Question

This a great idea I posted quite some time ago.
Check out the link to see my idea for OpenStudy

Answer 1

I obtained this idea when I was trying to help a student out in chat andI couldn't finish helping because of spam.
http://openstudyfeedback.uservoice.com/forums/95895-customer-feedback/suggestions/5678020-users-must-confirm-their-email-address-before-bein

Answer 2

Well, I think the point of having the ability to open question posts is so that people can help others on the question posts. But while the chat can be used to get attention to the question, the chats are (I think) meant for a more social rather than educational aspect of this website.
So rather than attempting to help someone on a question within the chats, ask them to ask the question as a question post then share it with you so that you may help them with less interference :)
That does not mean that spam and derogatory exchanges are not a problem in chats, fixes such as those you referenced have been discussed and will be added as soon as the coders get the site more stabilized and the apple app going :)
Thank you for your input! ^_^

Answer 3

How about restricting the chat for users until they reach smartscore 30.
This is easy to obtain for beginning users, but spammers would totally hate it to gain that smartscore everytime they register a new account.

Answer 4

I agree with Thomaster. Spammers will never be interested to give some time in helping others or increasing their SmartScore. At this time, this is the only solution I think!

Answer 5

Yeah, but raising your SS in the beginning is not hard at all. It wouldn't be hard if they were determined to spam enough.

Answer 6

At a particular time, they will get tired of raising their SS everytime when they make new accounts.

Answer 7

They could create spam posts to help raise their SS...They could even go to the point of making more than one account and commenting on their own post in order to bring their SS up. I think that spammers would be more annoyed if they had to to verify their email AND raise their SS to 30 in order for them to get to the chats.

Answer 8

So far, that's my favorite idea. ^^

Answer 9

Is that not what I said in my feedback? lol Thomaster taking all my medals. >:D

Answer 10

Maybe it's because he specified what the SS should be.

Answer 11

@TwoPointInfinity lol you can have the medals xD I don't care about those.
Btw it wasn't exactly an original idea :P, this has been suggested 2 years ago and many times later.

The biggest issue in making verification mandatory is that it will not increase user retention since people do not like having to sign up for everything and then verify it. We would lose a lot of new users that way.
However, a better solution would be setting up restrictions, either restrict the chat under a certain smartscore level, or for unverified accounts.
If it were up to me, I'd do both. Create different achievements to unlock when your smartscore increases. SmartScore 30, unlock the chat function. But also you'd need a verified account to unlock those achievements.

I made a suggestion about this earlier:

Unlocking achievements with smartscore. Everybody loves completing achievements right?
How about this:

25 - Use the chat
30 - Attach files
35 - Send private messages
40 - Unfollow questions
50 - Abuse reports count in community suspensions
60 - uploading a custom profile picture
65 - the ability to receive testimonials
70 - Ability to add posts to favorites list
80 - Ability to pimp your profile page (change background, layout, that sorta stuff)
90 - Ability to delete your own questions
100 - Become a moderator (good luck with this one >:D )

0-100 - Unlocking titles (not custom, that's a premium feature)
0-100 - Smartscore indicator shapes (Diamond for premium)

Answer 12

profile picture should be much lower :D

Answer 13

Can't wait to get to SS 80 if that were all true.

Answer 14

I did say in my post "Maybe having a certain smart score, or you must be here for a certain number of days, etc. "
I said that about because of regarding the verification of email because I had already thought about losing new users that way.

Answer 15

I made that up a few months ago.
I think the attach file option and private messages should be always possible.
Custom profile picture at let's say 40, before that you can choose a few default pics.
Anyone else some ideas for achievements? :)

Answer 16

Tag one person per 10 SS.

Example:
SS 10: Tag 1 person per post
SS 20: Tag 2 people per post...etc.

Answer 17

Then, stop at around 50-60, so in the end people can only tag 5-6 people per post.

Answer 18

Not a bad idea :)

Answer 19

Interesting Idea Thomaster!

Changing pictures is a fun feature that makes chat more interesting and fun. Restricting this to the SS 60 seems a bit too much. I do agree on some restrictions though, as I have seen this feature abused by many spammers with them using offensive and mature images.

Also when I first joined OS I was getting testimonials way before I reached 65, I would see this as a problem.

Answer 20

Just some of my thoughts on it, but overall I like your idea of achieving things and unlocking them, it would help defeat spammers while making OS more interesting :)

Answer 21

@Xmoses1 Read some of this.

Answer 22

Thanks @TwoPointInfinity This is exactly what i had in mind! I like your idea @thomaster, I would like to see it implemented at some point. But like @OrangeMaster said, there are a few things that i would change :p I really like his idea of the tagging and SS ratio too.

Answer 23

thomaster really raised the bar in this one!
a lot of those need to be lowerred but i like the idea itself.

Answer 24

I like the idea. @thomaster

Answer 25

I agree with what some of what Thomaster stated, and also disagree with some this. Here's why:

25 - Use the chat - I agree. This will help stop some trollers who get suspended and just come back on to spam or such. It would get tiring to get to 25 SmartScore every account you make to spam and such.

30 - Attach files - I do not agree with this. Everyone need to be able to attach files, because what if someone has a problem with an example, chart, etc, and they have a SmartScore of 0-24?

35 - Send private messages - Maybe this should be set a little lower. Maybe 25 SmartScore. I have some people with low SmartScores under 35 Private Messaging me for help or to view their question.

40 - Unfollow questions - I disagree. Everyone should have the ability to unfollow a post if they don't want to be dealing with that post.

50 - Abuse reports count in community suspensions - I completely agree with this one! I had a few people keep on making accounts and report me to get me Community Banned. This also happened to other people.

60 - uploading a custom profile picture - Hmm I disagree with this one. I think it should be set to a lower SmartScore, because people with the SmartScore lower than 65 like to have different pictures than an owl.

65 - the ability to receive testimonials - I agree, but also disagree with this. I agree with it, because when I was around this SmartScore I just got some inappropriate testimonials, and when I became a higher SmartScore those stopped, but I disagree with this as well, because there are some really good and helpful users with a lower SmartScore of 65 and they do have good testimonials about their help.

70 - Ability to add posts to favorites list - I agree! This would be a very good ability to add!

80 - Ability to pimp your profile page (change background, layout, that sorta stuff) - I think this would be fun thing to add to OpenStudy.

90 - Ability to delete your own questions - Whoop! I agree with this! I have lot's of questions that I posted that I want to delete, and I bet other people as well.

100 - Become a moderator (good luck with this one >:D ) - Now now Thomaster. I believe who has a SmartScore of 100 should become a mod (if they are over 18) because they would deserve it!

Answer 26

Yeah. The 100 part did not make sense. @thomaster was risking his own power to be a moderator.

Answer 27

i like the idea...but i agree with @sammixboo ...really cool idea bro

Answer 28

I think it should be set to the color changes. Like have a few more options available the more you change color. It would be a nice way to categorize the options. The ability to delete a question is really something I crave for (especially with spammers).