TOPIC:

During the course of the next 48hrs or so, I am going to change Members rights to download material from our downloads facility.

I have noticed over a period of time that we have members that just join the Forum, don't make any posts, download what they want and never hear from them again. Additionally, there are members that are not that active, maybe just want to ask a question from time to time, nothing wrong with that, but don't really make any big contribution to the Forum by means of posting. For these reasons I am going to put in place policies, anything from not having any download rights, delaying the start of a download according to the number of posts and of course unrestricted.

As you can see on the left side of the Forum you have an Avatar, it might be the default one or it could be one you have uploaded. Above that, you have your Username and below the Avatar you have whether the Member is Online, Away, Offline etc, then Members Ranking which is ranked as Follows:

Level	Graphic	Posts	Download Limit	Download Speed
New Member	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	0 - 19	1 File/Week	256kb/sec
Junior Member	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	20 - 39	2 Files/Day	512kb/sec
Senior Member	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	40 - 79	4 Files/Day	1mb/sec
Premium Member	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	80 - 159	6 Files/Day	No Restriction
Elite Member	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	160 - 319	10 Files/Day	No Restriction
Platnium Member	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	320+	No Restriction	No Restriction
Administrator	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	N/A	No Restriction	No Restriction
Moderator	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	N/A	No Restriction	No Restriction
Spammer	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	N/A	Get a Life! Very Long Start Delay 1 File/Month	10kb/sec
Banned	This image is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.	N/A	No chance! No Access whatsoever	N/A

Additional restrictions may be imposed for those Members that only have the Default Avatar and also don't have the signature at the bottom of their posts that have been suggested in the past. The latter, Signature, is quite important as it helps other Members give an appropriate response to posts you have made.

While the alterations are being instigated, the Downloads Section will be offline for maintenance from time to time.

Updates will be edited to this post rather creating new posts.

I'm quite happy to hear members comments under this thread, Good or Bad, but hopefully, you will understand why this is being put into place.





05/05/19 12:24hrs - First TEMPORARY restriction put in place for ALL Members - 1 download per day. (This will be changed later today for more established Members according to the number of posts made to date. This will eventually be New Members restriction but at a slower speed of 256 kb/sec

05/05/19 19:41hrs - All proposed download restrictions put in place. Please report any issues under this thread.

I have now put a revised Policy in place that can be seen HERE

Understand? No, I guess it's something to do with Server-size? Or am I being "encouraged" to contribute more?
[Post 19 = still a newbie]

I guess those who are desperate to have access to this site's Downloads will simply write lots of "trivial" posts to get them to the "Premium Member" threshold?
[Post 20, now a "Junior"!]

I know nothing about "Avatars", nor "Signatures". I suppose I'll be "Encouraged" to learn about those too? Doh!
[Post 21]

I just checked my "Profile" to see when I joined this "New" forum [the old one having collapsed] The information isn't there, but I do have a Date Of Birth of 29 August 2018? This information has a "*" by it, so is Compulsory? Thank goodness no-one has time to check this!
[Post 22, Desperate to become a "Senior"]

JohnBridge wrote:

I just checked my "Profile" to see when I joined this "New" forum [the old one having collapsed] The information isn't there, but I do have a Date Of Birth of 29 August 2018? This information has a "*" by it, so is Compulsory? Thank goodness no-one has time to check this!
[Post 22, Desperate to become a "Senior"]

So I get the impression your not happy with the Download Policy?
You joined 29th August 2018
As for what is compulsory, well, I know there are members that are not completely honest with the registration process and I don't particularly enforce it.
I know where members are in the world, regardless as to whether they fill the forms correctly, I know who their internet provider is, and all the information is there.

The reason the Policy has been put in place is, for example, Joe Bloggs has been given a link to this site for a file he/she wants to download. They do registration process login, get what they want and we never hear from them again. I personally think it is impolite. I do not think it is a big deal to impose conditions and expect a little courtesy to the Forum and its Membership.

As for Avatar's it gives you individuality, might even give others an impression of what sort of a person you are. Again the signatures do this but more importantly by creating one with details of your vehicle could possibly help other members answer a query as quickly as possible.

The policy, as it stands, is NOT set in stone and maybe tweaked.