Please send a welcome email, add a sticky, or add something on the profile page about the forum polices including the fact that users can’t change their timezone until after 20 posts. Also inform the user what the forum’s actual timezone is. Times can be important when troubleshooting an issue (like the recent false positive for unidrv.dll).
I actually didn’t post that, I just started a thread to create 20 posts so I could fix it myself. I intentionally kept it all in one thread with the hope of not bugging other users. Apparently I did anyway and I won’t repeat it (sorry).
In any case, I think my point is still valid. The idea of locking down a users own profile until after a # posts is pretty unusual. Since its unusual I think it makes sense to let new users know about it rather than having them burn time trying it and then digging through help that doesn’t mention its locked down. As I said above, something in the welcome email, a sticky, or a comment on the profile would all fit the bill.
The problem arises because of spammers…many of the features have been locked down, to prevent them from getting any further.
It is more an antispam thing, it attempts to prevent spammers registering for the forum, and editing their profiles to be full of links…if they don’t post, then it is hard to keep track of.
For me though the main reason is the blocking of Personal Messages. Since someone needs 20 posts before they can send a PM, spammers cannot register, and start spamming everyone through PM’s…
The only problem is that when the do register, they can still post…until they are caught that is…though generally the mods are fairly quick on this.
The issue here is that it may not be easy to selectively block certain things, so it may be all or nothing…
The idea of having this information available easily, would (IMO) lead to users doing what you did and posting things that would be considered spam, just to get post count up.
That thread to get to 20 posts, would be considered spam, and would be deleted as such.
I understand that it may not possible to relax the timezone restriction just by itself, but I do think informing users that they can’t do certain things until they have hit a minimum post level is just good user support. Since it takes 20 posts I think a spammer would certainly be caught before they get there. I forget the exactly quote, but there is a common refrain in cyber security that obfuscation doesn’t create security and in fact makes things worse by creating a false sense of security. Perhaps you could at least let users know about the restrictions without telling them exactly when they are lifted, so they would not waste time trying to do them (like timezone).
Anyway, just my $.02. I’ll add the Avast app itself seems to be working pretty well for me, very happy with the move from MSE so far.
Personally I would try creating a new member account, you will have to use a different email address and user name, etc. When setting it up pay attention, select your country (Forum Profile Information), that will show you flag also and you may well be able to correct the time zone (Look and Layout Preferences, Time Offset:) if needs be after selecting the country .
Don’t close out the Profile section until you are done or you won’t be able to get back in to modify anything.
I could have posted about it first also, but it sounded like something that wasn’t going to change. And I didn’t want to create a bunch of empty comments to get there, had thought if I kept to its own thread, did it quickly, and then deleted it after it would be less obtrusive. Bad assumption on my part. Especially since there seems to have been a spammer issue in the past.
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PS, An email saying I was banned would be nice. I just suddenly was asked for username/password that had worked 5 minutes earlier.