I don't know if this experience was exclusive to me, but I didn't have a very welcome journey into these forums. Having first been banned for spam before posting anything, and then having 3 or 4 seperate posts be marked as "awaiting moderator's approval" it felt like a very suspicious and hostile introduction.
I understand that whoever is in charge has to worry about spam and such. However, it does make me wonder if the message I first see above the forums about awards not being given because of low activity has something to do with the fact that new members are effectively being turned away by being treated suspiciously from the get go.
Also, I've been on this site for a few months now and only stumbled across the forums by accident. I think some better way of promoting the forums would go a long way to helping activity. Some more prominent link on the homepage or something? As it stands, as a mobile user, I've got to click something before I even see the forum link.
Just my first impressions. These may be things that have already been thought about.
Hi There,
I’m sorry that you’ve had a negative first impression of the forums based on this experience.
I’d estimate that at least 90% (perhaps more) of new user registrations are spam bot accounts so we do have a lot of measures in place to stop the entire forum being swamped with spam messages. Unfortunately one of the forum staff mistakenly thought your account was also in this category and thus put through the ban.
Of the spam accounts those that get through often post spam straight away, so we have a mechanism in place to ensure that if a user with less than 5 posts makes a post containing any URL/link that it must be approved my a member of staff before appearing for other users. We catch probably around ten spam posts each day through this mechanism which never appear on the site due to the filter.
As for the front page of the site the forum team hasn’t got the greatest influence on what happens there but I can certainly pass on that feedback too and can certainly see your point.
I’m glad you did get in contact via the contact form to have the mistake corrected, did you receive the email I sent you to let you know it had been fixed? (There could be an issue with the mail system here so if that’s the case I’d appreciate you let me know!)
We really appreciate your feedback on this matter as it concerns me that as you say perhaps some new users could be getting turned away or banned mistakenly so I’ll be sure to discuss this problem further with the staff team.
Once again, thanks for sharing your first impressions because this kind of feedback is very helpful and valuable to us improving the forum experience. If anything else does come to mind throughout your time here please don’t hesitate to let us know.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll find that the actual community members here are very welcoming and that you have an enjoyable experience from here on out!
