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Since the member titles were introduced, I have always supported the idea of a forum for people with elevated titles. In fact, I raised this idea again four days ago. I think that this would be a great incentive to gain and maintain such titles, and the forum would be virtually free of spammers and alternate accounts created solely for rulebreaking. Moreover, it would be a truly awesome conduit for more interaction with Bungie employees.
I find the arguments against such an idea to be unpersuasive.
Posted by: RighteousTyrant (and others)
But...that's what we already do in private groups, isn't it?
No, private groups are not a valid substitute for several reasons.
Private groups are subject to administrators who must approve new members, and are completely invisible to users who are not members. This public forum would be like the Optimatch Forum -- visible to all, but you must have an elevated member title to interact (rather than a linked gamertag for the Optimatch Forum).
Private groups tend to be run by members, and, for the most part, run poorly. The quality private groups here that have truly lasted are either self-regulated by their members, or run by experienced admins who dedicate hours a day to their groups. All the same, they are still subject to "spam attacks," group conquerors, group wars, the whims of immature and inexperienced administrators, and malicious users. A public forum would be regulated by the Bungie Web Team, Bungie employees with moderating tools, and the forum moderators.
The most important difference, of course, is that private groups are not the public forums and are rarely visited by Bungie employees (with a few exceptions). A public forum with regulated access to actually posting in it would allow Bungie employees to interact with users who have proven their trustworthiness and dedication to the site. The interaction could be much more as it was years ago, when the forums were much more readable, the topics were more well-thought out, the users were more self-regulating, and every post by a Bungie employee did not result in a tidal wave of people either sucking up or proving their "rebelliousness" by disagreeing solely on principle that the post was created by an employee.
Posted by: elmicker
Why do they need building? We're already more than capable of doing it ourselves thank you very much. Whether it be through simply ignoring the noise, moving to a group, or going even further and shifting off site. If you end up erecting artificial barriers on b.net, whatever theyre designed to protect will fail. Whatever could be discussed there could be discussed in public with greater input (bear in mind the type of people you're talking about have all been here years and are more than capable of dealing with idiocy), or in private groups with people whose company you actually enjoy, rather than the set of people who match the arbitrary rules.I disagree. The claim that the barriers are "artificial" and "arbitrary" has no bearing on reality -- whatever the factors might be for trust rating, it is completely undeniable that the members who make it to the level of Heroic, Legendary, and Mythic are those who have demonstrated an ability to post within the forum rules and at least a modicum of interest in the site.
This, in and of itself, automatically removes a large portion of rule-breaking users, and I don't really see how you could make the argument with a straight face that this restriction on a public forum would not, for all intents and purposes, eliminate the problems of spam, alternate spam/flaming/troll accounts, and veteran users who have demonstrated repeated inability to or disinterest in following the forum rules within that forum.
You say that people would find a way around the restriction. Well sure, a user could create an alt, slowly work it up to Heroic, and then spam the "restricted posting" forum -- but what would be the point? Weeks or months of rule following just to create a single bad post in the restricted forum that would bump him back out of the forum? I don't see this happening. And, frankly, if a user WANTS to do that, let them do it -- I think that the benefits of having such a place outweigh the relatively tiny number of accounts that would have to be banned for this reason.
As for the claim that we can "build our own barriers" if we want, well that's true, and this idea would still not stop you from doing that. The ability for you to do this is absolutely irrelevant to whether or not a "restricted posting" forum based on member title would or would not be a good idea. You can still create whatever private groups or offsite locations that you want -- they would simply be places where you can go to interact with your own group of friends. But the "restricted posting" forum would be a place for intelligent interaction with users who have a demonstrated record of following forum rules and, hopefully, Bungie employees with more intimate knowledge of the games as well. It could only be a good thing -- how would it be detrimental in any way?
Posted by: elmicker
Rather, I'd like ways for those "valued" users to be able to set themselves apart and build an identity through entirely inconsequential features. The beginnings of such a system are there with the titles, but things like (limited?) custom avatars and titles would provide much more of an incentive to maintain an identity than there is on the site now.I disagree. From my interactions through these forums and thousands of private messages from forumgoers, I have reached the opinion that the ability to post in a public forum is a much stronger incentive to follow the rules than the possibility of a custom avatar.
Building an identity here is not the same thing as being a rule-following, trustworthy user. Many users here have successfully built a very strong identity while being chronic rulebreakers. This idea of a public forum with restricted posting access for members with elevated titles is not for users who have an "identity." It is for users who have demonstrated trustworthiness, rule-following, and some level of dedication to the site (by "dedication," I mean that they post regularly). In other words, the kind of people who are likely to create a forum culture that encourages intelligent discussion rather than "noise."
I see nothing in your arguments against a restricted access forum that indicates that this would be a bad thing.
Posted by: CAVX
I suppose I'd be all right with it on the condition that (if they were built on titles) I wouldn't lose access to it if my title went down.I think that the whole idea would be to be able to get rid of users who fail to demonstrate an ability to follow forum rules. A member with an elevated title who spammed the restricted-access forum would be banned, lose member title, and no longer be able to post in that forum. Are you still against the idea in that instance?
By the way, member titles seem, to me at least, to be fluctuating a lot less lately since Achronos made his changes to the trust system.
Posted by: stalts27
People post a certain way to get member titles. That is a fact. People post a certain way to keep member title. That is a fact. How could we possibly distinguish which people would be permitted into this "secret forum". The trust system? Obviously not. Personally, I believe this stie is not eHarmony, meaning that this forum is trying to create a group of people very closely related to each other. No one is taking a compatibility test and there is obviously no fair way to distinguish members who are "in" and those who are "out". This would only create more senseless posting to get "in".
My question to you is, what is your point? A user who modifies his posting style to comply with forum rules is doing exactly what the forum rules are intended to accomplish. That is, engaging in normal, reasonable, on-topic discussion. Big deal if that's not what they "want" to post.
I really don't see why this is a bad thing.
Posted by: Screecherz
I think you just solved the problem you identified in that post. Instead of babysitting us and covering our eyes from the bad stuff on TV, why dont you give us the option to mute or collapse other users posts? If we could permanently block other users from complete veiwing on this site, the Web Team wouldn't have to work so hard to create these barriers that eventually fall.That's not a solution. That idea has been discussed numerous times in this forum for years, and always fails for two reasons:
1) There are hundreds of thousands of users on this site. How on earth would you block all of the bad ones? I can sit here banning people for 6 hours a day for seven days in a row from all of the public forums. I walk away, come back one hour later, and will STILL find posts that I don't want to see. The "mute" or "block" option would take extreme dedication to be effective -- dedication that no user on this site should have to put in.
2) Many people would never use it. Moderators certainly wouldn't. Neither would any other member who knows that sometimes, the same person can make great posts one day and break the rules another day. Neither would any member who wants to be able to follow the thread of discussion. Neither would the "casual" user who only hops onto Bungie.net once or twice a week, or even more infrequently. Yet all of these people are those who could potentially benefit from a forum culture of reduced "noise" and spam. This is why a "restricted access" forum is a superior approach.
[Edited on 12.05.2008 12:00 AM PST]