I noticed that it's been reinstated as privilege. Now today I had this sad blink (uhm am using weird words to not cuss) posting crap basically. Not only that but he had removed the content from many of his posts replacing it with absolute crap, and since some were topic starters I had to remove the topics. Is there any way to allow members the edit posts button but restrict it? Or maybe make it an extra when they have x posts??

the x number of posts would work out quite the other way around, people would start spamming to get that privilege.

Maybe it's a good idea to used a somewhat stripped down version of the edit. e.g.

x = total words of the post
then you could say (x-10) > x > (x+10)?

This way you can't change too much of your post (so you can't fill it up with hahahahahah:P and the like), but still will be able to add something to it, or correct typos

Wait, I thought we couldn't find out whether someone had posted complete crap, then edited it into something that made sense. Is there a log about what people have edited? Or did you read the post before it was edited, then see the person edit it?

I lik the limited edit idea, but I think people ill still abuse it. They'll just do it with a lot more posts. And an edit log would be possible, but would eat up storage space. I think what we should do is install limited logging of the edit button, for say a month, and leave it up for that period of time. Post a message in the announcements declaring the return of the edit button, but state it is a trial run, and abuse will result in losing the privelege forever. Then, when the month is up, if say, 10% or more of the edit button uses have been abusive, we remove it, otherwise it stays. And since we are logging the use during that month, we can punish the abusers relative to their crime.

~Viz

Is an edit log possible in InvisionBoards? Or would you need to do some coding to get it to work?

How much more space would a log take? In wikipedia, they have an edit history log on every article, and you can see that some parts of the article have not been changed. Would these repetitive parts save some space, or do they use up as much space as a part with the same amount of words?
(If you don't get this ^, ignore me...)

Depending on the post it would save space, othertimes it might not. I can't comment on whether or not IPB allows for edit logs, but if coding is required I volunteer to help, it was my idea afterall, me not volunteering would be mean and selfish.

~Viz

About the storage space, I don't know if that is really such a problem, all we log is the edit logs, which is just plain text, which is 1. very compressable 2. Takes up little storage space even uncompressed.

I always thought that invision worked on a basis of certain user classes per post? Maybe...Just maybe...We could implement that so that only the 200-300+ posters get to edit their posts.

By then they should know not to break the rules, unless they've somehow spammed their way to 300 posts without us noticing...In which case we should all die.

Does an edit post show up as a new post? If not, what makes anyone going back to an old post of theirs and adding any random crap to up their credits, I'm positive we can't monitor posts that aren't revealing themselves to us.

As for the script that gives hosting credits, has anyone seen it and can elaborate more on it?

My proposal:

Users will only be able to edit their post within a certain time limit. (e.g. approximately 15 minutes, maybe less depending on what's a suitable time limit) and it will only be for that post (going by the posted time) and any other posts as long as they fall within that time limit, if they don't fall within the time limit the edit button on that post will be disabled for that post.

I'm sure this is easy to implement, although would need more feedback on whether there's any flaw with this idea.

Cheers,


MC

MC, the problem is that the credits script doesn't check edited posts. So people can post a 200 line piece of crud, get the credits for it, then edit it into a meanigless one liner so when it gets deleted they only lose a few credits.

~Viz

If that is the case.... I suggest you don't enable the edit button anymore. OR, else you'd have to rewrite the entire script for crediting don't you?

Just a question viz, why do you subtract credits when a post is deleted? It wouldn't make much difference would it? I mean, ok, if there's an ass around deleting his own posts after getting credits for them, we can create a post delete maximum of one per day or something?

Or if you do want to delete credits after deleting something:

So I suppose the script now calculates the amount of credits to be awarded per post when it get's posted or deleted and then add it to the users account. What if instead of doing that make a new column in the table with the posts/topics that holds the current number of credits already awarded.

That way, if you edit the post, all the script has to do is subtract the value in the db from the amount of credits from the user and adds the new calculated one from the edited post.

This way, when one edits his post in to a short one for saving credits and then deletes it, he loses the credits for the long post, gets a very few for the ****-post and loses those when he deletes the post.


[offtopic]
nostalgia... I remember when I signed up @ astahost, you'd have to be active at the boards to keep your hosting up. Too bad asta got to big for such an approach
[/offtopic]

I am just starting to understand the script for this, as I have not seen the code for it.

So it is only done on a per post basis and only at time of that post. That is what your credits would be based on and there isn't a recheck?

So if someone did a large post of random text, they instantly get the credits for it? They can then edit the post to something relevant that would be suitable, and not detected by admins/mods in that short time. They would have the credits for the larger post and not lose anything if they edit their post? Then we need to work on the script or disable edit again. Or disable edit till a new script can be made.

So how is the script started? On posting? I think I will install an IPB forum and see what could be done

Is there any chance I can look over the code for this script?


Cheers,


MC

Keep in mind that all of script knowledge comes from extensive discussion of the post with OpaQue, as I haven't seen the code either. But here's what I've pieced together, from start to finish, to clarify things.

At time of post: When the user mkaes a post, the number of something (characters, words, sentences, lines) whatever, excluding certain things (if it's lines, excluding linebreaks) is tallied, and a certain amount of credits is awarded based on a mathematical formula.

On deletion of post: When a post other than the first post in the thread is deleted, an amount of credits is calculated in a simlar way to whent he post is created, and this amount is removed from the user's credit total. This amount is always more than the amount received for the post in the first place. This prevents users from keeping the credit bonus from a garbage post after a moderator deletes it, and discourages garbage posts becaus eon deletion you end up further behind than you were before making the post.

On edit of a post: Nothing happens.

This allows for the following loophole:

Step 1) Make huge post
Step 1a) The user makes a huge post
Step 1b) The credit script triggers and gives them huge amounts of credits

Step 2) Edit post to a one line simple response
Step 2a) THe user edits there post to a simple spam response
Step 2b) The credit script does nothing

Step 3) Moderator deletes post
Step 3a) The moderator finds the spam ost and deletes it
Step 3b) The credit script runs and calculates how many credits to delete based on the new number of lines (1) removing few credits

In the end, the user comes out ahead. OpaQue hasn't discussed the eenabling of the edit button with me, I wasn't aware of it until this post. I don't know if he has changed the script at all to prevent this, although I do know he has been updating a lot of his scripts recently, including the credit script, so it's possible this isn't an issue anymore, but this is why it was disbaled in the first place.

Hope that clears up all confusion on what the script does (or at least did) so we can back to the original question: Assuming the credit script hasn't been updated, what can we do to close or limi this loophole.

~Viz

Hmm. How about we give a 1hour time limit to edit posts, then have a recheck enabled two hours after the post originated?

These numbers cna be changed, but you understand the basic idea.

If they wanted to edit their huge non-sense posts into smaller one-liner posts that make sense in order to gain credits, they would do it right after they post, so the time limit wouldn't work. But if we do a recheck after a specific time, like spacewaste said, it would work.
But why don't we just do rechecks every time they edit a post? Wouldn't that be better?

Let's say someone posted a post that's worth 3 credits. Then they go back and add some more information to it. The system would check how much more things they have added, and adds that much credits (say, .2) to their account. Then, they go back and correct the post and delete some wrong information, and the system counts how much things they have deleted and removes that much credit (.1). This way, we don't have to worry about how the credits decrease in time, because the system doesn't give 3.2 credits on the first edit and 2.9 on the second, but instead adds/removes the difference between the edits.

Hey guys,

I tested out a large random crap text posting, and then editted it to reflect something suitable.

Now I'm not sure if any of you guys notice the changes, as I did try being sneaky, but OpaQue did see this, which is excellent in this case, so now I'm trying to see whether we too have this ability to notice such changes as this would help us monitor the posts.

The post would have been 2000 words of random crap, equivalent to about 5 hosting days as far as I could work out, I then editted it straight after it was posted to something suitable and discovered I kept the credits.

I don't know if OpaQue has seen this thread, as he PM'd me saying that if I needed credits, just to ask him

Hopefully he'll come here and clear things up more with us.


Cheers,


MC

Quite frankly, I do use the credits reducing script OFTEN. I always use it, I just delete posts with the bulk deletion option after adjusting credits, unless it's a wee post, then I delete manually.

I may be strict in this, I know. And I may come across as very rude when I "catch" someone, but I prefer to be known as a stuck up b**ch, than as someone that allows it all.

Frequently users post a new topic and realize that they left something out or there was an error or something else was wrong with the post. As a result, they need to edit the post but they don't have an edit button. So the question is, how can the post be edited? First of all, I&# ...more

Hi ! How can I edit a post once I've dispatched it? In most forums that I know of, there's a link or a button that allows me to do so, but try as I might I just can't seem to find it here... I've tried switching between the 2 skins available ...more

All of a sudden, I cannot edit my posts after they have been submitted. I have been on this site for quite a while and have routinely done so in the past, often making small corrections years later (e,g, broken or moved links) when I go back to use my own tutorial :-) I have posted two ...more