I was quite surprised today when I started readingthe forums and a message popped up that I could not view links or images with signatures unless I had 10 posts. I feel this is punishing the shy, quiet types, and do not like this change.
Change in Forum
We’ve had spammers change their tactics from posting in forums with spam in their signatures to sending private messages. This is unacceptable and some changes were made just this weekend to prevent that. I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced but it’s to make the forum a nicer place to visit, not to punish anyone. I see you do have 10 posts now, so there shouldn’t be any further problems with you viewing the things you wish to see.
We have had some problems with spammers in the last couple of weeks who just create accounts only to post links to inappropriate web sites. So we are trying out some controls to see if we can keep them away from spamming the site. I am sorry it affected your usage of the site. Again, we are just trying this out as a sort of stop gap measure and I hope we can return to business as usual soon.
I will also check into lowering that limit. 10 posts may be too restrictive. Most spammers just post one message and leave.
Cheers,
Sheldon
Don’t be offended. It’s only been done to make the forum more secure for all of us. 