead of BS posts, in return for being able to post into any of the ROM threads from any dev on this site?
I've had the immense privilege of watching this site grow since just a couple months after it introduced a few new phone models to the original O2 XDA. I actually get my soap opera fix and tech fix all in one! I'm hooked.
It's not just spam. I was a horrendous new user, posting in the wrong forum, responding to emotional posts enough to encourage them, I even chewed out a guy for blasting a noob. The problem is organic, and though spam has become part of that (probably the hugest part, now) it's that organic nature of this forum that makes it so great. Really tough problem to grow something cleanly without squelching it.
I was wondering if XDA could track a user's searches, or forums "read" for more than a minute, and after 30 or so, then stop the captchas. It seems like over the years it's folks who don't search & read (spammers or otherwise) that are the detraction. Maybe something like being in "reader" status as a step to becoming a new user & able to post at all.
1. I could have used it.
2. I'm putting this here, in the weird forum for this topic it's in, to see what people think. Wanting to have input as a developer is definitely a magnification of the problem. I'm glad it's here.
(ThinkPad Tablet:Tapatalk 2)

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