An Avatar Newbie!
 

Hi to all! I just joined this site and its because I spotted the word "Avatar". I'm not a fan really but when I got to see the movie , I was impressed. It was quite possibly one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. By the way, I just saw it again days ago. Anyway, its great to be hanging around here and discover more!

Cool! It's great to have you! I hope you enjoy it here!

Looks like the guy has been banned. Oh well.

He was so young :(

There is no place for spam bots ;)

Then we should just close down the registrations, because nobody trusts the newcomers anymore... ugh
I think he was the first legit member in a while (no spam link or suspicious content), he was interested to the movie. Then the conclusions have been taken too quickly and the guy is now banned.

I agree that there's a constant wave of people who create junk accounts just spam advertising, but come on. Next time a newcomer posts, watch and analyse before taking a decision (sometimes it's quick, sometimes it takes a little more time). Otherwise, in 2018, Avatar Spamblogs and LN will probably have a surge of people, but almost nothing will happen here, because most of the new members will be banned.

Unfortunately, I'm well familiar with this particular style of spamming at this point. Users sign up, actually do post valid points on the topic of the message board in question, then inject very specific question threads, and over the course of a longer period of time try to get people invested in the product/website/service they are promoting.

Here's a few good examples of similar tactics used on ToS by other users:
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/science...d_machine.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/science...new_ideas.html

The strategy is very easy to spot once it's known, though it still does amaze me how there's the dedication to legitimately post on the boards for quite a while before doing the subtle spam.

I do want to stress that trust and acceptance of newcomers is a huge priority for me (to the point where I wish to clarify that liking Avatar is by no means a requirement to participate on ToS), though there's a difference between trolling (which can be hard to confirm and gives a reason to give the benefit of the doubt) and spam (which generally is a very black and white issue).

Yeah, I'm not 100% aware about that.
I thought it would be semi-obvious that something is spam.
But I wish to see people who are actually interested to this community, if not the movie.

A lot of forum have these simple captcha questions, example:
add 7 and 5 to prove you are not a bot

Why not implement some harder questions that are related to this fandom?

Examples:
What was the working title for Avatar in 1995?
What was Jake's name in the 1995 script?
What is the name of the large planet that Pandora orbits?
What is the name of the ship that brought Jake to Pandora?
Who is the head of RDA on Pandora?
What is Trudy's surname?
What is the name of Neytiri's sister?
How do you say "thank you"/"yes"/"no"/"hello" in Na'vi?

Easy for legit fans, almost impossible for spammers (and trolls as well) :D

Problem is that we don't know if they work in a network of spam advertisers.
They could easily look up the answers and still end up coming in.

For the exact reasons I mentioned above - I don't want Tree of Souls to be exclusive to Avatar fans, in a few senses:

• If you don't like the movie, but would be interested in discussing why in a respectful manner, you should be able to join.
• If you like the film, but isn't interested in being knowledgeable about it, that doesn't make you less of a fan.
• If you're not interested in Avatar whatsoever but would like to be a part of the community in itself (for instance, someone you know is a member), that should also be perfectly fine.

More to the point, what makes a "legit fan" shouldn't be a matter of trivia, or knowledge, or even enjoyment of the film - but rather simply feeling it is impactful in any manner whatsoever :)

Even if they do, we can come up with even more and harder questions, I am willing to help in this case.
All the effort just to display products/services to an audience <50 people? There has to be a tipping point somewhere.
With these questions in place, spamming can't be automated at least.
I'm sure the indian captcha slaves would rather skip 1 out of 1000 registration captchas than reading through some secluded fan wiki for 5-10 minutes.

Of course it shouldn't, but I think it correlates to some degree.
My suggestion is a compromise unfortunately, but I think the positive effect heavily outweights the "false negatives", if there are any. If someone wants to register and doesn't care about the trivia: 5-10 minutes spent with google is a fair price for keeping the forum spam free IMO.

Also, existing members could just message you to approve a new account for a friend.

Yeah, but I think it's hard to filter out the spam at the registration. The new spammers are patient and they can do anything to come in. It's not hard.

What if they have extreme tactics like becoming a member and waiting for 10 years to gain everyone's trust then *BOOM* Viagra posts everywhere! "Do not be alarmed friends I'm just here to sell blue pills to fans of blue people and talk about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ." This should make us all suspicious. All we have to do is see who here doesn't seem like a true fan. :hmm:

I would literally not be able to sign up because I don't know any of that. On AF just to send a message to report a problem (like when my account mysteriously :airquote: ended up deactivate and I couldn't login) I had to answer what year Jake arrived on Pandora. The future? I don't know what year AVATAR takes place!

I genuinely don't know the answer to most of those questions, and I once did.

Anyway without these guys we wouldn't have the guy who just gave us the opportunity to go to Avatar World at Walt Disney's World. :xD:

As said earlier you don't have to be a fan of Avatar. As Eltu said, you could just be a friend of a member. But yeah, otherwise I don't see why a guy would join if it's not for criticizing the movie or just plainly spam.

Looking back at my rant, I've been a little bit naive on the fact that making three threads on your first day isn't a mark of interest but rather an incoming advertising.

More importantly, I think such login requirements reinforces a somewhat elitist mentality - of course, over the years there's been many ideas of what constitutes an Avatar fan, and while that might be an interesting topic it's ultimately irrelevant. ToS is not a community for Avatar fans, it's a community centered around Avatar - this is a subtle distinction, but an important one since it emphasizes the community and not the subject matter.

Even among old-time users, many people who still spend time here aren't nearly as much into Avatar in itself as they used to be, for natural reasons of it taking up less and less of their lives as time passes. Should this mean ToS is slightly less aimed at those people? I'd say certainly not - if anything, simply wanting to be a part of the community should always be the #1 reason you're welcomed into it. Avatar's the core of what binds most of us together, but shouldn't permeate the community in every aspect. :)

hi Enigma....the events of Avatar take place in 2154, over the course of three to four months as Jake becomes one of the People. humanity in the form of scientists and corporate resource raiders, have been on Pandora for about 30 years previous to the events of Avatar. i can pretty much answer everything about Avatar, except for a lot of the specific words of the Na'vi language. i'm a huge fan of the film, just not very good with the language. *sighs*

sorry, Neytiri :love:

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...6/ney_slap.gif

My guess would have been close. I would have guessed 2175. I'd probably know all this, but when Neytiri is on screen I could forget my own name. :awesome:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...likesJake2.gif

That sounds about right :D

I would have butchered all those questions too. The issue is keeping it welcoming for legitimate users, and not by placing captcha gates to get in. Captchas are not reliable as they once were. Some captchas even trigger a migraine for me because they **** with my eyes.

The way I see it, everything on the internet is spammable. only thing you can do to keep them out is to close registration. Period. But of course with an obvious downfall. If its publicly accessible, its spammable. That has been my experience on the internet since the mid 90s and now that every joe-blow has internet access I don't see it "improving". Kick, delete, whatever and move on.

But that's my unsolicited opinion and my experience.

I have an excellent long-term memory for all sorts of "useless" information, especially if I'm obsessed with it :D

After the collectors edition release, there really wasn't much to be into anymore tbh (except for the language maybe). I came here because of a sudden surge of nostalgia and was glad that some communities were still welcoming new members :party:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...28-1908352.png

I just registered on the Dragon Cave forum and this is what they do. I'm thinking this is probably why so many spammers go ahead and post in the introduction thread first.