Usage of this forum

[torwag]

Hi,
Approval is only required for the first two posts of a newly registered user. If I find time, I even promote new users to the regular user base manually after the first post. By time we will see how well we can protect the forum against spambots and trolls and if we could remove the approval step for new users. Anyhow, for regular posters/users this should not been an issue.

[pfalcon]

It would be nice to also start considering moderation options - it will be quite a chore for one person to do all that stuff, and I guess soon we'll need to start moving messages to appropriate sub-forums, etc .

[dhylands]

Hi,
Approval is only required for the first two posts of a newly registered user. If I find time, I even promote new users to the regular user base manually after the first post. By time we will see how well we can protect the forum against spambots and trolls and if we could remove the approval step for new users. Anyhow, for regular posters/users this should not been an issue.

I'm a moderator on several yahoo groups. And what I've found works is that by default new members are moderated. After one or two on-topic posts, I then remove the moderation. This has proved extremely useful for keeping the spam down.

I've also discovered that many people join and never post, so they just stay moderated. Occiasonally, one of the regular posters gets his email spoofed (yahoo groups are email based) and we'll get a spam. I generally put that member back on moderation and notify them. Once the group is "established" the amount of effort to unmoderate members who post is quite low (and some the of the groups I moderate have several thousand members).

There will probably be a big spike in users once they start to get their MicroPython boards, but after that things should level out to a reasonable level.

I'm willing to perform moderation duties, and can provide references, if needed, (from co-moderators on the groups I moderate).

[torwag]

@pfalcon:
Yes, sharing among some people the moderation duties is on the list. As said by dhylands, we expect a larger peak of user registrations after the pyboards starts shipping. As for the subforums, I want to let it grow naturally. If you or others find that a certain topic is addressed frequently enough to get is own subforum, ping me and we will create a subforum. Keep in mind that forums with only a couple of topics several years old might suggest a dead and outdated community. Thus, I limited the forums to a small number to avoid to dilute conversations by creating dozens of artificial forums which might or might not be accepted by the community.
Time will tell us which topics need an own home. Moving topics seems to be easy enough but yeah you are right, it is still a bit of work.

@dylands:
Yes, exactly, the approval of new members posts seems to be the most effective spambot and troll weapon. I agree that it will level out quite quickly as soon as the major part of the active community send in more then two posts (the current limit to be removed automatically from the moderation settings). More moderators are welcome, however, I want to let Damien to decide about that.
I will ask him. Guess, active people on github have already enough credits to be moderators as well
I'm esp. happy if someone in a timezone outside Europe could join the moderation team, thus we can get approvals out more frequently.
We have quite a bit 0-posters and we need to make sure that none of them is a spambot, since the initial registration process was quite ineffective. Nevertheless, with the new-poster-moderation rule in place, we should be save even if a spambot slips through from time to time.

[JonHylands]

I'm willing to be a moderator if you need more. Dave and I are both in Canada - he's on the west coast, and I'm in Ontario (Dave is my brother, in case anyone hasn't guessed).

- Jon

[buteman]

Hi guys,
I am new to the group and expected to be moderated at first. I joined the google group a while back but I much prefer the forum type of approach. Although I am new I am old ( 70 ) however even though I cannot say I am an experienced programmer in any language I love the idea of the micropython board. I have developed some projects with my arduino and have then built minimal boards to just run the code on a permanent basis. I also have a raspberry pi and 'play about' with this.
Personally I am intending to use my board initially to develop a fairly simple oscilloscope using the ADC's on it. I have written code using matplotlib to display on my laptop the data I hope to capture with the board.
In view of this I am so glad to see a Projects sub forum.

[buteman]

I have posted about my first project in the General board but wonder if it should be in the Projects one.
As i am likely to need to ask for an amount of help I am wondering if it might even be a good idea to have 2 other categories,
Hardware and programming.
Any thoughts on this?