Member filtering for who gets to register

I'm starting to see a big boom in members who come in, don't even bother to say hi, and just go and ask their question like they own the damn forum. I'm sure none of us minds answering questions, but some of them are becoming really stupid and I'm starting to doubt that people read the FAQ before registering. I've seen probably 3 topics on ROMs in my stay here and several more asking about how to code stuff. Could we impose some sort of system whereby you can only register after answering a series of basic questions about emulation and gaming in general (ie. Is it simple to code an emulator? Are ROMs illegal? etc.). All we'd need is a simple quiz of probably 10 questions to keep the trolls, spammers, and idiots away.

Any comments?

Having a quiz at the end of sign-up page is a quick way to kill a forum.

Welcome to the internet; it's full of idiots. Idiots sometimes learn and become good members, so it's not worth the risk of alienating everyone.

10 question quiz? Not happening soon. I've seen enough to know that people don't like that.

Thank you for your concern though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bladex1200

I'm starting to see a big boom in members who come in, don't even bother to say hi, and just go and ask their question like they own the damn forum. I'm sure none of us minds answering questions, but some of them are becoming really stupid and I'm starting to doubt that people read the FAQ before registering. I've seen probably 3 topics on ROMs in my stay here and several more asking about how to code stuff. Could we impose some sort of system whereby you can only register after answering a series of basic questions about emulation and gaming in general (ie. Is it simple to code an emulator? Are ROMs illegal? etc.). All we'd need is a simple quiz of probably 10 questions to keep the trolls, spammers, and idiots away.

Any comments?

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Its an emulator forum, it will always attract a certain proportion of the uninitiated and people looking for roms or who having grown frustrated after hours/days of failure and just want to fix their problem and move on....that's pretty much why most of us post here, if you did it for status and thanks you'd quickly get disillusioned. All of us have been noobs and needed help and support at some point in the (distant) past and most of us will have been shot down for unwittingly asking noob or prohibited questions on various boards before we gained any experience with using boards. That empathy makes it easy to deal with new users a little more gently.

In my experience regardless of the type of site a very small proportion of users bother to read AUP's before posting.

Fortunately the forum is well moderated and populated by enough regular users that new folk are generally guided on the correct path fairly quickly.

Moderating is the key here not discipline. They will come, they will be stupid, they will leave.