Change to MM access after 1st January 2024

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As you will be aware, access to the Overclockers Members Market is controlled by two factors, post count (1000) and membership length (six months). Our rules also state the following:

Once you have access, we expect you to continue participating in the other forums outside of MM. If it is noticed that you only post in the MM area then this may be raised with you. If you no longer participate in the wider community outside of MM then we reserve the right to remove your access.

Up until now, this has always been a manual procedure but as from today, the 1st January 2024 this is automated. To retain access to the MM, you are required to make a minimum of 15 posts in other areas outside MM over a 90 day rolling period in order to retain access. Posts in all sub-forums except New Members and Testing will count towards this.

Notice of this impending change was made on the 21st August 2023 in the MM forum so that all MM users would be aware of it.

If you've logged onto the forum at any time since the 1st January 2024 and found you have no access to MM, this is probably the reason why. When you have made the required contributions outside of the MM, your access will be reinstated automatically within an hour or so. 15 posts in 90 days really isn't a lot, it's just over one post per week and with over 50 sub-forums, there must be something, somewhere you're interested in.

The Overclockers UK forums are a community and by enforcing this, we are making sure that people contribute to the forums outside the MM. The only members it will affect are those who aren't part of the community.

 

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Out of curiosity how does that work with the sub forums that no longer increase post count?

I've already answered that

Posts in all sub-forums except New Members and Testing will count towards this.

 

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thats fair and makes sense did login this morning wondering uhhh what

Not sure why my access has gone after 20 years on here. I guess I will have to start posting more.

For over three months, this notice has been at the top of all the MM forums.

And there's a sticky post which has had around 400 replies.

It's all been explained in there.

 

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The principle of this seems fair but the lack of warning is ridiculous - your post states that you would warn people but you haven’t?

I’m literally on the verge of confirming a transaction in the MM, am I meant to now randomly spam 15 messages just to get access back fast enough to be able to continue a conversation I was already halfway through? It’s silly

Doing something like this without warning is, frankly, ridiculous… did you forget that people might be midway through a transaction?

You’ve had over three months notice about this. We deliberately gave members that amount of notice so that everyone is aware.

It’s not our fault you didn’t read that huge notice that’s been at the top of every MM forum since 21st August last year.

 

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in fairness i think most of us "sporadic" posters may have missed it back in August

The notice that I posted above has been there since August. It’s not just a one off, it’s been at the top of every single MM page since then and up until this morning, it’s not been possible to dismiss it.
So every single person who’s been into MM since August has had that notice at the top of the screen.

It wasn’t just there for a couple of days. It’s been there for over three months.

 

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I can't see when I was last selling/buying in the MM (as I can't seem to see my feedback anymore either unless I'm being silly), but I have to also echo that I did not see it either.

The forum tracks who views threads.

You read it on the 4th September.

 

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I made noise about finding out the real reason and I was point blank told (after multiple posts skirting around it) that it was to revive the forums and not to combat scammers.

All we are doing is automating a rule that’s been in place for years and that we used to deal with manually.

I have no idea what you mean by ‘reviving the forums’.

There’s no ulterior motive whatsoever.

 

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I made noise about finding out the real reason and I was point blank told (after multiple posts skirting around it) that it was to revive the forums and not to combat scammers.

I need you to refer me to the exact post that told you this.

 

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By implication this means GD now increases post count again yes? Seems no..

No.

 

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Add the fact that GD doesn't count means its even harder,

Posts in all sub-forums except New Members and Testing will count towards this.

Posts in GD still don’t count towards your post count but they are included as part of the 15/90 MM requirements.

 

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Curious to the stats, how many accounts have lost access?

It’s a lot but specific figures are irrelevant because we don’t know how many of those have even been on the forums for years.

 

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Sounds like an attempt to revive a dying forum.

It’s nothing more than automatically enforcing a long term rule rather than having to do it manually.

Don’t read more into it than there actually is.

 

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The cynic in me says they'd like MM to die off

If we wanted to close MM, we could do it in about four mouse clicks. Stop being so cynical.

 

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It's happened already, lol rule change is so stupid and unnecessary

I’ll repeat myself again.

This is automating a rule that’s been in existence for years. It’s not a new rule, it’s simply enforcing something automatically which we used to do manually. When we spotted people who were only posting in MM, we approached them and asked them to do something about it. Most of the time they did and if they didn’t, we manually removed access and monitored it until they contributed elsewhere.

I’m seeing posts from people complaining about this and then when I check their post history, I can see that they very rarely post anywhere outside of the MM.

That’s directly against the rule that I quoted in the first post of this thread. That’s why this automation has been introduced.

There’s nothing more to it than that. Nothing.

 

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No need for that attitude, tbh

So who's fault is it that you didn't read the thread?

The thread that's a sticky at the top of the For Sale forum and your attention is drawn to it by this notice which has been there for over three months.

 

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And the entire point of this conversation is that we’re talking about people who haven’t been active? Yet your response is “well you should have been active”

You have been active. You've made posts in MM since that notice was posted.

Where was the email to members? The PM? The notification in the inbox? The automated message when they next post in the forum?

Every single person who's been into MM has had that notice at the top of every page there since the 21st August.

We can see who's viewed threads, we're getting complaints in here by people who we can see have read that thread.

We deliberately gave over three months notice for this change. It's not our fault if people didn't even read the notice, or if they read it and ignored it.

 

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I've never seen that notice.

You don't have MM access. You've never posted in MM. It was only visible in the MM sub-forums.

So no, you'd never have seen it because it had no effect on you.

 

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Hey, ho. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, much less the rules. Badly handled though IMO. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I'll leave it at that.

Why did you have nothing to say about it when it was announced over three months ago?

Most of the mods are volunteers.

Correction.
ALL of the mods are volunteers.

Are you saying these rules are made entirely by the voluntary mods? And not influenced or dictated in any way by the OcUk shop? Seems unlikely to me.

Yes.
I can think of maybe two or three instances over the years where the shop has 'dictated' anything and one of those was recently when there was a vote for changing the christmas forum logo.

 

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Of course OcUK have a say in it. It's their forum and would probably have been instrumental in the change. But my understanding is that a lot of the people who perform the day to day moderation work are unpaid forum members who are invited to be mods.

The point I was making was that, if that's the case, then we would be expecting them to give up even more free time to administer payments.

Perhaps a mod can confirm or correct me.

All the Commissarios, Dons and Underbosses are unpaid volunteers. There's a very small handful of shop employees who have access to the mod areas but they are not involved in the day to day running of the forums in any way whatsoever. Most of those have the 'Shop Staff' tag and avatar.

The mod team meet with the shop staff regularly and I'm happy to call them my friends.

As for payments, there's not a whelk's chance in a supernova that will happen.

 

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can someone explain why the post count went up 1st before the manda 15 posts in 90 days?

The post count requirements changed in January 2012, see here.
Then last year, we completed the ongoing clean-up of grandfathered in members who, in over ten years had still not reached the updated requirements, see here. We'd been working in the background on this for a couple of years.
The change we've made now is enforcing a rule that's been in place for a long time. It's something we'd been discussing in the background for quite a few years and it's only now with the updated forum software that we can implement it automatically.

I hope that helps.