Other Spam filter

[Crypto Cupcake]

Heya, so, I'd like to talk about our spam filter.

I'm still below the 10 posts, and I've heard and experienced how extreme the spam filter is when you are, like me, below that post count.
Sure, a spam filter is a good thing, of course, and it's totally understandable that it's a little more picky with people who have few posts, but I see two problems with this...

Firstly, the post count doesn't necessarily say anything about the quality or spam-free-Ness of a person's posts and there might be people who just aren't interested in discussing anything in the forums but just want to rp, probably using pms too.
These people will still have that problem with the filter after weeks and months if they don't wanna post on the forums.

Secondly, from what I've experienced, the spam filter is extreme when you're below 20 posts. Today I haven't even been able to post a character sheet in a new rp over pms because of it, and I triple checked everything to make sure there's nothing the filter could mistake for spam. It isn't.

This makes getting started here very complicated when you just want to rp, without having to reach a certain post count first.
I just don't really see the sense in that system, keeping in mind how, as I mentioned, the post count doesn't necessarily say anything about a writer's posts' quality...
Wouldn't some other solution make more sense and keep the level of frustration for people with low post counts, well, low?

Just my little rant, or discussion, or whatever ^^"

 

[Alteras]

So the filter is something that's been in discussion for us staff members, and definitely something that we're always looking into improving. Here's the current explanation for why the filter is set the way it is.

The filter prevents spam, not spam as in quality, but spam as in quantity. RPN gets both human and bot spammers. Bot spammers are easy to catch, they copy pasta whatever they're trying to spam onto the forum. On the forum side, the posts get hidden away from public view, however if a bot were to use the private messaging system, we as mods have no way to catching it. Thus the filter extends to PMs, altogether preventing the message from being sent in the first place. They would have to clear 10 posts on the forum, and by 10 posts, it's easy for us mods to figure out if its a bot or not.

If it's a human spammer, then it gets trickier, as they're usually fast on the uptake that PMs are the "best" way to get people to do what they wish. Same thing, they have to post in the forum, and it'll be easy to tell if they're spamming or not. In this case, you can argue that someone can circumvent this by just posting up to 10 posts and then proceding to spam. However we've found that most human spammers, they're hitting up every RP site they can find to spam and don't really have the time or care to try to do the whole song and dance to get around our filter.

As for normal users, we generally think of people with more than 10 posts as people who are willing to spend time on our site. Like seriously, it's 10 posts, pop in on general discussion and chat a bit and you're good. It's really easy to rack up posts as long as you don't post in categories like forum games or private workshop.

That's the general thought process behind it. Again, staff is still discussing the filter, so changes might come in the future