Important Changes at Empty Closets - Discussion Thread

Yes, that is something we are very concious with these changes.

There is no magic post count. We will probably only be reviewing members with 100+ posts initially, to keep the task manageable. However there will be a system for applying for established status, and we will have that in place a week or so BEFORE we apply the restrictions, so that anyone who has not been reviewed or told they will have established status can apply then.

On the "established member" approval process, out of those with 400 or more posts who have visited here in the last two months, over 90% will get established status and have been PM'd. The remaining ones are still being checked (it's a big job with so many to do) and at least some of these should get established status too. We are now working through people in descending post-count order, probably down to 100 posts eventually.

 

The main technical issue I have at the moment is making the PM system work how we want it. There are no settings within the vBulletin software to control which usergroups can and cannot send PMs to which other usergroups. We need this to work so that regular members can send and receive PMs to/from moderators and advisers, but not to/from other users. The only option in the software is to enable or disable PMs for usergroups completely.

I was hoping there would be an add-on available to do what we need but I haven't found one yet (though I haven't had much time to look).

As TriBi mentioned, I have asked the site owners if any of their people can get involved and help us with that aspect. I am very busy with real work (the type that brings in money) for at least the next fortnight.

It will probably need some custom programming, which would need someone who understands PHP and is also familiar with the vBulletin plug-in system. If any of you have such knowledge and want to help, please PM me.

 

It's not that easy. It has to hook into the vBulletin add-ons system so it means no modifications to vBulletin core code (otherwise we can't update vBulletin without reapplying the changes). Everything in vBulletin is stored in the MySQL database and is retrieved with MySQL database queries as needed.

I have found an add-on that may form a useful starting point. It is a daily PM quota one, but it hooks into the right part of vBulletin (when a PM is sent) and can display error messages. So the vBulletin hooks and interface are there, I would need to change the checks it does and the messages it displays. So better than starting from scratch, as I only need to think about the logic and not the interfacing.

 

We hate these changes as much as you all do. As you would have read from the first post in the original announcement however, we do not have much choice in the matter.

We are still trying to find ways to minimise the impact and make it as straightforward as possible for people to get to the "Full Member" status. We are also still considering whether we really need to be quite as restrictive in certain areas to achieve the requirements.

There is going to be some learning for all of us, and things may well change over the next few days and weeks. Please bear with us and allow us time to work things out. Please also use Ask The Staff to communicate any concerns with us that you don't want public.

 

As Martin posted here http://www.emptyclosets.com/forum/showthread.php?p=262624#post262624 we have decided to allow Regular Members to continue to view and create albums and blogs, however they cannot leave comments on other peoples photos and blogs. We are also keeping Visitor Messages but Regular Members cannot post them. However this all may change in the future.

The aim of the changes was to prevent unmonitored private communications between unapproved members. Because blogs and albums are public we think it is worth keeping them for now and watching closely how they are used.

The PM restrictions will be applied probably in two weeks time.

Our aim is to minimise the risk of inappropriate unmonitored private communication while allowing people to use as much of the site as possible. It is a difficult balance to achieve.

 

We have only just decided to leave the albums and blogs available today, on the basis that they are public so can't be used for unseen inappropriate contact. We are not sure if it can stay that way though. I'd like them to but it may not be possible.

So the approach is a cautious "let's continue to allow blogs and albums, but not allow regular members to post comments on them, for now and see how it goes". In a couple of weeks when we apply the PM restrictions we can review it and see where we are.

The picture posting thread was removed from view a while ago, before today's decision.
While PMs are available to new members we do not want to encourage picture posting in the forums. It's not a good thing to encourage anyway, especially with some images are hosted away from EC.

What we are trying to do is find a way of reducing the amount of changes and limitations for members while still achieving the requirements that have been set out by the site owners for the safety of members. So there may be some inconsistencies and changes while we try to figure out the best compromise. Bear with us please!