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Comments
I think the barrier for newcomers on LET will be much to high, you will kill the community with this rule...
really? I think I send my first PM to someone after a year or so. post count was far above 50... don't use much private messaging at all tbh.
however, being allowed to send PMs after a specific limit is nothing unusual, you can find that with a lot of boards out there regardless of the main topic...
Wouldn't surprise me if the 'scammer' just gives people access to his own box, then kills access a little after payment.
Wouldn't waste time saving a couple $ dealing with unknowns, for reasons probably already mentioned.
Ya, my bull-shit-o-meter was set off as well, after I found he was trying to sell services and not request them in the other thread. Then having him claim he was a registered business... ya the whole thing was shady as fuck. I really can't believe so many fell for it. I thought we were past buying scams in private message here, but I guess people don't read the rules or use common sense, so what you gonna do?
Just wow.
Cheers!
That's nice. The idea is, disable private messages for the current user type "Member" and profile posts/comments unless:
upload a custom avatar - this is just to make life one bit harder for bots
wait 6 months - this is still doable by patient scammers
post three digit number of comments, somewhere around 100, 200, 300... - this requires some time and effort
make email unchangeable, unless the account is like 2.5 years old and still it can be done only by moderator approval - this is to discourage selling of active LET accounts to scammers, which could become a thing, same as facebook accounts and groups. The reasoning behind it is that whoever is so negligent that can't hold one stable e-mail account, should not be trusted.
require e-mail verification each month/six months - this is just me being stupid, because it's not practically doable
do 2fa account login validation via phone - this is going to cost and LET is not Google with abundance of resources
After the user has the right to use PMs:
These changes reward active members by allowing them to use PMs and incentivizes newbies to become active members.
Having profiles with higher value, even if it's a symbolical tag, title, sticker, whatever, makes people take them more seriously and act somewhat more responsibly.
Same could/should be applied for user signatures.
A slight issue with requiring e-mail verification.
I don't get email notifications from LET. I've never gotten a single e-mail from LET. I don't even remember getting one when I registered. I may have on that one time, though.
It won't kill the community, because the community lives by the public posts and mostly lurkers send private messages out of the blue. Now, after the user has been active for some time and perhaps made some contacts, he could start communicating privately with people, that is good, this rule will allow normal communication and block the hit & run scammers.
And even if the user doesn't meet the requirements for sending private messages, he is not crippled in any way to use the forum, most likely won't even notice the lack of being able to open PM threads.
His forum posts will be subjected to public scrutiny as it is for all of the posts.
Back in the days, i've been reading LET way before i had an account.
Then, when i finally opened an account, not that i got too many, but most PMs were some offers sent from some random people towards me, which i ignored.
To be trollfully honest, those who fell for this scammer deserve what they got.
Warning signs were all over the place. It was like walking onto a minefield where there are 10s of 100ft giant red warning signs saying it was a minefield.
yeah that's maybe a bit over the top tbh, again I don't plan to take every single step to protect stupid against being stupid, I will start at level 2 not level 10 and go from there
I think you should restrict sending PMs, however, if a person that sends a PM to you, you should be able to reply to it.
I'm also curious, is there any restriction for new users? Are they allowed to send PM's? Or is it after a few quality posts..?
No restrictions at all.
There is no need to out any restriction, a small warning about hidden business proposals in the PM interface should be enough. I mean, for the children.
It's a straightforward but well-proven trap on LET, tell people you can offer the ridiculous for $1 and they drop their common sense and walk towards the light.
I am against any restrictions or even adding warnings.
I need more drama to survive.
I thought @VortexMagnus liked my post.
I think you are painting it too dark but I also think that @AnthonySmith's plan is a bit like cleaning the garage with grenades.
Proposal/variation:
Reason: The aim is to stop BAD guys operating through PMs, not to restrain normal users. Those will typically write no or just a few PMs so PMs should be limited rather than disabled (which still is a MAJOR barrier for scammers).
Note the "thanks" factor in my proposal equation. The aim is to (at least a bit) differentiate between mindless pro forma posting (scammer, to get the 50 or whatever posts) and a normal user.
The additional processing burden is neglegible. Addition is a 1 clock op and the divide by two can be done by a simple shift 1 bit right operation. Both very cheap.
Or maybe just the ability to flag PM's and a 'community guardian' tag for those that out people and let stupid do what stupid does beyond that.
I thought about that too but to be brutally honest: I take this thread (and its sibling) to demonstrate that just a mechanism to flag PMs won't cut it. Many (most?) users would act like now I'm afraid. Lure them with something too good to be true and they would bite. Also keep in mind that even now one CAN inform mods about smelly PMs, albeit less comfortable than just clicking "flag" - but it wasn't used. Instead some dozend users fell for the scam.
No, I think that your first reaction was principally the right one; it just was a bit too quickly shot and too crude.
I think we should go in the direction you suggested, we should put up some barriers against scammers and the like. I just think that it should be a bit different and less harsh. Something along the lines of my proposal.
This is all that is needed, I am sure he would have messaged some savvy members and they likely will have just ignored it, had there been a flag option I am sure they would have used it and alerted people.
For everyone else that fell for it, there is a lesson to be learnt and a valuable one that can sometimes only be learnt by losing money and being made to look the fool.
I had “Thanked by (1): Amitz” in my signature for a month until he did a little snipping lol
What about autoflagging? If someone sends same or similar message to multiple users, it gets flagged.
Or we can put a huge warning above the PM reply box when a member in that conversation hasn't met requirement such as 6 months old, 200 post etc. Also link them to a thread that contains all the scam threads.
What if they chose to ignore that? Well, they deserved to be scammed or at least they've learned how to read warning sign before doing anything.
Anything else works just as good for now from what i can see. And as @AnthonySmith said, there is literally no absolute way to prevent a stupid from being stupid (no offense). However, limiting active PM counts is indeed a good idea to prevent offer spamming
yep, and in hind sight, a tag for reporting scammers was a stupid idea, they just wont PM the people with those tags haha.
May be a general warning on Inbox page will help. Just make it highlighted and short enough for people to actually read.
If I would have seen a message like this in front of me. I would have surely understood that this is not normal on LowEndTalk. It's not just about the price, sometimes, people do it for other secondary reasons, like in my case I thought the guy is trying to setup a business so a deal could useful for both, but yeah in retrospect it looks too dumb. A sign like this will make scammers & buyers aware of it right away.
Where is the dick pic that I sent you together with that message? The screenshot is just partial! ;-)
You can trust nickname if you can Google this names. Before buying, you need to look into whois(therefore, I consider GDRP to be stupid. Without this, it was easier to study the domain with different hooks) domain and study the project, google it the creators of the project and everything else. Carry out a project analysis before buying.
google it - нагуглить. Slang such, I do not know how to translate.
Stay away from these scammers. Take from the actual provider. IF they provide a affiliate special link that its fine.
Could I get grandfathered into allowing PMs if this happens?
Also I think if it were possible. It would be better to restrict it to groups. Maybe not allowing PM to general users, but new users will still be able to PM providers if needed.
For example, I think sometimes providers have deals for Lowend users only. So It would be nice not to loss that ability to PM them on here.
At the moment, you are 3 comments away from hypothetical PM enabling.
Hmm, come to think of it, again, the user should have like 10 thanks too... Yeah!
Edit: Or maybe 5.