Registration process has now changed

[graham228221]

We have now changed the registration process to what will be its default settings going forward.

Users will no longer need a registration code, so the forum is now open to users who were not a part of the old Yahoo groups.

New users will be on moderation for a period, that is there posts will need approving by the moderation team before they appear. Generally this will be for one calendar month or until a number of suitable posts have been made. The first post of every new user will need approval, no matter how long they have registered for.

This process is in place to prevent spam bots, and is a replication of the process that was in place on the old Yahoo groups. Naturally it is subject to subsequent changes at the discretion of the Orion's Arm Board.

Any queries or suggestions feel free to post them here.

[Rynn]

Is the need to moderate all posts for a month necessary? I know the community is small now but we want it to grow and it seems like this would deter new members by making the experience of joining the community slow and clunky.

The need to check a first post for spam protection I get but I think we should keep an eye on it. Once the forum kicks off and gets a bit more lively we might find that we could turn it off and have members reporting and moderator responses that are fast enough for it to not be a problem. If that happens we can get the added bonus of then having it be even easier and quicker for new members to join and see their thread get responses.

Also long term I would love to see OA as popular as many other forums I visit. Some have hundreds of thousands of members and moderating a first month of every new members posts would be a full time job lol.

[graham228221]

True - personally I'd be happy with that. We'd need agreement from a qurom of the Board though, as the previous rules were in place for quite a while.

[Matterplay1]

I'm thinking we ought to try moderating the first post and see if that is sufficient to weed out spambots and cranks. If that doesn't work we can always go to something different. I'll run this past the rest of the Board and see if we can get agreement.

Stephen