Alternative to 10 post rule

Fallen Spartan said:

Sadly yes, but we do encourage people to make 10 USEFUL posts instead of spamming our threads.

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I agree with that, and I encourage new users to do that. I'm just saying that you can make semi-useful (as in not spam) posts to accomplish the 10-post "task." It's a forum about modifying cell phones, tablets, and other devices, and programming, among other things. If someone can't find anything relevant to talk about, then XDA isn't for them. That's the bottom line. Why would join a website centered around something you're not interested in? I can understand if you join and know little to nothing, but there's your 10-post introduction right there. Ask some questions, show off your device, talk about your carrier, help someone else if you know the solution to their problem, etc.

As a new user, a complete android noob and having some experience in posting in other forums, I thought I'd drop in a different perspective...

I've literally signed up around ~20 minutes ago to post a question about an issue I was having so I don't really know how this forum operates and such, but I've actually found it rather annoying to constantly have these anti-spamming precautions which are limiting what I can do and really discouraging me from posting. Knowing the annoyance of repeated questions I've always googled any problems that come up, I've personally been careful to make sure that the problem I was having hasn't been asked before, which it seemingly hadn't.

Problems is, I had a problem with a specific ROM, which according to the forum rules, requires posting in the development section of the forum. I've alternately posted in the Q/A section and now am awaiting a reply, but as a new user there's already a ton of other things that's told me not to spam, etc, etc. The patronizing introductory "noob video," the multiple non-spam verifications upon signing up, the 5min per post/edit rule, the image verification required for EVERY SINGLE POST and I'm honestly tired of the already imposed restrictions as a new user.

In addition, I personally post a lot in hardware-related forums and I first started in a small off-topic section of a different forum. From there moved to some larger forums and such, at which point I had a fair bit of knowledge about the subject. While this isn't the case for me with this forum, I'm sure there's a lot of people who do have a highly level of knowledge about development, who would like to post in those forums. Plus as some of the development forums are often used to give suggestions about the ROMs and such, which doesn't require any technical knowledge. In such cases I see no reason for the 10 post rule to even exist and the "x thanks + y" posts suggestions in my opinion, is absolutely absurd.

I understand this is a large forum and I haven't been in much discussions myself, but I really do think that there must be an alternative than these constant user restrictions that are imposed on top of each other. To be quite frank, I'm surprised people are even continuing to spam these forums considering that it takes a minimum of an hour of active use until I can even post in such threads.

I'm not saying that restrictions and spam prevention is a bad thing, but I would appreciate it if you would also keep the newer users in mind too.

The thing that annoys me is that they are allowed to make their first 10 posts in OT. Even if it's not spam, still, the person should be posting in general and q&a. Why not make it off limits like dev sections? I know the argument you guys have is that q&a and general will be spammed, and it's more work for mods, but I believe person has more chance of learning how to do it properly if he gets a warning and a friendly pm from the mod with short explanation rather than being allowed to sail through OT and then be allowed in general with often skewed outlook on how to post (its not a secret that ot is like it's own different world here). At least then that person is given a general direction on how things should be done here.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

christoi said:

As a new user, a complete android noob and having some experience in posting in other forums, I thought I'd drop in a different perspective...

I've literally signed up around ~20 minutes ago to post a question about an issue I was having so I don't really know how this forum operates and such, but I've actually found it rather annoying to constantly have these anti-spamming precautions which are limiting what I can do and really discouraging me from posting. Knowing the annoyance of repeated questions I've always googled any problems that come up, I've personally been careful to make sure that the problem I was having hasn't been asked before, which it seemingly hadn't.

Problems is, I had a problem with a specific ROM, which according to the forum rules, requires posting in the development section of the forum. I've alternately posted in the Q/A section and now am awaiting a reply, but as a new user there's already a ton of other things that's told me not to spam, etc, etc. The patronizing introductory "noob video," the multiple non-spam verifications upon signing up, the 5min per post/edit rule, the image verification required for EVERY SINGLE POST and I'm honestly tired of the already imposed restrictions as a new user.

In addition, I personally post a lot in hardware-related forums and I first started in a small off-topic section of a different forum. From there moved to some larger forums and such, at which point I had a fair bit of knowledge about the subject. While this isn't the case for me with this forum, I'm sure there's a lot of people who do have a highly level of knowledge about development, who would like to post in those forums. Plus as some of the development forums are often used to give suggestions about the ROMs and such, which doesn't require any technical knowledge. In such cases I see no reason for the 10 post rule to even exist and the "x thanks + y" posts suggestions in my opinion, is absolutely absurd.

I understand this is a large forum and I haven't been in much discussions myself, but I really do think that there must be an alternative than these constant user restrictions that are imposed on top of each other. To be quite frank, I'm surprised people are even continuing to spam these forums considering that it takes a minimum of an hour of active use until I can even post in such threads.

I'm not saying that restrictions and spam prevention is a bad thing, but I would appreciate it if you would also keep the newer users in mind too.

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No. No. No. No.

No it does not. If you have a problem with a ROM, you post in Q&A, because it is a question about a problem. People who get in after the 10 posts do what you were attempting to do; there's a million people asking questions in ROM/kernel development threads. What you just described is the 10 post limit working. You're supposed to post in the Q&A section.

Product F(RED) said:

No. No. No. No.

No it does not. If you have a problem with a ROM, you post in Q&A, because it is a question about a problem. People who get in after the 10 posts do what you were attempting to do; there's a million people asking questions in ROM/kernel development threads. What you just described is the 10 post limit working. You're supposed to post in the Q&A section.

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I was actually referring to a specific rule that was stated on one of the N7 forum stickies actually...

1. Posting in the Development Forum. Creating new threads in the Dev Forum is restricted to development work. Roms, Hacks, Roots, etc. This IS NOT a place to ask questions. There is a Q&A Forum for that.

Exception: If you have a problem with a specific Custom Rom, Hack, Root, etc, then you may post it in the related thread where it originated from. Example; you installed a custom rom from the Dev Forum, and it has issues rom related. You may post your issue in the ROM THREAD ONLY. Do NOT create a new thread.

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Might be an overlap with the rules, but it seems strange to ask a question about a specific ROM in the general device Q&A section to me anyways.

Also, IMO it doesn't really show that the rule is working in that case, as I'm still thinking that I should post threads in the future in the dev sections. I fully understand and respect how annoying it is to have the same questions being asked over and over again, but I don't think this kind of brute-force suppression would really solve such an issue.

christoi said:

I was actually referring to a specific rule that was stated on one of the N7 forum stickies actually...



Might be an overlap with the rules, but it seems strange to ask a question about a specific ROM in the general device Q&A section to me anyways.

Also, IMO it doesn't really show that the rule is working in that case, as I'm still thinking that I should post threads in the future in the dev sections. I fully understand and respect how annoying it is to have the same questions being asked over and over again, but I don't think this kind of brute-force suppression would really solve such an issue.

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In all honesty, I've never seen that exception so my apologies. It just seems illogical to me.

mark manning said:

This thread is already spiraling out of control....

Sent from my Nexus⁴

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I think so far it's been quite a constructive conversation. No valid ideas yet, but still....

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

MikeChannon said:

Some developers create a help/support thread for their ROMs in Q&A, which I think is good practice, but some Developers provide their work and expect those using it to go find out how to use it and are simply not there to act as support givers to all-comers in their ROM threads.

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This is the appropriate way to handle Q&A posts.

For example, the AROMA installer thread was bombarded with posts about "what is wrong with my script" "I get installation error status: 0" etc.

None of these were directly related to the development of AROMA, not did they represent a bug in the AROMA package. Most were updater-script errors, or syntax errors.

Someone mentioned a Q&A specifically to address these problems, so as an RC, I created it. I think it has really cut down on the number of "help im n00b cant get working" posts in the OPs dev thread.

And the posts are all directly related to the topic at hand (for the most part) so finding information is much easier, since all posts are similar in context.

More OPS should take this approach or find an RC that is capable of helping and find others who are willing to help.

KidCarter93 said:

I've seen quite a few mods who have used these same sentences but it doesn't really make sense to me.
I've said before that "I don't care if you're the next Chainfire or just some random spammer. If you can't make 10 posts, you shouldn't be on XDA." but with a lot of mods generally agreeing with that sentiment, why is the option available to lift the 10 post restriction?

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Plain and simple, we have occasions were clearly experienced people have come from other forums or users show a certain level of experience in their first couple posts etc. In cases like these we sometimes weaver the 10 post rule for them to allow them to post in dev threads. But again, this is an exception to the rule

Fallen Spartan said:

Plain and simple, we have occasions were clearly experienced people have come from other forums or users show a certain level of experience in their first couple posts etc. In cases like these we sometimes weaver the 10 post rule for them to allow them to post in dev threads. But again, this is an exception to the rule

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Since this started as a thread about alternatives to the 10 post rule, one answer might be right here. You leave the 10 post rule where it is and for noobs who show unnoobish behavior you lift the rule. So only a moderator or above would be able to lift the 10 post rule, but maybe RCs/RTs/RDs could "report" good behavior to the moderators. If you limit the number of good reports to 1 or 2 per day per RC/RT/RD it shouldn't be too big of an extra work load. Of course there won't be a guarantee that every good post will get noticed but it rewards good citizenship and is difficult to circumvent by spamming all over the place. Unfortunately, this would probably break down if you let every member report unnoobish posts.

I think the grey area about posting ROM specific questions in Development should be clarified. Leaving it as forum by forum, or even worse, thread by thread is confusing to everyone, not just new users.

One last idea, is to have pop up notices about problems in the threads. These notices should expire in a short period of time, say 1 week, and only appear the 1st time a user (and this would be for all users) try to open a thread in that area. The notice would explain the problem, what the moderators/admin staff are doing to fix the problem, and what they want the rest of us to do about it -even if it is just to report a specific kind of post. Even if a small percentage of users actually read and cooperate with the notice it can make a huge difference. With a little bit of tweaking, I guess the OPs in development could use pop up notices to keep their threads from spinning out of control by pointing out their FAQ in Q&A,or to solicit specific feedback about certain new features, etc.

my two cents

what about a questionary for new users as i saw on insanelymac forums?

I think the 10 post rule is fine. I dont even root and rom, but i got thru it legally.

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KidCarter93 said:

Accidental thank -_-


It would be too awkward to do because different developers have a different level of knowledge, so questions wouldn't really work.


"I don't care if you're the next Chainfire or just some random spammer. If you can't make 10 posts, you shouldn't be on XDA."

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They would if you have to look for answers in a short given text. Your normal comprehension test.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

One of the problems with the 10 post rule is that it doesn't encourage people to value their own posts. In fact, the 10 post rule tends to do the opposite, because it "rewards" people who produce 10 useless posts. Since manually checking everyones 10 posts isn't practical, rationing them out seems to be the obvious way to encourage useful posting. Let's say we allow 5 posts/day and they can be used anywhere, except maybe Development with no more than 2 per day. Keep it in place for 20 posts or you can slowly increase the # of posts/day. Also maybe put in a delay between registration and 1st post of say 60 minutes -just to give people a chance to use that all important search function and to discourage people registering for multiple accounts once they used their ration up. I know that there is already a 5 minute delay between new user's posts, and that was designed to stop one type of bad behavior and rationing posts (although similar) is designed to stop a different kind of behavior.