Suggestion: Don't make new users wait 5 days before posting

[chexmix]

Who are you stopping from spamming by making new users wait five days before posting? As far as I can imagine all this does is inconvenience new users like me who are not robots and who actually value time.

Also what's with the random questions can't you just use a captcha instead of making me hunt down information? What software has two dedicated subforums on doom9? How should I know? Name an mpeg4 avs synth encoder what the hell is that? I tried ffmpeg but that didn't work. How many categories does this board have? Well here's one I can do.

Thanks

[hello_hello]

If you search on "waiting period" or something similar you'll find it's been discussed before. Maybe if you search while specifying posts from user doom9 you'll find an official type of explanation. I doubt it'll ever change.

If I remember correctly, the main reason I found it annoying when I first registered was because you're not informed of the need to wait 5 days until after going through the registration process. I can't comment on the random question thing as I only have a very vague memory of that.

[chexmix]

I've had my account for many months now and I still have to answer these questions that I don't know the answer to. The questions are a waste of my time, can you turn them off?

[StainlessS]

I found it annoying when I first registered was because you're not informed of the need to wait 5 days unti after going through the registration process.

Absolutely, I would not have bothered (100% for sure) registering had I known of the ridiculous wait.
I do recall the total disgust when I did find out about the waiting period, if people were told of the wait beforehand,
then perhaps the numbers(or lack thereof) new members would make peoples feelings on this very clear.

EDIT: When you do tell of the waiting period, you should also give option to delete account, it will be a very popular option.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

The waiting period and the questions exist for a reason: To keep the spammers out! And it's working pretty reliably now, so I doubt it will be changed anytime soon.

As a "regular" user, you probably didn't realize the flood of spam posts we had to deal with. That's because the Mods were deleting spam accounts non-stop in order to keep the forum usable. But I can assure you that it was a major problem!

Now, there are almost no spam posts. And nobody wants the old situation back. Having to wait a couple of days might be annoying for some legitimate users, but certainly less annoying than an unusable forum flooded by spam...

[StainlessS]

OK, reason accepted (grudgingly) :(

This does not however explain keeping the 5 day wait a 'secret'.

[nevcairiel]

It says right on the registration page: http://forum.doom9.org/register.php
Your account will only become active 5 days after registration

[StainlessS]

Huh, I dont recall that.

[hello_hello]

I don't recall that either. I remember the 5 day wait being a surprise after registering. Maybe it wasn't mentioned on the registration page at the time, or maybe I missed it, but I suspect the former.