Reviewing First Posts to Forums

Meta
14

Instead of deleting and locking these threads, we should improve the website and the forums so that new members can find the information they are looking for.

I don’t understand why you are upset, and why you want to “protect” the forums.

Think about the 5 most important points and put them on the homepage.
Some Examples:

Who is interested in Sponge?

Amateur Server Owners (60%)

Age: 10+
They understand the word Mod, maybe they know the word Plugin from Bukkit, maybe they know Forge.
They don’t know the word API
They just want a up-to-date server software that is simple to use, with basic plugins like WorldEdit or Essentials.

Professional Server Owners (25%)

Age: 18+
They want to update their Bukkit server with 20+ plugins to Minecraft 1.8.
They know what Forge is, maybe they used it to host a modded server.
Maybe they made their own simple plugins, so they might know what an API is.

Plugin Developers (15%)

2 Likes
15

The problem with the ASO crowd is that they are normally very lazy in which case: unless you do some torturous things to the forums, their behavior probably wont change. However your post does have its merits(even if it is void of suggestions) and discussions with the Documentation and Website/Sysmin teams are more likely to be fruitful. Maybe a ‘dummies guide to sponge’? :3

16

In defense of the Docs, there is a Quick-Start page. It isn’t quite “Sponge for Dummies”, and neither is the FAQ. But do we need a page for this, or just some polite boilerplate text for the front page and/or mod warning messages?

A friendlier front-end with some useful links or announcements may help, as @boformer says.

17

It would help if I read that docs to begin with >_>

4 Likes
18

Much like @disconsented said, the ASO people are the ones who are not going to take the time to look at a FAQ or help page. They don’t see sponge from a development perspective at all, most of them think that if a website exists a download must exist. I highly doubt, even if we spammed the proper links at huge fonts at the homepage they would pay attention at all, they are going to be looking for the download button and when they don’t find it they will ask on the forums. I think first-post moderation is necessary to prevent the forums from being overwhelmed with locked threads from people who are too lazy to see what is in front of them. Granted the Sponge homepage could make the information links a little more obvious but seriously, is isn’t that bad anyone with an ounce of common sense (i.e. not 10 year olds) could figure out how to get the info they need.

5 Likes
19

Maybe add a download link to the homepage that links to a page that states the software is not yet available, or a greyed out download button that says “coming soon, click for more information” or something like that? Or perhaps make it a link to the downloads page on the docs - perhaps adding a bit more information to that page? ASOs are all looking for that coveted button, so why not give it to them? Some of them might then read the page and then not feel the need to post.

7 Likes
20

Or pheraps a popup that fills the whole page that comes up as soon as you join and tells you in font size 1000 that there ein’t any goddamn download…

21

We already know that will never work… it will be too large to read… :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
22

This is a great idea. Someone reply to me to summarize the ideas of this thread so far and I will talk to @lukegb to see what we can come up with.

23

First posts for new users should be up for moderation by the “Regular” community vs having it locked by a moderator later. It has been suggested that it takes three regulars to make a decision about a post but moderators can make decisions by themselves. We should also put a download button on the home page linking to either the docs download page or a page notifying people that a download is not available. Finally, information on the home screen should be more clear to show that the sponge server is still WIP.

24

Just a couple of thoughts.

I’d be concerned that some potential members of the community would be turned off if a “first post” gate was applied. I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea of a “first post” review, but it’s not something that should be implemented lightly, and if there are other avenues that can be explored, like improving the documentation (which is already in progress, the docs guys are doing a good job so far), a better home page (or even site), etc. - if they can be done quickly, then more energy should be focussed on that. I suggested the download button as a simple way to attract the people who want to download the server - give them what they are looking for (a download button), provide the information behind that (“We’re not ready yet, but check back later! We don’t know when, but we’re working on it! Check our announcements for even more!”).

I’m also not sure that this reviewing should be opened up to “regulars”, just because someone is a “regular” does not automatically mean that they would be good at reviewing, or would work with the best of intentions. A regular has just posted so many posts, in such a time frame - that is, an automatic promotion. I understand that there are good intentions behind those of you suggesting that regulars take some of the burden away, but giving a set of people some sort of power (essentially, deciding whether a user is allowed to post in the community or not) that they can get automatically is something that should not be implemented lightly. While the mods do a good job of locking posts, what’s to stop me posting next to useless posts or just comment on everything in “off topic” and gain the Regular status (apart from a mod catching onto what I was doing and suspending my account)?

If you did want to have a set of people for reviewing first posts, it might be worth creating a separate group that you explicity trust for this instead. Not quite a moderator, but perhaps a “welcoming” group? That way, it’s easy to revoke said permissions if misuse does occur.

Just my two cents…

4 Likes
25

Your first post will not become visible until a moderator approves it. But don’t worry, if you aren’t asking a redundant question that you could find an answer to by actually reading two sentences of the FAQ or About page, your post will go on through no problem.

How about something like that pops up when you go to make your first post?

3 Likes
26

That’s all true, but you also have to be active on the forums a certain amount every 100 days. Also you left out the fact that regulars have “weight” flags and can edit the title of any post, can move where ever. So far no one has really abused the rank yet.

27

Actually the correct number is 50 days. (I noticed several posts around saying that the time taken to get the rank was set to that.) Irregardless though I have yet to hear about thank rank being abused by anyone.

28

I’m not sure why that is completely relavent here (though if I created a thread and someone renamed it without explaining why, I’d get pretty annoyed). Just because Regulars get certain rights, doesn’t mean that they should get more.

My thought process is something like this. Lets take the average Minecraft server as an example here. They often have a few players that will log on and “report for staff duties” or claim to come from Planet Minecraft and say that they need op to review your server (as an aside, I’ve had some amusing exchanges regarding this!). These players are asking for these “staff” ranks for (primarily) one of two reasons:

  • They want to cause problems on your server
  • They just want power, without understanding the responsibility behind them.

Now, imagine that your server had a similar system to the Discourse forums. Regulars on your server currently can change a player’s nickname, and teleport them around the server. This has the potential to be annoying, but is quite easy to rectify, and keep the target player/victim about.

Now, lets say that Regulars could attain a “pre-Mod” rank, let’s say, “helper” rank. This rank has the rights to ban a new player, or mute them - let’s say a new player joined in the past week. A malicious user who realised that this was the case would be likely to wait out this period that they need to, gain the rights, and do the damage. Once the damage is done, it’s much more difficult to reverse than just reverse the actions, you may have lost the banned/muted players forever - the banned players may just think that the server is not worth appealing for, and will never return. Yes, you might mitigate this by having three “helpers” ban a player, but what’s to stop a group of users coming through the system doing this?

The same applies to letting Regulars approve messages. You could get users who come up in threes and approve everything.

There is little to no abuse now, because the Regulars abilities aren’t well exposed, nor is there anything of huge value to malicious users. However, the ability to essentially shut out a potential new member of the community is a huge ability - and will be an obvious ability to the rest of the server, for which those who are malicious, or simply are power hungry/like to brag to their friends. That is my worry.

Edit: Clarified the post slightly, realised that I was letting the analogy flow into my point a bit too much! Meaning has not changed.

29

It’s actually that you have to be there 50% of the days in a 100 day period of time. So after 50 days you’ve been on every day, you’ll get it.

30

I’d actually agree with that. Especially seeing that there will be many more regulars in the future. ATM, it’s just a small group of people (pheraps 25 w/o existing staff) but once the site is up longer, we’ll probably get waaay more regulars here. So the Regular rank alone isn’t sufficient to determine people for that kind of job.

31

no after 100 days, still. You just have to be on at least 50% of those 100 days

32

Maybe the moderators can give those who deserve (in their eyes) The leader rank to help them with this. The only reason that regular was suggested is because That’s the highest non-staff member rank that has been obtained.

1 Like
33

…but in the future, the Leader rank will likely be attainable automatically. Better to create a separate group, if you ask me.

Mind you, I have no idea if any of this first post mederation stuff is possible on Discourse - it’s all academic at the moment.

(For those of you confused about when the Regular rank kicks in - https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/6 - turns out the only reason I don’t have regular rank is due to me not liking posts enough…)