Reduced post requirement to post photos?

As far as I can tell, most of the "cool forum stuff" is locked behind the 30-post threshold. I understand why that is, especially in regards to the Marketplace, but considering the forum is a bit slower, that benchmark is a bit difficult to reach without feeling like you're spamming (as evidenced by my current post count despite the account age 😆).

I think that reducing the prerequisite for photos to 15 or so would make it easier for people who are invested to meet that 30-comment benchmark by starting their own photo threads; it would also be a relatively low-stakes adjustment, since anyone who is out to be a menace would likely make themselves known fairly quickly by posting fake/stolen/rule-breaking photos. And it would probably help for better engagement from newer members, since showing off their dolls is something I think most everyone who collects enjoys doing!

I know that uploading photos to a 3rd party host and sharing the links is a generally accepted workaround, for what it's worth - I just think that having it accessible conventionally might make for more engagement

Yeah I also found 30 posts to be difficult to reach without spamming.

For the marketplace I don't mind a high requirement as it’s important those using it are actually invested members of the community, maybe it could go down to like 25 posts so it’s a bit easier to reach.

But I don’t see why things like doll profiles, adding photos, signatures etc are locked behind this massive post requirement when they’re typically basic forum features you can access straight away on other sites. Maybe back in the day it was easy to reach this goal, but with only a handful of new posts in a day at most (not all of which you may want to reply to), it’s difficult to reach 30 posts unless you spam (which nobody wants) or wait around for ages for topics you can post in. 

I think lowering the requirements for more features to 10-15 would be better. It still encourages you to be active and engage with the community, but is actually obtainable within a week or so of frequent activity. 

3 hours ago, Angelpaws said:

I think lowering the requirements for more features to 10-15 would be better. It still encourages you to be active and engage with the community, but is actually obtainable within a week or so of frequent activity.

I think this is reasonable, but keep in mind that you also have to wait two weeks to become a full member, so you wouldn’t be eligible even if you got the post count out of the way in one week.

Just now, ragnamuffin said:

I think this is reasonable, but keep in mind that you also have to wait two weeks to become a full member, so you wouldn’t be eligible even if you got the post count out of the way in one week.

I think that could be changed too for the forum features, maybe 1 week to be a full member and 2 weeks to gain access to the marketplace (along with hitting the post goals) 

1 minute ago, Angelpaws said:

I think that could be changed too for the forum features, maybe 1 week to be a full member and 2 weeks to gain access to the marketplace (along with hitting the post goals) 

Yeah, if the forum software allows for it, I think it’s worth considering implementing a tiered approach like this.