Starting now, we've disabled the chat feature for new members

Site News & Feedback
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We’ve noticed an increased influx of ridiculous members joining, causing nothing but confusion and mayhem with their absurd comments. In addition, there’s a surge of Nigerian scammers registering in large numbers, promising the ability to fix everything without even knowing the details of what needs to be fixed. On top of that, a lot of freelance entrepreneurs want to make it big and keep spamming their “altErnAtive mARketplacEs” or Telegram channels seconds after signing up. This stops now, and freshly made user accounts will no longer be able to use the chat function.

This was entirely my idea. I found, isolated, and fixed this problem that you all caused.

EDIT: Forget what we’ve said above. Trying something new first. Click here for more details.

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Create a “newbies” chat group for them instead of general chat. :mens:

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:sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

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Thank you, SWAPD, for maintaining a clean and spam-free community.

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Good idea, but the current core set up will not allow this.

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If you set this up, please let us join it as spectators. I want to see them all try and out-shill each other in real time.

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We had one guy sign up MULTIPLE times and banned him like 7-8 times. Every time he joined, he would keep asking, “Are there any people from South Africa?” in the chat OVER AND OVER again. When we inquired why, he said he needed to buy a sim card. I told him to stop, but he didn’t.

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And the infamous Nigerians, answering every question with I CAN HELP YOU WITH THAT.

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I CAN HELP YOU WITH THAT.

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Me: I am tired
Nigerian: I can help with that! DM ME!

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Please make the “Buyer requests” category invisible for new or unverified users

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Same thing happening there?

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Yes
@SMM can confirm :laughing:

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Checking a few inboxes right now, you’re right.

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UGH that’s going to hurt, that category brings in traffic. I’m not sure what to do; I need to find an alternative way.

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You know what, I found some GEO-blocking plugins for our site, we may reverse on the chat ban and just outright ban a few countries.

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UPDATE:

We’re trying something new. We’ve re-enabled chat for newbies, but only for General chatrooms. However, new users cannot start 1-on-1 conversations unless they’re spoken to (via chat) first.

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Saw it coming a few weeks ago. I wonder what the % is for registered members and non registered members browsing the forum.

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Hard decisions. By blocking the entire chat, we cripple growth and hurt actual (honest) newbies. So let’s see how our recent change works.

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Good decision

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