I have concerns about "Trust levels"

General Discussion
1

I know that this post is premature as we have absolutely zero information about how these trust levels are going to be implemented on the Blizzard forums, but I’ve been browsing the Discourse literature about how Trust levels are gained.

I found something in there that I find very worrisome.

Basically, there are 5 levels to Trust, they go as follows.

0 (New) → 1 (Basic) → 2 (Member) → 3 (Regular) → 4 (Leader)

When you get to level 3, which is classified as Regular (which has some pretty steep requirements like having read 25% of the total topics in the forum which should theoretically be impossible for people to do here) you gain a very troublesome ability, the ability to moderate and autosilence other posters by yourself.

At level 3 you can “spam flag” a user to instantly hide their post.

I’ve always felt that only Blizzard staff should have the ability to moderate posts. I don’t even believe that Forum MVP’s should have this ability (and I didn’t want the ability even when I was an MVP in the past, I’d argue against it).

I’m not going to lie, this worries me, and I hope that we’re not thinking of giving the community the ability to moderate. Just look at where the dislike button got us in the first place. Being an active participant in a forum for a long time does not correlate with good judgement when it comes to moderating ability.

I feel that a regular poster’s ability should not extend beyond the capabilities of being able to post media and hyperlinks. Any and all moderation privileges should be reserved for Blizzard staff only. If an MVP has a concern about what’s happening on the forums, they have avenues in which to address those concerns directly to Blizzard staff anyway.

I don’t even trust myself to be able to moderate, and I’ve run many forum communities in the past. I’m hoping this ability doesn’t end up in the hands of the community.

EDIT: So I’ve spent the last few hours doing research on editing trust level powers and all I can find is that they cannot be modified, only the criteria to earn said trust levels can be modified.

I am really concerned if a user reaches trust level 3 that they will be able to instantly silence lower trust level posters.

I really like this new software, but such flagging power should not end up in the hands of players

8 Likes
2

Your concerns are valid, but these new forums are, well, new, so if the system causes problems, those problems will be addressed. For example, in the original forums you could down vote, and now you can’t. While there are many people who dislike this, a lot more people think it’s a step in the right direction.

Nothing that’s just begun is set in stone. Everything that is properly conceptualized can only reach perfection in implementation.

3

Well, I did openly admit that I know my concerns are premature.

However, I also remember looking at a post highlighting the new MVP program being used on the World of Warcraft forums. Before, you had to be selected by the CM staff to participate, sign an NDA, then go about your merry way. There wasn’t any way to directly apply.

It appears now they’re looking into an application process for it. What concerns me is if they’re looking for active applicants for that program, they may also be toying with the idea of community based moderation.

I hope I’m wrong, but I still have the concern.

1 Like
4

Blast from the past right there. But while you browsed the forums for Discourse did you miss the bit which says it’s fully customisable? ie Blizzard can change requirements and what’s allowed on trust levels?

I read the same forums last night and say that, don’t jump the gun until it’s actually shown what Blizzard have changes from the default out of the box settings.

5

Your Concerns are Highly Valid but you have to have some trust as @Serenicus says these are new forums so if the system causes some problems i am sure either one of the developers or someone from the Overwatch team will address it before things get out of hand.

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I think it’ll be okay, honestly. If they went through the effort to make this massive forum overhaul, they probably won’t make a sloppy mistake and allow the forum troublemakers to take over. It’s conjecture on my part, but that’s my gut feeling about it.

7

I was once a forum moderator for Runescape and have to disagree.

There is a limited number of staffers that can handle truly problematic situations and they aren’t on all the time. Raids onto forums are not uncommon and all it takes is a group on Reddit/4Chan/etc. to decide they want to cause havoc at known down-times for Blizzard staff.

Now I don’t think a system should be in place that automatically gives players the power to moderate. The staff should hand pick and monitor anyone who gets these abilities to make sure there is no abuse of power.

8

Where was this information found? I wanna check it out myself.

1 Like
9

This too, I want to see

10

I’m fully aware that it can be customized. However, it also states that even though accounts can be flagged as an admin, they still have to climb the trust levels.

It appears things such as number of days required can be set, so they could theoretically just increase the number to something impossibly unobtainable such as 999999999 days. Right now though, it appears you cannot even rename the trust levels so I’m not sure how much of the Trust system can even be changed without rewriting the code.

You have the tools to “moderate” so to speak as it is. This system is partially automated. At least there has to be some sort of consensus as to what actually warrants an auto hide / auto silence.

EDIT: In fact, I see a thread right at this very moment that was auto locked and hidden because the user threatened to throw all competitive games. As the thread was non-constructive, it was auto locked.

I do not believe this power should shift to the hands of one person.

The new flag system is supposed to fill the role of the old dislike system, however, dislikes were improperly abused as they were never meant for disagreement with what someone said, only in how they said it. (IE, if they’re trolling or being outright disruptive)

Blizzard staff have to undergo training for moderation for a reason, there’s no way this power should be given to anyone who is not Blizzard’s own staff.

I cannot share the link directly, but Google “Discourse Trust Levels” and I believe it’s the first link named “What do user trust levels do? - faq - Discourse Meta”

It is authored by Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of Discourse.

11

Wait…so you’re telling me, players in THIS community are going to be able to SILENCE other players???

I might just be retiring from the forums today.