Suggestion Disccussion on making the RPF a private site

[DARKSIDE72]

I'd love to take credit for this, but this was thanks to a tip from a member. While we may execute the rules of the site, it really takes the support of the whole community to help keep things safe.

The Main problem with the RPF always has been and always will be Art is that for the most part it's always public with the exception of the Off topic area and the junkyard. Anyone can read and follow threads while being banned. If a member had to actually BE a member to read and follow threads I KNOW we'd see a lot less sock-puppet accounts. At the very least they would be more manageable. I've always said the RPF should be private for members only. Until then deal with 10 different sock-puppet names for hundreds of banned members. The hard core will never be taken care of until then. I'll bet they enjoy playing the game provided to them...

 

[propologist]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

The Main problem with the RPF always has been and always will be Art is that for the most part it's always public with the exception of the Off topic area and the junkyard. Anyone can read and follow threads while being banned. If a member had to actually BE a member to read and follow threads I KNOW we'd see a lot less sock-puppet accounts. At the very least they would be more manageable. I've always said the RPF should be private for members only. Until then deal with 10 different sock-puppet names for hundreds of banned members. The hard core will never be taken care of until then. I'll bet they enjoy playing the game provided to them...

QFT Plus 10

 

[juno]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

I don't agree with your reasoning, but I'd be down with the RPF being private and members-only with no Google indexing.

 

[Qui-Gonzalez]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

I don't agree with your reasoning, but I'd be down with the RPF being private and members-only with no Google indexing.

I kinda straddle the fence on this one. While there is some bit of bother for the staff chasing down sock puppets every twenty seconds, there is an influx of talented new users. Sadly, you have to weed through crap like bots and socks and "want it now" newbies. There is a long list of private boards that haven't lasted near as long as the RPF....well, not long, but you get my point.

 

[Shadowknight]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

I'd be down for a private board. :thumbsup

 

[Shadowknight]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

Resin Illuminati has their builds in progress sections private and their finished builds sections public. That way you don't have to make your work public if you want. A lot of people do make their finished build public though so that lets the public in on what the forum is about.

 

[propologist]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

somehow I think that there is money involved with it being not private.. advertising can bring in some good money sometimes for the site owners.

 

[Art Andrews]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

The Main problem with the RPF always has been and always will be Art is that for the most part it's always public with the exception of the Off topic area and the junkyard. Anyone can read and follow threads while being banned. If a member had to actually BE a member to read and follow threads I KNOW we'd see a lot less sock-puppet accounts. At the very least they would be more manageable. I've always said the RPF should be private for members only. Until then deal with 10 different sock-puppet names for hundreds of banned members. The hard core will never be taken care of until then. I'll bet they enjoy playing the game provided to them...

DS, I don't mean to belittle your concern, but you argument reminds me of the old joke about how an admin life would be so much better if we just got rid of all the members... :lol

While that is a joke, there is something to it. There are plenty of private prop boards out there and interestingly, a lot (not all) of the people complaining about a private board are already a member of a private prop board!

For a moment, lets consider that we made this site private... what would be accomplished?

First, the majority of our sockpuppets come from long-time banned members... so would making the board private stop them from creating sockpuppets? No.

New prop fans and industry insiders wouldn't be able to find us unless they either 1) knew someone who was already a member or 2) found us through another prop site which was public. The net result would be a lot of people who could/would positively contribute to this site would never find us at all.

For me, your logic of there being less sockpuppets if banned members couldn't see posts doesn't hold water. The same old names would be doing the same old things because they are like a dog tethered to a pole, they just keep coming back around again and again, and it wouldn't matter if they could see posts or not, they would still create sockpuppet accounts.

Here is the truth of the matter, while some like to play up the whole sockpuppet thing, the reality is sockpuppet are such an infintesmially small part of what we do on a day to day basis that they barely register on our radar at all. When one pops up, we deal with it and move on, but I think you are giving more value to sockpuppets than they deserve. We spend a great deal more of our time dealing with issues from legitimate members that we ever do on sockpuppets.

Now, when you talked about making the board private, if what you actually meant was make it private and manually verify the 30-80 new members who sign up every day... well sir, if you would like to volunteer your time to do that, we would consider letting you! :cool

I don't like making definitive statements, but it would take a miracle for us to ever see making the site private as anything but a devastating blow to the longevity and life blood of the site. Yes, it would thrill a small handful of very talented old-timers, but ultimately we feel it would be beginning of the end.

 

[Art Andrews]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

somehow I think that there is money involved with it being not private.. advertising can bring in some good money sometimes for the site owners.

lol:lol

The only money "involved" with this site is money being spent to support it and maintain it. I have been privileged to know a lot of the staff over the years, and I don't know any of them who hasn't financially supported this public site to some extent, with seeing anything in return other than insinuation like yours as thanks.

I won't go on much more because your statements are just too ill-informed and speculatory, suffice to say, the site being public isn't about money, (as we could make it private and probably get more through donations or through forced "membership fees" but our interest is building and sharing this hobby and if you can't see that, too bad for you.

 

[defstartrooper]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

I don't think making the entire site private would make any difference to how many sockpuppets there are.
They create sockpuppets now for a few reasons, firstly to see the areas of the board which are alrerady private, and secondly to interact with the members here, thirdly to shill for sales etc
But mostly it's just banned members who want to have a nosey at the private areas or buy and sell stuff in the JY.
I don't see how making the entire site private would discourage that.

Really i think the fact that most of the site is public keeps the number of sockpuppets to a minimum, if it was entirely private every banned member would be creating sockpuppets just to see the areas that at present are public.

 

[Art Andrews]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

I don't think making the entire site private would make any difference to how many sockpuppets there are.
They create sockpuppets now for a few reasons, firstly to see the areas of the board which are alrerady private, and secondly to interact with the members here, thirdly to shill for sales etc
But mostly it's just banned members who want to have a nosey at the private areas or buy and sell stuff in the JY.
I don't see how making the entire site private would discourage that.

Really i think the fact that most of the site is public keeps the number of sockpuppets to a minimum, if it was entirely private every banned member would be creating sockpuppets just to see the areas that at present are public.

thumbsup:thumbsup

 

[agent5]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

Here is the truth of the matter, while some like to play up the whole sockpuppet thing, the reality is sockpuppet are such an infintesmially small part of what we do on a day to day basis that they barely register on our radar at all. When one pops up, we deal with it and move on, but I think you are giving more value to sockpuppets than they deserve. We spend a great deal more of our time dealing with issues from legitimate members that we ever do on sockpuppets.

I know without question that there is sockpuppeting going on at another site I frequent and I was asked why I would care if an old steriod-induced, idiot-savant member was sockpuppeting there and my first reaction was that it would depend completely on why he/she/it was there to begin with? If it's just to browse the site you loved and were kicked off of, then fine - I can understand that. If I were cut off from a serious part of my hobby I can understand that. However, it allows for much more sinister applications such as creating trust under a new name and then stealing or shilling by using said accounts to boost that trust and false sales of basically anything. This is what concerns me most.

I would have to think that the later is nothing more than a human virus attacking us through our computers. Sick, sick, sick F's who literally have no lives and wish nothing more than to shake up and even in some cases, attempt to destroy a lot or even all credibility of any one site. I'm seeing a site I loved destroyed by such actions and it really, really sucks. It sucks bad.

I joined here at the end of what most old skool members would consider "the golden years" of the RPF. I find it sad to see that threads like these are becoming more common, which at least as far as I can remember, wasn't the case back then. I would not consider this any fault of the mods but the human viruses that have found there way in here and are determined to stay for whatever whacked out reason. Money seems to be the most obvious motive, but as it was with the Joker, some just want to see the world burn for no good reason at all. That, along with a good case of multiple-personality-disorder mixed in with some good old fashioned stupidity and you've got what I would consider to be your average sockpuppeteer, or the biggest losers on the net.

You know who you are...a-holes. :angry

I strongly believe that if there was a way for any of us to see exactly how many people were sockpuppeting on any site such as this one we would be taken by surprise at how many there really are. Hopefully that day will come very soon so the adults can get back to doing adult things and not playing 1st grade games.

 

[DARKSIDE72]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

Art what I propose is semi private. Give the public the main Replica Props access to read the topics and that's it. Word of mouth gets most individuals with talent and passion here. Other than that why and the hell give known recasters and general fiends have the right to read and view "studio scale modeling threads etc" and everything else? There is a lot of potential harmful information there...

If some one is interested in replica props then reading about them in the general forum should be good enough to perk their interest in joining up for the rest of the access...


:rolleyes

 

[Art Andrews]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

I think this is worth discussing a bit more but we are totally derailing the original intent of this thread. I am going split this out and place a new thread in the Questions and Suggestions forum.

 

[Qui-Gonzalez]

The only problem with the secular thinking is that any kind of privacy on the net is an illusion. Private boards do not work. Being as open as we are currently is a huge pain for long time member/artisans. If I am wrong, then please, let them tell me they enjoy all of the newer members. If you do not let anyone in, your ideas become inbred and stagnant. If you let too many people in, you run the risk of the finer crafters saying "Screw it" and clamming up.

Right now, in my opinion, we are on the extreme end of openness. I could be wrong, but it sure seems that way to me. The quarterly registrations seemed to be extremely the opposite direction. There has to be a fine line between the two.

I am firmly NOT for making the RPF private at all, but this level of "Come on in!" is a bit much.

 

[Rylo]

Agreed. It's simply too difficult for builders, now. I don't know a single full-time builder who wants to see himself pop up in a Google search. Just too much heat on the main forum, now.

The only problem with the secular thinking is that any kind of privacy on the net is an illusion. Private boards do not work. Being as open as we are currently is a huge pain for long time member/artisans. If I am wrong, then please, let them tell me they enjoy all of the newer members. If you do not let anyone in, your ideas become inbred and stagnant. If you let too many people in, you run the risk of the finer crafters saying "Screw it" and clamming up.

Right now, in my opinion, we are on the extreme end of openness. I could be wrong, but it sure seems that way to me. The quarterly registrations seemed to be extremely the opposite direction. There has to be a fine line between the two.

I am firmly NOT for making the RPF private at all, but this level of "Come on in!" is a bit much.

 

[Art Andrews]

I think there are two seperate issues here and would prefer to make sure I know which we are talking about. As I see them we have:

1) Old time members not liking open registration / the influx of newbies

2) Builders not liking that the site is now indexable by search engines

When any of you talk about making the site "private", what is it you are hoping to achieve? Are you hoping not to have new members? Are you hoping to hide? Help me understand what "private" means to you.

 

[defstartrooper]

Re: Houdiniguy selling Mike Tait recasts on ebay

Art what I propose is semi private. Give the public the main Replica Props access to read the topics and that's it. Word of mouth gets most individuals with talent and passion here. Other than that why and the hell give known recasters and general fiends have the right to read and view "studio scale modeling threads etc" and everything else? There is a lot of potential harmful information there...

If some one is interested in replica props then reading about them in the general forum should be good enough to perk their interest in joining up for the rest of the access...


:rolleyes

I'm still struggling to figure out making those sections private will stop sockpuppeting ? surely if they were private that would simply encourage those who would seek to use the information for nefarious purposes to create an account ?
As it stands now with it being public people have less reason to create a sockpuppet cos they can freely view the information, the only reasons anyone has to make a sockpuppet is to post on the board or to PM members or view the areas that are private.

To be honest you can't really even make a case that making it private will protect the information from being used by recasters and conmen, cos the forums free to join all they have to do is register a free account, making it private wont deter a thief.

And why is studioscale stuff worth protecting more than the props forum, how is the information in there any more sensitive ?

 

[Jannix Quinn]

It seems to me the site is backwards. I'd have thought the Off Topic forum where the pretty meaningless crap is would be public and the prop stuff with build threads would be private.

 

[Art Andrews]

It is relatively rare for Gary and I to be in agreement, but on this matter, his words express my own feelings pretty precisely.