New member's welcome message.

[peteski]

We often have newly joined members puzzled by their inability to visit certain sections of the forum, or not able to upload photos photos.  Its been years since I joined and I don't recall what exactly takes place when a new member is approved.

Do they get an email, or is there a link to a welcome message on the forum?  Whatever it is, it would be helpful to include link to the "New Member (and guest) limits/restrictions" thread in the FAQ section to inform them of the new member limitation.

[EJN]

We often have newly joined members puzzled by their inability to visit certain sections of the forum, or not able to upload photos photos.  Its been years since I joined and I don't recall what exactly takes place when a new member is approved.

Do they get an email, or is there a link to a welcome message on the forum?  Whatever it is, it would be helpful to include link to the "New Member (and guest) limits/restrictions" thread in the FAQ section to inform them of the new member limitation.

Speaking for myself, I joined the forum in 2013 but only lurked for many years since I was pretty much inactive in modeling then, just looking for ideas.

During that time, I was wondering what was the thing called the "Crew Lounge" was, since it did not appear on my view of the forum.

When I finally started actively modeling again, I wanted to post photos of what I was working on, but that was when I found out I couldn't post photos until I had 25 posts. This kinda forced me to make fluff "blah blah blah" posts to threads which didn't necessarily add to the thread in order to reach 25 posts. If I had gotten a welcome email (which I don't remember), by then it was long gone - and the FAQ took me a while to find since it is kinda buried down here

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Maybe it should be moved the the top of the forum list?

I understand the 25 post threshold for the Crew Lounge & Trading Post, but the restriction for posting photos doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because I would imagine new members might want to start off posting photos of their modeling projects or layouts.

[John]

Good point ejn. Uploading photos costs storage which Tom pays for .. Any member can link to a photo on a blog or other site (provided that the site allows it). 

[peteski]

But my point  is to let the new members know what the initial limitations are.  Seems lately that we have new members asking how to get to the newbie-verboten sections, or uploads photos.

I'm also a big fan of having photos hosted internally on the forum. I myself went through too many outside hosts that disappeared.  I post useful technical threads with photos - having the photos disappear makes the text pretty much useless.  I had to go back to my old treads and edit the posts pointing to outside photos to the new copy of the photos uploaded locally to the forum.

But again, this thread was to find out if the new members are automatically informet abotu the newbie limits, or if not, to maybe add that info to the new member welcome message, email, or whatever they get.

[John]

Pete - all I'm saying is someone can link to photos until they get to the threshold required ..

I'd also strongly suggest you archive some of your work - you never know when this (or any other site) will go offline ..

[peteski]

Pete - all I'm saying is someone can link to photos until they get to the threshold required ..

I'd also strongly suggest you archive some of your work - you never know when this (or any other site) will go offline ..

Oh, I have backups of it all, but it pains me when I find older interesting threads where the photos have disappeared. If photos in them were hosted on the forum, those threads would still be useful.

Also, since this hobby attracts many older folks who might not be very Internet savvy, linking to external photos might not be easy for them.

Since I still don't know what new members receive for introductory info I shoudl just try to apply for a new member ship so I can see it for myself.  New members should be aware what the limitations are without having to look around the forum for answers.