[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

Perhaps the greetings could be limited to 1 or 2 official "Greeters"? That would serve the purpose of welcoming new members while still being cost-conscious.

There are twenty.

At Subsim, we truly prize new members to the crew. This award signifies that this member welcomes new members to the forum. To earn this award, you must consistently welcome new members in the Comments to Subsim forum, be friendly, and sincere. There are 20 positions for this badge, and members are added and removed periodically as their activity warrants. The Admin checks this on a weekly basis.

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Regarding the "Welcome aboard" posts, I fully agree and have felt similarly for a long time but I also have to take into consideration Neals wishes which are of the opinion that welcoming posts are a positive contribution to the community
Oh the joys of being a moderator

Since joining, I have always been on the alert for new members and realized early on that the Comments to Subsim, while ideal, wasn't entirely sufficient in the great Subsim thread Sargasso. Moreover it is also a multi-function task of checking for 'legitimacy', previous activity and long 'silent-runs ie a "welcome back"; I thus nailed a duplicate poster within the fortnight and occasionally it has spilled over into outright spam detection. Good manners sort of meets 'no child left behind' imho; and even then, I miss a few. I regard the task as so routinely important that I would not mind if it did not apply to overall post counts...about 33% in my case.