Insane Difficulty: The state of insanedifficulty.com - Insane Difficulty

Doesn't even need to be full up admin. Just require a forum moderator to approve the first post each user makes. I do this role in another forum around on the net, and it's really not a problematic task. We have multiple moderators here, and only a first post would require approval, and lets be blunt, we're not large enough that would be an issue. ToME solved their spam problems pretty swiftly with that. Once a user joins, they can post all they want, but they won't show up until the first one's been approved. As long as we're not getting so many users that approval takes more then a day, I don't see it being an issue to do that.

Captcha's always a pain in the ass, I'd almost be in favor of axing it entirely, it feels like they break so frequently. Given that ID's actually did break, that perception is enhanced.... The security question is a bigger problem though. it's not at all clear to new users what the answer to that would be, capitalization, etc. Captcha or no captcha, that needs to go or become something dirt simple new users would be able to answer.

Also not mentioned here, at least one user entered chat and was unable to update their mod on this site, so there may be problems related to that as well. I don't have the details on that one however.

I think that we should abolish the captcha and make it admin approval only right the right right now -- this as a TEMPORARY solution, just to be able to open up the forum to outsiders again. After that, we can figure out a better alternative.

I'll return with more thoughts on this, I just wanted to get this out here ASAP.

Since I believe the time to address everything is now:

- Fixing the registration (And fast, our newest member joined on August 16, and it was a spambot) (I second Aura's idea, because we've been doing exactly that kind of validation for the Discord chat, and it's really not an issue to validate each new member)
- More access to Regulator job: Ability to upload images (that can be used, for example in the wiki)
- Ability to upload images to the gallery
- Have Regulator job be able to create new forums: I'm sure many will agree that Monster Tactics, New Threat, and Darkness Within deserved to have a forum way before its time.
- Have a select group of Regulators be able to asign new Regulators. ID does or doesn't need new Regulators, but it will certainly will need new ones in the future, whenever the current ones (potentially me, of course) stop being active. At that time, this feature will turn useful.

Those are the points that I can think of at the moment. It's not a coincidence that most of what I propose is more access to Regulators. It's just so that ID gets better maintained.

Kaffe Myers, on 18 October 2016 - 02:41 PM, said:

I actually like it as a permanent solution. Or validate users through first post.

Adding regulators can be difficult as we need to make sure that every single one is 100% trustworthy, so giving a bunch of people access to that could be dangerous. I do agree that we will need more in the future, though.

FFTA, on 18 October 2016 - 07:32 PM, said:

I think there's more than enough well-vetted regs here that finding enough people to vet new posters should not be a problem at all. Off the top of my head, I would nominate Anima and Mishrak.

I would really like to see the forum updated to some sort of infrastructure that is cooperative with mobile. As it stands now it's third world country status on mobile. Literally unusable for me.

My point was just "Fix the registration as soon as possible". If the solution becomes permanent or if we change it in the future makes no difference *right now*.

ETA: So far, validating users through first post seems like the most appealing option out of the ones suggested. I don't think I will have the calm to sit down and think about this today, but if I come up with something I will most definitely share it with the class.

BTB, on 18 October 2016 - 08:41 PM, said:

Absolutely. At the moment, we're good as is. My concern was when the current regs start being inactive, which is just a long-term concern. But let's just disregard this for now, as it is not an urgent matter right now.

I also agree that Mish and Anima are trustworthy enough already to be Regs. As long as the former doesn't ban ZSNES, and the latter doesn't fill the forums with spears.

FFTA, on 18 October 2016 - 07:32 PM, said:

I 100% agree.

Hart-Hunt, on 19 October 2016 - 06:15 AM, said:

Man, there's gonna be fuckin' spears *everywhere*. Gonna look like a fucking African tribe up in here.

BTB, on 19 October 2016 - 04:16 PM, said:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Hart-Hunt, on 19 October 2016 - 06:15 AM, said:

I'm Advent and I approve this message.

Real talk, though, the only qualm I'd have is he can have a tendency to nuke shit when he's really pissed off.

That said, a similar argument could be made about myself before I became a Regulator. I think his respect for such a task would override that, though -- he's not a child, after all. Mish is pretty responsible. There's only been once where he did something in Discord in a moderation capacity that I wasn't too fond of (he admitted he was wrong and apologized, so props), and he's been a moderator just as long as any of the Regulators have.

I vote yes, on both counts.

Mishrak and Anima have my full endorsement for Regulator.

Lest we forget, the sole purpose of said appointment would be to verify that the new guy posting isn't A) a spambot, or B) a total shithead. Both candidates are way overqualified for the job.

BTB, on 21 October 2016 - 12:53 AM, said:

Hear, hear.

I've only been reading so far, thought it was time to make a suggestion or something like that.

I haven't been around as long as a lot of people here, and I don't really think I've done anything to directly earn the community's trust, other than not being an asshole (I think), but I can offer myself to do this kind of job, considering the overqualification of both candidates. Probably the idea of promoting them to Regulators only to check first posts of every new user isn't really effective, as that role would entail a lot more than just that.

I lurk here regularly and could deal with this kind of thing as regularly. Though, I am currently between jobs and won't be checking as often once I get a full-time job, which is why there could be more than one person appointed to this.

Given the kind of job (if we were to rank all the roles, this kind of job would probably be the lowest), it could also be a good opportunity to test and train those who would eventually earn more complex and important roles, so that we can keep a task force behind the functioning of the site, and would also mean that, once the current people in charge go inactive for any number of reasons, there's people ready to back them up, ideally.

Just some thoughts. I'd be glad to help in any way.

Bump. Is there any progress update on this? Users keep popping on chat asking why they can't register to the site.

Hart-Hunt, on 24 October 2016 - 06:14 AM, said:

Question seconded. The registration is a blocker and should get fixed ASAP.

This issue became really apparent several weeks ago and now no answer from a site administrator in nearly a week. I've been pretty passive in all of this, but honestly the state that the site is in is starting to get very disparaging. We're seeing people every day in chat having problems registering and we have no good answer to give to these people other than trying to help out in chat.

I agree with Kaffe: this needs to be corrected ASAP or we need to go ahead with another solution.

Hi guys

I've changed the question & answer challenge, hopefully that helps with the spambot issue.

As for users being unable to register, I'm looking into it today.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been super busy with IRL career stuff.

I've turned off email validation in the meantime.

If you see someone having issues making an account, please tell them to try again now?