Feedback or requests for help with the site.
Aug 21st, 2015, 7:35 pm
In my opinion, new members should not be able to request as of the day they join. Requests should be an earned privilege so at the very least they should have to wait a minimum of 1 month before being allowed to request. In an ideal world, the number of requests would be a tiered system based on membership time span but since duration of membership does not necessarily equal contribution to the site and/or participation this would not be ideal either. It is quite obvious to me a significant amount of requests are from new members. To make matters worse, many join, request several the same day and never come back (no doubt having downloaded a bunch before moving on). Having fulfilled a request or two in my time here, I can easily say that probably more than half of rewards removed by mods for non-payment are from new members who have joined, requested and haven't returned to the site since.

Thanks in advance for your consideration of this issue :)
Aug 21st, 2015, 7:35 pm

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Aug 22nd, 2015, 7:11 pm
Had that been the policy when I first joined, well, I wouldn't have signed up in the first place.

It's true that the first act, or one of the first acts, a newbie may take is to post a request. That's what I shyly did when I requested a book on engineering. I was stunned, ecstatic and overwhelmed by the quick, friendly response. That response was the encouragement I needed to become more familiar with the site.

Yes, there will be newbies who sign up only to make a request and then never return. But I think of the positives that result from our friendly, helpful approach to new members. Even if half of all new registrants were to behave as you suggest, there's that other half who do not.
Aug 22nd, 2015, 7:11 pm