Forum restructuring - discussion

Post by **Darth Fool** » February 22nd, 2006, 1:45 am

MadMax wrote:I just noticed the "trusted user" subtitle placed under the names of trusted users, and I disagree. IMO, it seems to rub in that we are trusted users and they are not. I can understand subtitles for developers and moderators, because these people have a special role on the forum. Trusted users are simply users who have earned the moderators' trust and can post in restricted forums.

Well, it also lets new posters know that comments from the trusted user are more likely to be representative of the developer's opinion. It also lets them know that these individuals are capable of bringing open ideas to the devs attention. It is undoubtedly a burden on the trusted user for this reason, but a benefit to the new forum members.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » February 22nd, 2006, 1:52 am

MadMax wrote:I just noticed the "trusted user" subtitle placed under the names of trusted users, and I disagree. IMO, it seems to rub in that we are trusted users and they are not. I can understand subtitles for developers and moderators, because these people have a special role on the forum. Trusted users are simply users who have earned the moderators' trust and can post in restricted forums.

If you really don't like it you could ask to be removed from the "trusted" list.

The point of the title is that trusted users (and art/code contributors) are also intended to have a special role on forums. They are encouraged to bring promising ideas/content to the developer's attention, as well as canidates for "trusted" status. If trusted users have greater privileges/responsibility, why should it be hidden? People could take offense at a "secret" elite status as well.

In fact, i believe it's helpful to have it in the open. Without any titles a newbie can't easily gauge the authoritativeness of a poster. (Post count is a terrible way) But with your title, a newbie is more likely to take your advice or consider your information accurate. This is helpful for the newbie because you are more likely to be right. Thus the newbie can more quickly adapt to the ways of our forum, and have a better time here.

Post by **irrevenant** » February 22nd, 2006, 12:07 pm

scott wrote:I personally disagree ( -> Tux2B). I think most of the good, implementable ideas have come from more experienced users. The best example of this is irrevenant.

I appreciate the compliment, but the bulk of my good ideas actually seem to have appeared when I was on the border of being a Wesnoth novice (and hence more aware of annoyances that veterans had gotten used to), but after I'd been through my 'baptism of fire' in the ideas forum.

I also regularly find that "stupid ideas" are the launching pad of good ones ("No, that won't work, but what if we did this...")

I really like the idea of having an open Ideas forum for 'brainstorming', and Trusted users being able to propogate the promising ideas to the dev areas.

BTW, Sorry about the delay in reply; I don't generally read the User's Forum and only just found this thread (and the sticky about the forum restructure!).

Temuchin Khan · Post by **Temuchin Khan** » February 22nd, 2006, 1:38 pm

unsung wrote:
drachefly wrote:Of course, maybe another idea would be to revoke the rule on being negative towards ideas. Maybe people would be a bit more self-critical before putting things forth.
I agree, 100%.
I don't think I should be able to go "no, this idea is stupid, you are [censored], go away" but I think people being 'nice' is non-consturctive, becuase people will figure it means that people don't completely hate the idea and that it isn't stupid, which encouurages them.

Like when someone said the level up trees where illogical, and that assasins should level to crossbowmen, and such.... perfect example. If someone bluntly said: no, this makes no sense, and is stupid, it would get the point across.

Flamewars would be bad of course, but the only other eason I can think of for this rule is to prevent new people from being run of the forum, but I ddoubt many of them are going to sta around long anyway....

Yeah, turin would have a field day. And so would I. :twisted:

"Niceness" need not be synonymous with "superciliousness". "I'm sorry, but that is a bad idea" can be said without rudeness, and in my opinion the rules about niceness on the forums were not meant to exclude clear statements about the quality (or lack thereof) of an idea, just to ensure that the person who had the bad idea was not treated rudely.

Tomsik · Post by **Tomsik** » February 22nd, 2006, 3:39 pm

I don't really like these titles, but it's some way of identifing who have rights to write on restricted forums and there should be way of identifing them other than looking to usergroups.

Post by **turin** » February 23rd, 2006, 1:49 am

Temuchin Khan wrote:"Niceness" need not be synonymous with "superciliousness". "I'm sorry, but that is a bad idea" can be said without rudeness, and in my opinion the rules about niceness on the forums were not meant to exclude clear statements about the quality (or lack thereof) of an idea, just to ensure that the person who had the bad idea was not treated rudely.

Except that the rules of the ideas forums expressly prohibit saying "I'm sorry, but that is a bad idea". I once got a post deleted for saying that, with Dave giving the explanation "that violates the rules of the ideas forum".

Now, that rule is not strictly enforced. If it is enforced only sporadically, why is it still in place? the moderators themselves seem to violate it a lot - if moderators are allowed to say "stupid idea, thread locked", why can't normal users?

(for full disclosure, I will note that I am indeed a member of the Developer user group, and thus a moderator. Haven't used that power except to delete a few spam posts and help in the reorganization, though.)

PS: I notice that "Trusted User" has been changed to "Forum Regular". Not sure if I like that change - it would be rather disconcerting for a newbie to see a hypothetical someone with 1000 posts who doesn't have that title, but that is fully possible under the system that we're actually using, if their 1000 posts were a bunch of spams, flame wars, and one liners.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » February 23rd, 2006, 2:20 am

turin wrote:Except that the rules of the ideas forums expressly prohibit saying "I'm sorry, but that is a bad idea". I once got a post deleted for saying that, with Dave giving the explanation "that violates the rules of the ideas forum".

Now, that rule is not strictly enforced. If it is enforced only sporadically, why is it still in place? the moderators themselves seem to violate it a lot - if moderators are allowed to say "stupid idea, thread locked", why can't normal users?

I hadn't realized that was ever a rule. It doesn't seem to be our Modus Operandi does it?

scott · Post by **scott** » February 23rd, 2006, 2:27 am

You should have been around in the older days.

Noy has been playing bad cop recently out of necessity.

Post by **turin** » February 23rd, 2006, 2:29 am

Eleazar wrote:I hadn't realized that was ever a rule. It doesn't seem to be our Modus Operandi does it?

Nope. And that's exactly the problem. Having an unenforced rule is worse than having no rule at all.

Temuchin Khan · Post by **Temuchin Khan** » February 23rd, 2006, 2:41 am

turin wrote:I notice that "Trusted User" has been changed to "Forum Regular". Not sure if I like that change - it would be rather disconcerting for a newbie to see a hypothetical someone with 1000 posts who doesn't have that title, but that is fully possible under the system that we're actually using, if their 1000 posts were a bunch of spams, flame wars, and one liners.

Forum Guerrilla

Forum Mage

Forum Grunt

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » February 23rd, 2006, 3:12 am

Voice of Experience?
Developer's Aide?
Advisor?
Spam Filter?

I do understand how "Forum Regular" might be a bit misleading...

I know I'm in the group, but I'm relatively new, I don't post as often as I used to, what with school picking up, and most of my contributions have been in the form of brainstorms and crowd-control... There's people on here, who've preceded me by years, and many who have made much more tangible contributions... things like WML and sprites, which I don't have the leisure time to master, sadly... I've done some Angband coding, and I want to eventually learn WML...

I will be turning my hand to some artwork soon, since a friend of mine has a scanner and Photoshop, so I can finally get some of my artwork on the Net. Portraits and such, most likely. Trying to earn my title here...

All that to say that although I'm in the group, I can see it from both sides. How someone could look at my contributions, my current posting habits (slacking off a bit in the usefulness department), and wonder why I'm a Regular and they're not.

Assasin · Post by **Assasin** » February 23rd, 2006, 3:27 am

A Forum Regular sounds like a person with a lot of posts. However, I have a decent number of posts, and I'm not on the list.

If the purpose of the usergroup is to distinguish the contributers to the forum poster, then why not just call them that? Contributers makes more sense to me.

I mean, I AM a Regular

Cuyo Quiz · Post by **Cuyo Quiz** » February 23rd, 2006, 4:09 am

Forum Guerrilla

Forum Mage

Forum Grunt

Voice of Experience?
Developer's Aide?
Advisor?
Spam Filter?

Although i would love to have a fancy name, i don't think that should be the way to go. Sorry Temuchin, i love your ideas, but not fitting in here (here being IMO/head, obviously).

After reading things like advisor or Aide, i think this is the way to go. A somewhat communal title. I have found out that some people and animals in modern times get titles like "honorary/good citizen". After some rather small googleing:

Honored/Forum/Respected Citizen
Forum Aide/Advisor/Censor/Advocate

Two links:
Roman titles
Ancient titles

Tons of titles to choose, and you can even create new ones. I think i like Forum Censor/Advocate/Citizen, but i'll keep searching for a title with meanings of respect, help, and judgement of course.

romnajin · Post by **romnajin** » February 23rd, 2006, 5:12 am

turin wrote: PS: I notice that "Trusted User" it would be rather disconcerting for a newbie to see a hypothetical someone with 1000 posts who doesn't have that title, but that is fully possible under the system that we're actually using, if their 1000 posts were a bunch of...one liners.

Hypothetical?

Wow, I almost left that one at a one liner, maybe I should have, would have got my intention across a little sooner.

*raises hand* Guilty as charged!

EDIT: And assasin...I think forum regular is more of a shortened "regular contributor to forum", which requires more than spam posting about dead popes.

Assasin · Post by **Assasin** » February 23rd, 2006, 5:36 am

romnajin wrote:EDIT: And assasin...I think forum regular is more of a shortened "regular contributor to forum", which requires more than spam posting about dead popes.

Man, I had forgotten about that. Now I wish I didn't remember

It seems to me that this whole Regular Forum usergroup thing is becoming politicized. It needs to be stopped before it gets out of hand