Can we talk about The Trust Level 3 "Posts Viewed" Requirement?

Community General Discussion
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So, I know there are strict requirements specifically to prevent abuse. I get that. I think they’re overly strict, I think the status either shouldn’t decay, or should decay over a longer period of time (say, a year, not 90 or 100 days or whatever it is depending on the metric).

But really the most egregious requirement is specifically “Posts Viewed”.

It’s 20,000 posts viewed in a 90 (maybe 100?) day period.

This is a forum where we’ve had roughly the same 10 posts on the “front page” for the last 3 weeks straight.

That requirement expects you to view 222-223 unique new posts DAILY for 3 MONTHS STRAIGHT.

If you visit every other day, which still falls in line with the “consecutive visits” criteria for Trust Level 3, you then have to view ~445 posts every visit.

That’s legitimately insane.

You know how you get that view count?

It’s not by regular viewing of actual game-related topics.

It’s by mindlessly scrolling through one of the old 20,000-post megathreads from potentially years ago. The only people meeting this naturally are people who spend their time in the “Lounge” threads, because they’re essentially chatrooms rather than WoW Discussions.

This particular criteria has no reason to be as strict as it is. I’m here more or less daily and my “Posts Viewed” metric averages out to 20k every… 6 months or so?

It just seems weird. It’s also by far the easiest metric to literally cheese, but the fact that it practically requires cheesing screams that it’s set to a poor level.

Anyway, that’s my current frustration.

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The forums in general need an overhaul. Trolls set their profiles to private so you can’t easily mute them. People hop on alts to push whatever their agenda is. Everyone gets one forum account per paid subscription, similar to the other Blizz forums. (*)Severe Forum penalties need to apply in game and vice versa. ZERO politics (identity and religion) should be allowed on these forums. It should be easier to post links and gifs.

Change the things I listed and the forums will be much better.

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On the flip side, if it’s that restrictive, it isn’t creating value. Take it out? The trust level and the forum.

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Honestly at that level of commitment I almost have to think it encourages bots because they’re the only ones other than a few people who live on and for the forums (as opposed to the games these forums are supposed to be for) who could tolerate those kinds of requirements and consistently meet them quarter after quarter by automation.

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I dunno if I’m “Level 3” or not.

I know I was at some point. But it’s hard to imagine that I was scrolling through 200+ messages a day…constantly, to get to that rating.

As for politics, this forum is really good for muting threads. So whatever does leak how is gone in a mouseclick.

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Easiest way to do this is to just pick threads with the least amount of post. Also you can use any category on the forums. You don’t have to just use GD.

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I try to maintain Trust Level 3 by scrolling regularly on new posts but sometimes I miss a day or two (or more, because life gets busy). Today I noticed that I’d lost my Trust Level 3, which is quite aggravating as I spent a lot of time focusing on trying to earn and maintain it. I like being able to post screenshots that people can view of my guild’s activity and RP events.

I’ll be honest, maintaining Trust Level 3 takes a LOT of willpower as someone who tries to stay pretty neutral and balanced about my opinion of the game. There is so much negativity and pointless toxicity posted that even scrolling without reading everything has started to really wear me down.

It’s a bummer. I’d like to be able to keep my trust level so I can post about my guild on my own realm’s forums, and spend less time subjecting myself to scrolling through the thoughtless jabs and ranting of others on a daily basis.

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It’s a strict requirement. The forums would benefit if it was toned down.

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The forums not being a cesspool of degeneracy and lunacy? I’d love to see the day…

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There was a bug / oversight for years where accounts with a Beta license had permanent Trust Level 3 (I believe this included the previous one you could buy into, so a lot of people benefitted from this) – they fixed it several months back.

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Viewing over 200 posts a day is kind of crazy for 3 weeks straight.

I agree the req’s should be taken down a couple notches for viewing.

I don’t want to have to pick through every last thread (especially bait threads where it is super obvious the poster is trying to get banned).

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It is pretty ridiculous that not only do we have to grind out forum rep… we have to maintain it daily. I was in the group with perma TL3 for years until it expired. Ain’t no way I’ll be keeping up with those requirements now.

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*months

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I still stand by my statement. ^^

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I’m shocked theres not software that will pilot your account to meet the requirements.

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And all that work with reading posts can go down the drain because of how easy someone can just report a post and the mods are just “Duh okay!”

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iirc the trust level requirements are baked into the host platform and haven’t been really modified or something like that

not saying theyre good and reasonable requirements though

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Discourse has defaults.
They are made to be able to be customized.
I’m assume Blizzard already has. If they haven’t, the ability to do so exists.

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Ah, no. The forum is free. I pay a sub to play the game. Getting locked out of something I pay for because I said something here and got flagged and shutdown for a day (its possible!) would be totally unacceptable.

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