New member probationary time

[Chile_Bill]

I would like to see the ability to auto promote users from one group to another based on time as well as posts. With the implementation of the IPB Download Manager, we are seeing a lot of new registrations from people who ignore the forums, their welcome PM message and any other information on the system and heading straight into the download area and downloading as much as they can, as quickly as they can.

If we could auto promote after a probationary period, restrictions could be placed on the new member user's group and after the probationary period, the new member would be promoted to the next higher group without those restrictions. This probationary period, with download restrictions will either encourage the new members to participate in the forums or just go away. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. It doesn't take long for the word to get around and there is a flood of new registrations by users intent on leeching as much as they can as quickly as they can. This has already caused our last month's bandwidth usage to run 180% of allocation. We are at over 200% this month and cannot afford the costs of many more months of excessive bandwidth charges. In one case, a user managed over 900 downloads in a 24 hour period before being noticed. Monitoring new users is an impossible task, since it would require 24/7 monitoring and we all have lives and cannot sit monitoring every activity on the system every minute of every day.

This problem appears to be progressively becoming more common and seems to be geometrically progressing each week and/or month.

Doing this manually is an option, but not a very attractive one. Placing restrictions on the general membership is not a fair option either. With submissions ranging from a few Kbytes to 400 megs, how would we be fair to anyone placing restrictions on everyone because of the actions of a few?

We need to do something and do not feel that adding a modification is a good idea. It would be best if this were hard coded into the base forum software.
As a temporary stop gap, manual assignment to different user groups will be done, but in the mean time, I would like you to seriously think about adding this feature to a future release of IPB.

If promotions could be based on time as well as number of posts, life would be a lot easier.

Bill Smith

[Rοb]

I think having user group promotions via 'x days' as well as number of posts (perhaps options to combine the two) is an excellent idea :)

[Guest Century242]

Chile_Bill is my alternate contact for the forum software and the main keeper of the system. As we have been informed, alternate contacts do not show as customers in the forums and their posts and/or queries are often snubbed by many who could help.

Please, in this case I am asking for some assistance.

This problem is one that we need to address and any assistance that anyone can give us with setting up a scheduled task will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you;

Erik

[Morrigan]

It might be useful to post in the Product modifications/peer-peer tech support for immediate help to get a modification of this since this sort of thing probably wouldn't be added until 3.0.

But (I wouldn't know how) there may be a way that to have a Task PHP done that is run every X amount of time (lik every hour or every day at midnight if you have a lot of members) that checks the database for the members join date and number of posts and then if they both are greater then the set time frame and minimum post number that it moves them into a group.

Not sure exactly how to set it up but I think you may be able to mod it for now to have a task that does it for you.

[Twisted Gamer]

You partially answered your own question.

The short term solution is to dump new users into a qeue that has no download ability until they post x number of post.

I don't believe a promote after x min/hours/days/weeks/months will help. As soon as they realize that all they have to do is wait out your time period and go free willy on your download.

Maybe do a 2 or 3 step promotion setup.

First step dump them into a qeue with no DL privileges what so ever. Make them post at least x times.
Second step auto promote them next level and give them limited DL privileges.... say 3 downloads a week and give another DL for every x post (this can be done via the permissions of the DLM).
Third after reaching what you consider sufficient post level auto promote them to the general member group.


Or flat out restrict all members with either Bandwidth/Downloads and use the post modifier to give active members additional downloads/bandwidth for every x posts.

[Guest Century242]

You partially answered your own question.

The short term solution is to dump new users into a qeue that has no download ability until they post x number of post.

I don't believe a promote after x min/hours/days/weeks/months will help. As soon as they realize that all they have to do is wait out your time period and go free willy on your download.

Maybe do a 2 or 3 step promotion setup.

First step dump them into a qeue with no DL privileges what so ever. Make them post at least x times.

Second step auto promote them next level and give them limited DL privileges.... say 3 downloads a week and give another DL for every x post (this can be done via the permissions of the DLM).

Third after reaching what you consider sufficient post level auto promote them to the general member group.

Or flat out restrict all members with either Bandwidth/Downloads and use the post modifier to give active members additional downloads/bandwidth for every x posts.

Ok, so we set things up to require x number of posts... Then the forums fill up with one word posts.. "HI" useless and meaningless to anyone. OK, set it up requiring moderator approval for all posts... MANUAL intervention required... That is not good with our limited staff.

Our problem is that people register. Head straight to the files and grab a couple gigs of files. If we could limit them for the first 30 days, then either they would be patient or just go away and I am not hit with excessive bandwidth charges...

Erik

[Twisted Gamer]

Right now I don't see this feature being added to IPB till maybe the big 3.0 release if you can convince them to add it, so you'll have to either commission a mod as was suggested earlier or use whats available to you right now.

So I look at it this way because your constant reference to bandwidth issues. You possibly end up closing the site because you can't afford the bandwidth overages, closing the DLM to general members, get rid of the DLM all together or you have your staff do a little front end work to weed out the leaches.

Between Post Requirements and DLM Permission settings you should be able to get close to what you want.

If you'd like some help with the settings just ask and I'm sure someone (maybe me if hours permit) would glady help you set up groups/permissions.




If I were in your position this is what I would consider in absence of mod that does exactly what I need.

Registration to Download

User finds your site one of many ways.
User finds file they would like to download.
User tries to download file, gets notice they need to be registered user.
User registers, email validates and from there is dumped in to pre moderation user group that displays a big Announcement at top of pages stating there in a pre moderated user group and that all there posts are moderated to prevent spammers. Group is set to auto promote to a second group called Probie after x post are approved by Moderators.
Probie group is not a post moderated group but d/l ability is still limited till XX posts are made.
Probie group gets x Mb/Files a day/week/month and can gain x additional Mb/File downloads for x posts.
Probie hits XX posts and is auto promoted to Members group with what ever MB/File download restrictions you decided are needed.

Only point that causes extra work (besides setting up and testing/tweaking) is the Moderators having to decide what to do with the pre moderated groups posts. If the leachers can't figure out not to post just like "Hi how are you?" simply delete the post. They'll either get the point or they'll move on as you'd like.

Not perfect nor pretty way of doing it, but in writing looks do able.

[Guest Century242]

Right now I don't see this feature being added to IPB till maybe the big 3.0 release if you can convince them to add it, so you'll have to either commission a mod as was suggested earlier or use whats available to you right now.

That is understandable. I would not expect IPS to jump on this as a major issue and issue an update/fix just for this. Inclusion in a future relase would be nice.

So I look at it this way because your constant reference to bandwidth issues. You possibly end up closing the site because you can't afford the bandwidth overages, closing the DLM to general members, get rid of the DLM all together or you have your staff do a little front end work to weed out the leaches.

Between Post Requirements and DLM Permission settings you should be able to get close to what you want.

If you'd like some help with the settings just ask and I'm sure someone (maybe me if hours permit) would glady help you set up groups/permissions.

If I were in your position this is what I would consider in absence of mod that does exactly what I need.

Registration to Download

User finds your site one of many ways.

User finds file they would like to download.

User tries to download file, gets notice they need to be registered user.

User registers, email validates and from there is dumped in to pre moderation user group that displays a big Announcement at top of pages stating there in a pre moderated user group and that all there posts are moderated to prevent spammers. Group is set to auto promote to a second group called Probie after x post are approved by Moderators.

Probie group is not a post moderated group but d/l ability is still limited till XX posts are made.

Probie group gets x Mb/Files a day/week/month and can gain x additional Mb/File downloads for x posts.

Probie hits XX posts and is auto promoted to Members group with what ever MB/File download restrictions you decided are needed.

Only point that causes extra work (besides setting up and testing/tweaking) is the Moderators having to decide what to do with the pre moderated groups posts. If the leachers can't figure out not to post just like "Hi how are you?" simply delete the post. They'll either get the point or they'll move on as you'd like.

Not perfect nor pretty way of doing it, but in writing looks do able.

Steps 1,2 and 3 already in place.

Steps 4 and on are not in place as you have outlined. I will run this by the staff and see what reactions there are.

Thanks for your inputs...

Erik