You can’t post images after registering. This prevents posting screenshots (a deconner console log or a screenshot of a problem for example), while it’s still possible to say something offensive with just words, this “feature” doesn’t “protect” against anything.
The current requirements to be promoted to trust level 1 (basic user) from trust level 0 are:
- Entering at least 5 topics
- Reading at least 30 posts
- Spend at least 10 minutes reading posts
I would manually promote your trust level lamefun, however, I’m curious to see how the system works.
Once we have more discussions in these forums, it wouldn’t normally take very long to advance to trust level 1, possibly even in one session. The idea is to encourage new users to begin to get familiar with the forums and the community before extensively posting on the forums. On the other hand, the no image requirement for trust level 0 should be reconsidered since images such as screen shots are an essential component of a gaming community such as ours.
[quote=“dGr8LookinSparky, post:2, topic:57, full:true”]
On the other hand, the no image requirement for trust level 0 should be reconsidered since images such as screen shots are an essential component of a gaming community such as ours.[/quote]
I concur, I don’t see the point of this system at all. If the system doesn’t allow certain features for Level 0 Users, they’ll just get pissed and make shitty topics to reach Level 1 ASAP. If it does, then why even have Level 0 at all? Lets be realistic, noone will care about learning some lame nerd rules on a website about a quake 3 mod.
Give them all the tools on the get-go and let them learn on their own. If the website is simple enough, it’ll click. Thats the only kind of tutorial people will follow through.
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I found where the different trust levels are described. It is in the “badges” page under the “Trust Level” sections: http://forum.grangerhub.org/badges .
Trust level 0 is not shown there, however, trust level 1 is called “Basic”, trust level 2 is called “Member”, trust level 3 is called “Regular”, and trust level 4 is called “Leader”.
In the article The Universal Rules of Civilzed Discourse under the section titled “If You See a Problem, Flag It” the reasoning behind the trust system is described.
I’m not reading an essay. Explain why level 0 is necessary because I’m lazy and so is 99% of everyone lurking here. Yes, you, reading this right now.
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Well, to summarize the concept, the trust system allows the community to obtain some of the powers and responsibilities traditionally given to moderators, by users earning those powers/responsibilities through active participation that constructively adds to the discussions. A big part of earning higher trust levels is demonstrating that you are learning how the forums work and how to better contribute to the conversations. Trust level 0 is meant for users who have recently registered, and is meant to encourage them to get familiar with the basics of the system and to see what the conversations are like before diving further in.
I have found an article that even further describes the reasoning behind trust levels: What do user trust levels do?
Here is a quote from that article:
User trust levels are a way of...
- Sandboxing new users in your community so that they cannot accidentally (or intentionally!) hurt themselves, the forum, or other users while they are learning what to do.
- Granting experienced users more rights so that they can help maintain and moderate the community they generously contribute so much of their time to.
Here are the abilities higher trust levels have:
- Trust level 1 (Basic): Granted all essential community functions
- Trust level 2 (Member): Granted invitations
- Trust level 3 (Regular): Granted recategorize, rename, followed links and lounge
- Trust level 4 (Leader): Granted global edit, pin, close, archive, split and merge
As a side note, Hendrich has already reached level 1 from just one session. The reason he has reached level 1 and lamefun is still on level 0 is because as a moderator Hendrich has access to some private categories and can read more posts. If there were more public posts for lamefun to read he would have also obtained level 1 much sooner. So lets get more discussions going.
This part makes sense. Way to go! On the other hand…
I see that you don’t allow using images, but what about words? Let’s also limit maximum post length to 100 characters. Oh, and why not require every post to start with “Great admins, I bow down to you,” to ensure respect towards forum administrators. But you still can squeeze insults into these limits! How about enforcing semi-correct sentence structure (allow only dictionary words, and punctuation). Also, ban all curse words. But it’s still possible to insult someone without any curse words! Therefore, it’s necessary to ban every word that can be used to express negativity. This is true protection. The true defense. It also makes any kind of communication next to impossible.
P.S. I see it’s not your rules but Jeff Atwood’s… Another example of destructive influence of “opennness” on human mind…
The way every aspect of Discourse is arranged may not be the best for our purposes. In fact it is highly likely that many adjustments will be required as we further test and prepare for the public launch, and after launch as the site grows with the community over time. However, I would like to see how well these features work in practice, and then make adjustments where required.
I would like to add that what GrangerHub considers as undesirable and desirable behaviours may different greatly from what other websites consider as such. GrangerHub wants ideas, beliefs, mindsets, and conventions to be challenged, especially those of GrangerHub’s administration and developers. GrangerHub wants brainstorming to freely take place, and GrangerHub wants creativity to be unhindered. GrangerHub wants the absurd to be explored to find game changing ideas that can’t be found anywhere else.
What GrangerHub doesn’t want is distractions that take away from the creativity and productivity of these forums. Personal attacks are one such distraction which are common in many other sites. Another example of such a distraction, which is less obvious, are replies that just indicate agreement or disagreement without actually adding anything to the conversation, that is what ratings are for. Another one is publicly replying to a post that violated the guidelines instead of just flagging such a post.
On the other hand, as lamefun was implying, users with trust level 0 can commit all of the above mentioned distractions, and more. Really all that can be done is to have such distractive behaviour moderated by the community, and if necessary by moderators.
Thats cool and all Sparky, but that doesn’t change the fact that Level 0 users is a dumb idea.
Lets not do that.