What's the story with PCEngineFX? AKA Approval Antics!

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Does anyone know what the heck is going on with the PCEngineFX.com approval process? It's been weeks and I'm still not approved to even read the boards, and you can't even google search the place as all you hit are forum login screens for every single thread.

*rant*

First off I don't want to step on any toes if anyone here is a member at this place, but there is a ton of crazy stuff being said over and over on many a board online about this place and I feel the need to say something.

So, I signed up weeks ago and still haven't been approved to view the forums. In fact you can't even read the forums as clicking on any links from google forces a login page unless you view them as cached results. After a quick search I've now found that this is standard practice, and they can have new member signups delayed for months at a time.

My only question was, Why!?

Well, apparently multiple sources claim the forum is very paranoid about spam and previously banned members. Apparently multiple have come back and harassed the boards under new screen names and some have even stalked and gone after members they didn't like offsite in real life. This according to several places has led to all requests being approved exclusively by the site's owner.

Now to me that's A-OK if you're a smaller site and not bringing in loads of web traffic such as if you just came online recently. But, if you want lots of detailed and hard to get info or parts then the PC Engine FX site and forum are just about the only place to go for anything. If you're a huge site with tons web traffic lots of members and plenty of signups then you can't pull a one man operation and keep telling yourself everything is OK while people wait around and try endlessly to sign-up. There have been plenty of threads all over the place online with people stating the same thing over and over again "Why is this taking so long when it's instant or at a reasonable pace everywhere else?". The Admin/Owner even stepped in at a thread on Digit-Press (If I recall correctly) to personally apologize and tell people that had been waiting weeks, months, and even years (due to time between multiple sign-up attempts) and persuade them they would all be approved eventually/soon.

I can understand if I were to robo-post spam and begin harassing someone; but if the only reason my account was denied resulted from the fact that my email seemed suspicious even though I applied properly, answered their human test questions properly, answered their capcha properly, followed their email application link properly and then waited weeks for their review and approval, what is the point?

I haven't even received a response saying my app was still being considered or if it had been denied entry into this now walled-up community. Upon logging in today to try-again, for possibly the last time, I was greeted with this banner:

pcfx.jpg (33.13 KiB) Viewed 894 times

All I wanted to do was learn more about working with TG-16/PCE hardware finding out about some new PCE titles, hopefully buying some replacement Turbo CD/CD-Rom2 gears and......you know, genuinely participating in the community for a bit. Stuff such as gaining a fresh perspective and new info on a system I just started collecting for, or maybe learning something new that I can apply to my TG-16 or PC Engine collecting while enjoying a conversation with people who seem to know the most about it.

This is no way to run a website if you want to build a strong and robust community, and be things what they may but if a member is harassing other members and you have spam problems then welcome to the internet kids, this stuff isn't new, and it's not going away. The moderation community on many a site can deal with all but the worst of it, and the real world authorities are only a phone call away if things get become genuinely threatening and you can't handle it.

In short:

Dear PCEngineFX.com,

I was very much wanting to use your site, at least for a little bit and hopefully contribute to your community. After waiting weeks and generally growing tired and bored with it and the unreasonable wait time to even see your forums I can't say I'll be too excited should I even be approved to at the very least even read, or heaven forbid reply, to the damn posts. I'm pretty sure that had there been a normal sign-up process, and not a seemingly paranoid and arbitrary approval judged by some sort of invisible criteria I have no idea the qualifications for, based on either my email address, screen name, etc... I would have definitely stayed and enjoyed the place, but you have pretty much ignored me and I'm sure many others to head straight away from your site.

Sincerely,

Mod_Man

*end rant*

[Thierry Henry]

The member (Redifer) that posts here about the various Game Sack episodes is one of the moderators over at pcenginefx. You could try and PM him and see what, if anything, he might be able to do for you.

[marurun]

They just completely upgraded the forums due to security holes. The admin of the site really isn't involved with the community so much (though with the upgrade, maybe he's changing his mind). Most of the mods are basically casual posters and do very little actual moderation. Part of it is that no new mods have been chosen in a long time. The other part is that there are a couple distinctly troll-like individuals who have been there a long-ass time, and they're such embedded parts of the community that any attempts to moderate them would result in explosive backlash, even if the moderation were appropriate. On the other hand, because they can't mod the resident trolls, new trolls scream "hypocrisy" in the face of being modded, despite the elder trolls escaping unscathed.

So, it's a very knowledgeable community with some great folks, but also some outspoken trolls. When you finally are allowed in you'll quickly get frustrated with the trolls, but hopefully you'll find enough reason to stick it out.

[ApolloBoy]

I've been there a few years and I don't notice any problems with "resident trolls". Some of the people there tend to be fairly outspoken and largely intolerant of BS, but I don't think that really counts as trolling. Part of the reason why PCEFX has the approval system in place is because of trolls who keep coming back under different names (like Nintega, who has a long history of pulling this stunt) and starting trouble.

[marurun]

I consider prof professorson (michael helgeson?) and nightwolve (despite his contributions to the community) to be perma-trolls. They are more than just opinionated. They are aggressively misogynistic assholes and not afraid to share it. They would be moderated out of existence on this forum.