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

[Sakimayu-stormrage]

@Evilira-barthilas

Caring about a “trust level” on a game forum is even more insane.

Well … if you didn’t need to hit TL3 to post even something so simple as a link, people probably wouldn’t even care.

As it is, it actually can interfere with discussion, especially if you actually want to specifically cite information about e.g. historical raiding.

I ran into this when I tried to explain the likely effects of 5.0/5.2’s difficulty on the future of the game community and couldn’t include an actual link to Tier 14 wowprogress activity.

And that’s wowprogress, a site that people easily know about without a link and can be readily directed on where to look up the cited information. Data cited somewhere like MMO-Champion gets worse, and it’s worse still if you have to tell someone to search (because unless it happens to be on a well-SEO’d site - which with a few exceptions mainly REALLY MAJOR established sites tend to have an increasingly inverse relationship with “the information is actually useful”) something, because it’s a complete toss-up if (especially with personally-tailored algorithms) they’ll even find it.

Oh, and what’s fun is it’ll preview just fine if you don’t have it … then refuse to post it, which is apparently something plenty of users and even owners of Discourse based forums commonly complain about on the software’s support boards. Yep. The problem here is largely control freak upstream devs, rather than Blizzard.

Fun thing with Discourse, even as a MODERATOR using the software you can often get your actions denied, because certain things work with respect to the original user’s permissions rather than the moderator’s (e.g., moderator tries to move a post and gets told no because it would exceed the OP’s posting limits … yes, this kind of hogwash actually happens).

Also the Discourse devs are actively hostile to many forms of permissions customization - e.g. Trust Levels are notoriously inflexible (you can modify the requirements, but a lot of stuff related to TL is hard coded), and Blizzard actually had to custom edit code to enable us to opt in view flagged content - yep, they actually HARD CODED the inability to see it a while back for anyone but TL4 and moderators.

They’re nearly as bad as Google when it comes to making unilateral decisions on behalf of communities that use the software, honestly.

Trouble is there’s not a lot of alternatives left these days for traditional forum software; most people seem to have moved to Big Social Media (see how many news/blog sites for instance outsource their comments to Disqus, Facebook, etc. instead of having in-house setups) and a lot of forum software goes un- or under-maintained (leaving you with constant security and bot problems, which is what Discourse’s devs were trying to solve with all this) …

[Evilira-barthilas]

@Sakimayu-stormrage

Well … if you didn’t need to hit TL3 to post even something so simple as a link, people probably wouldn’t even care.

postyourlinklikethis.com

@Sakimayu-stormrage

As it is, it actually can interfere with discussion, especially if you actually want to specifically cite information about e.g. historical raiding.

No it doesn’t.

everything else in your reply is countered by

postingyourlinklikethis.com

[Liadariel-runetotem]

@Maerlyn-wyrmrest-accord

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.

Yeah, I’ve worked on regaining it three times in the last five years. I’ve gotten sick and have been in the hospital and a serious family tragedy - not to mention I know when my emotions are not in the best place to get on the forum (you know, adult self-awareness, maturity! lol)

I’m not even trying this time. Especially at end of expansion and it’s all toxic mythic talk for the most part.

[Thelei-stormrage]

I don’t mean this to sound rude, but it is going to sound rude… however out of a lot of people on these forums I would think that you’d be the most capable of maintaining a level 3 simply due to your post count. I mean dude, 24k posts, that is a lot of time spent on these forums. Again not judging, just stating what I believe are facts.

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@Thelei-stormrage

I would think that you’d be the most capable of maintaining a level 3 simply due to your post count.

You assume much. I don’t read everything. I don’t respond to everything. A post takes roughly 30 seconds to make. So no, it’s not a lot of time spent.

@Thelei-stormrage

just stating what I believe are facts

And you don’t seem to understand that writing a post only takes around 30 seconds and I don’t read everything.

It’s easy to “maintain” a TL3 when we had beta access and never lost it— until now. Which I did lose it. I had to earn it back. I only did that a week ago. Our perma-TL3 was removed months ago.

[Remi-dalaran (Remi)]

@Sendryn-sentinels

I don’t respond to everything

“24565 posts”

I mean… lol. Hidden profile as well.

[Liadariel-runetotem]

She plays two other games and runs two other discord channels. Her post count is up because she used to be more involved (and has been here longer than most of us) when other veterans were here. Now, I assume, she just stays abreast of the times, and from what I’ve seen, helps where she can. It was actually nicer when she had her TL3 because most of her links were helpful directions.

[Thelei-stormrage]

Not saying that they aren’t helpful, but if I’m to be honest they have other characters that they’ve posted on these forums with as well in the past (this version of the forums). And I know a couple of them have a significantly high post count too.

They do make a good point however in equating that posting =/= reading. And while I don’t post on the same character I am just as much of a vet as anyone as i’ve been reading since BC and actively posting since Wrath.

[Tacohands-sargeras]

@Rosenivy-area-52

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!”

This is so true. I didn’t realize how much well meaning people abuse this until recently.

[Cursewords-tichondrius (Cursewords)]

@Bubblebootee-moon-guard

would like to be able to easily see what requirements I’m missing for TL3, like its been 4 months and 3 days since your last ban, or you need to read 200 more posts and like 53 more posts kind of thing ?

I agree. There should be some way of seeing what we need or why we don’t have it.

I lost my Trust Level 3 a while back. I figured some jerks flagged me. What ever. Occupational hazard.

After a while, I decided to “grind out” the Forums one weekend - “reading” large threads and tossing out likes to anyone I slightly agreed with. And I got Trust Level 3 again.

It would be nice to know why we lost Trust Level 3. Heck, even maybe an alert when we are about to lose it and why.

[Ayukama-frostmourne]

I don’t have TL3 and I wish I had TL3

[Liadariel-runetotem]

@Thelei-stormrage

Not saying that they aren’t helpful, but if I’m to be honest they have other characters that they’ve posted on these forums with as well in the past (this version of the forums). And I know a couple of them have a significantly high post count too.

I’ve thought awhile on even responding as she, yes a she, is quite able of defending herself. And I don’t mean to sound rude responding either or confrontational, but I this will too. There’s plenty of others with the higher post counts and no TL3. So, rhetorically, why point out TL with this particular person? What’s the big deal?

I’m just fed up with the amount of misinformation and bs that circles around her like sharks. If you’ve been on since BC then you’ve seen it. I’ve only been on barely five years so I can’t speak to anything before that, but have seen enough unjustified ill-will directed her way to say something, within the limits of what she’s already shared publicly.

Yes, there was a Thallia and Rhielle. She made no secret of this when she changed, but they weren’t used at the same time. One summer a Winston after she shared her account with let’s just say, family issue with an angsty teen during Covid who wreaked havoc on the forum with alias’s and lots of posts - and eventually when caught ìn a whole lot of trouble. Sendryn doesn’t heart herself or use her own toons/alts to carry on an argument like so many people do. She doesn’t mobilize some kind of discord or guild army to heart herself or come to the forums just to agree with her or flag others - give those people a little credit for thinking for themselves. And if anyone tries to talk about someone from the forum on the discord channels that stuff is shut down tout suite-zero tolerance. So some people just sling accusations with unkindness and many incorrect assumptions.

And as for this:

@Remi-dalaran

“24565 posts”

I mean… lol. Hidden profile as well.

Yeah, but it never used to be. Neither did mine until this forum turned into a worse case scenario minefield. For instance, your response, mine, and the rest of this discussion. Many of us that never hid it do now. Which is sad cuz I love looking at different mogs.

Bottomline: equating post counts to TL doesn’t mean one spends hours a day reading the forums. Nor should one need to.

[Pyri-shadowsong]

@Ventorath-wyrmrest-accord

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.

i don’t think you actually know what you’re talking about. i have had TL3 several times and have never once done that.

[Fairlight-emerald-dream]

@Ayukama-frostmourne

I don’t have TL3 and I wish I had TL3

What dark magic is this? An illusionist! What have you been scrying?

[Turàndotte-stormrage]

@Ventorath-wyrmrest-accord

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?

I’m going to state my hot take which is ALL of the requirements for “Trust level 3” are far too strict (this just happens to be one which is utterly ridiculous) and that once earned they should take multiple years to decay, if ever.

As soon as I read the whole craptonne of stupid which was required for Trust level 3, I just shrugged and walked away.

The stupider thing is that the requirements for the trust levels are pointless when the REAL thing the forums need is to have only ONE SINGLE posting ID per bnet account. THAT would clear up far more problems than the trust levels have.

@Cursewords-tichondrius

I agree. There should be some way of seeing what we need or why we don’t have it.

This also. The secrecy is stupid. Tell me what I’m not doing.

[Olvil-kiljaeden]

The forums as a whole need an overhaul, IMO. There’s too many silly issues & it’s fairly outdated as-is.

[Cafevienna-burning-blade]

There’s no point in level 3 expect posting memes.

[Ventorath-wyrmrest-accord]

@Pyri-shadowsong

i don’t think you actually know what you’re talking about. i have had TL3 several times and have never once done that.

Sorry, I was actually mistaken - it has to be posts within the last 100 days, so you can’t use the older / larger megathreads.

But it’s still unlikely to hit the metric if you don’t browse current megathreads / lounges.

If I only entered threads I actually cared about, I’d literally never hit the metric.

That’s kind of a problem. That’s something moderators should maybe have to deal with, not users.

FWIW I did bang it out over the last few days. I’m TL3 right now. I still don’t agree with the way it’s set up. What I did to get it was entirely arbitrary and disingenuous and should not be a thing.

[Pyri-shadowsong]

@Ventorath-wyrmrest-accord

But it’s still unlikely to hit the metric if you don’t browse current megathreads / lounges.

i don’t even click on those threads.

[Kijo-shuhalo (Kijo)]

Personally, I couldn’t care less about any kind of ’ award ’ system here.
I read, I post, get the odd vacation due to my ’ fan club '. Don’t care about much beyond that.
Last thing I would be happy about, is being rewarded for being a compliant zombie
with a ribbon and green text.