Restoring the confidence at the Invites Section

As many of the older members around here might have noticed, during the past year or so, there has been a dramatic drop in the users' confidence when they decide to offer their invites in public.
This comes from the fact that FST is a site with open registrations, and a lot of people create many accounts to fit their own agendas. It's quite hard to control this, when most of them lurk in the shadows and attack via PM, and ask for the invite, without being scrutinized in public.
Let's face it, some sites don't care at all about what users do with their invites, and some do care a lot. To each, their own.
The perfect situation would always be when you invite someone you know, but as we know, it's an utopia.
The fact is that if we removed the giveaways section, it would be done somewhere else. Same happens with the trading, but that's a whole other issue not to be brought to this thread, and that will be addressed in a nearby future in its proper section.

The bottom line is this: we are considering being more active when helping members to decide whom they should give their invites to. And we have a situation to discuss with you all, so that we can tweak it, before practicing it.

Here it goes:
The member A decides to do a giveaway and offer one invite.
Members X and Y apply for the giveaway accordingly to the conditions A decided earlier.
Member Z decides to contact A via PM and not to expose himself in public.

Member A reaches the conclusion he doesn't know whom to pick.
He can then contact one of the mods here and get a return status about each member that would fit into any of these categories:

• Unique account
• Dupe account of some previous one
• Proxied or shared IP

This obviously won't solve the issue of the bad invitees who won't use the tracker, but it will help the members to make a choice having certain conditions under their control. This is done to help the members who want to share invites, but who are in the wild when they see members they never heard of, or that seem suspicious.

So, bring on the fight. Is this a good idea, a crappy one, what would you change or add? This is not even nearly a foolproof situation, but it's a measure to help minimize certain... hazards that emerge.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RealitY

This could be fine tuned with some hacks to it.

• Youde have to be the thread starter.
• Thread would mention giveaway is subject to inquiry.
• Youde click a button below thier avatar.
• It would be between the bt rep and the report button.
• That request would then post to a private section.
• The section would be similar to the report section.
• The member who requested and Staff could read it.
• The basics would be posted for thread starter.

This would require that a hack to be installed.
Not sure when rossco would be able to this though...

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That is a good idea. Is a step forward and will help with all the dupe account requests.Maybe give others peace of mind inviting someone in a giveaway or doing one at all.

members will do giveaways,trade no matter what. better to look out for deception and things that could get someone in trouble like inviting a member to a site they were disabled from.

I wonder why this wasn't thought of before, it's a great idea.

I think stricter rules for one would really help. Like no trading, account swapping, have low level invites and make people wait untill ten reps for other invites. I like your idea though. How about implamenr a negative rep is also another idea. Forinstance I invite someone they not only get banned from the site but also never even rep me on the first place. On the other hand I invite someone else and they become a VIP user the next day. But why can't we let people know about the bad. Maybe we should rep the invitee too but a month later.

Its a great idea,but this means more WORK for you guys...

and cabalo looking forward to hear more from you as a Mod ;)

You know my opinion about dupe accounts and things like that.If it is just a status answer (yes or no) probably there isn't a problem. I know you care about privacy so there is a thick line here.
On the other hand there is nothing wrong to use share ip or proxy to access FST is it?
Even dupe accounts are allowed so since a lot of things are happening in private something like that would only help the newcomers who want to giveaway invites and don't have enough "friends" to ask in pm

Go on Cabalo, I see you are all shiny now... tell us about who gives you the right to accuse someone in public without proofs.

It is a great idea, should definately be implemented.

ooh Cabalo's a mod now?...nice so now I have more contacts in the staff :happy:

seriously though, the idea's great but it does mean more work on the part of the staff and the inviter...and although, the staff maybe willing to chip in the extra effort...i'm not too sure, if the inviter would be willing to do the same

Good idea. :fst: