Competition post count limit?

Post count for competition qualification?

  • 20+ (current)

    Votes: 8 25.0%

  • 30+

    Votes: 2 6.3%

  • 40+

    Votes: 1 3.1%

  • 50+

    Votes: 21 65.6%
  • Total voters
    32
James

James

MyGaming Alumnus
Hi guys, as usual, we deal with spammers every time we have a competition. Of course our crack team of mods is always quick to clean up their mess.

I thought I'd pose some questions to you guys:

Will raising the post count required to enter competitions discourage spammers from mucking up our forum?

Could raising the limit simply mean they'll spam more to qualify?

Do you think there is a tipping point for spammers at which they won't bother due to the effort involved, or don't they operate according to normal sensibilities?

Of course we love to run competitions to reward our community and also attract newcomers to join in the community. MY personal opinion is that it would be a travesty give a prize to a 21 post wonder who never returns. How can we encourage newcomers to make quality posts?

Objective feedback and ideas would be appreciated. I've also put up a poll to get a feel on what you guys think a reasonable limit for competition entry should be.

:)
 
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To be honest, 50 is pretty low already. Depending on how long you guys take to clean it up, 50 isn't a lot of posts to make, especially if you're making post comments like "OMG VLSN is great!" or "WOW Paul tastes like fish!"
 
I think if we raise the required posts we will just have a lot more spam to contend with. I also thing most spammers do not operate
according to normal sensibilities.

How we can encourage newcommers to stay a while and post... tough question to answer. (Will come back to that one)

I do think that by maybe doing something like making it so that those who enter the comp need to be involved or something... Hide little things in articles, Have a Comp Question or something (Will come back to this also)

How about an account age limit. I mean you have to have been a account holder for say 1 month with at least 20 posts in that month to qualify. That way new members will have to come back and post instead of just spamming their 20 - 50 posts and vacating the forum until the next comp comes up.
 
I think from what I saw today that spammers have no sensibilities.

If people post sensibly I don't see why they shouldn't qualify.

Possibly you could make it Post count + Join date (as in not the week +/- that the competition is run.) and some other factors maybe. Some sort of quest through the forum, post in certain threads etc.. (you can get creative with this!

But I think even if you state that clearly at the very top of the competition page you will still have people that don't qualify entering, because as I aways say, people don't read.

I agree that new members should be encouraged to participate. (Maybe make them introduce themselves :p )
 
Yeah the to be in a spammers mind is like trying to figure out a serial killer. Yeah we would probably have a few trying to go for the high post count but then I am sure a few more spammers would be put of trying to get 50/100 in a day just so they can enter without staying on the forum. Or they will just get their post count to 20 then just be here everytime there is a new comp with the only requirement being a 20 post count.

I say each new comp should add 5 or 10 post to the 20. at the end you will have something like 200 post and then start again at 20.
 
I was thinking a minimum join date as well.

My post would have been more elaborate if Omega hadn't stolen mah thunda :p
 
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czc said:
I agree that new members should be encouraged to participate. (Maybe make them introduce themselves :p )
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Making people do anything would not work. And yes you will still get spammers, no matter what you do.
 
czc said:
I think from what I saw today that spammers have no sensibilities.

If people post sensibly I don't see why they shouldn't qualify.

Possibly you could make it Post count + Join date (as in not the week +/- that the competition is run.) and some other factors maybe. Some sort of quest through the forum, post in certain threads etc.. (you can get creative with this!

But I think even if you state that clearly at the very top of the competition page you will still have people that don't qualify entering, because as I aways say, people don't read.

I agree that new members should be encouraged to participate. (Maybe make them introduce themselves :p )
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But the whole thing about comps is tinman is trying to get new members to join. I just think it should be judged by the quality of the posts on not he quantity.
 
Tsar said:
But the whole thing about comps is tinman is trying to get new members to join. I just think it should be judged by the quality of the posts on not he quantity.
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I did say that if people post sensibly I don't see why they shouldn't qualify.
 
At least 50 posts, if not 100.

It might not discourage spammers(although, it might do for the lazy okes who see 20 posts as possible), but it will make it a bit harder to "fake" 20 posts.

And yes, a minimum date is also required in my opinion. At least one to two months before a comp is made. This will ensure we don't get these 20 hit wonders so prevalent of late. And it seems to be getting worse and worse.
 
The competitions run on mygaming are very random and times/dates/durations of comps change every time. I think if you bring in some sort of structure it will greatly decrease the amount of spammers and encourage people to stick around longer. Knowing that there is a comp a month for the next 6 months for example will encourage new users to stick around. They can take their time reaching the required post count knowing that they might miss this months comp but will most likely qualify for the next one or the one following that.
 
On the flipside of this, some people will still wait for the day comp goes live to start spamming.
However, you have a point - the sudden time frame results in a mad rush to get the post count up.
 
I think rase the post count to 100+, a limit that can't be spammed without getting out right banned. And maybe ontop of that a 1 month minimum membership.
 
Any increase of the post count would requirement would not be so nice for me and others like me.... I tend to lurk here and mainly only post on mybroadband (got like 4 million posts already :p ). So in essence I've yet to actually enter a comp on mygaming due to this 20postcount limit. Boo hoo, poor me.

If you want to cut down on the one post wonder/spam I'd suggest you take a post count tally at the time you announce the comp and use the post counts on there to allow/deny entry. But that might just lead to more "gradual" spam whereas insta-one-post-wonder-spam is more easily detected.
 
Deceptor said:
Yeah I agree, a 100 post requirement for comps would probably reduce the amount of spammers.
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It would also reduce the amount of entries. After running giveaways, we have to give feedback to the sponsor. If we tell them that only 20 guys entered a comp, they are not going to be super eager to give us stuff again.

So, the more entries, the better chance of us getting more stuff to give away.
 
1. What the hell is VLSN?

2. Post count is a good indicator, but 100 is way too much. 50 is pushing it, but is doable for normal people. A spammer will get 500 posts to get a chance of winning something, so post count in reality means nothing.

3. Nothing to see here, I just think that there should always be three points.

EDIT: Time joined is rubbish - the whole point of having competitions is to get people to join. Do not join the darkside Tinman. Obi Wan is watching you...

EDIT2: What competition is going on and where do I enter?

EDIT3: Nevermind... I feel like right royal tit now...
 
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After giving this some thought I have to say leave as is. Yes we will get spammers and Tinman/Rustpuppet/James will deal with them. Like Tinman said, if only the 20 - 30 odd MyG regulars enter the comp the sponsors wont want to keep hosting comps here. So my suggestion Suck it up... Plus with the spammers it give the mods a chance to swing the banhammer around a bit, coz lets face it the rest of the time we hardly get any bannings.
 
imho minimum 50 posts before the comp, not 50 at end of the closing date for the comp. on the other hand i like waco's rolling idea as it would cater for newer members up to older members. or newbs get 1 entry, older members get 2 entries ?
 
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