- Duck duck DEATH
- |
- Exalted Mythic Member
When I grow up I want to be bitter and spiteful.
"i liked the reality where everything was on fire better"
-legato on remedial chaos theory
Posted by: spawn031
So I pose you with a question:
What if the community forum was restricted?[/quote]I have never heard of a more frightening idea. Tell me more!
What would the community forum be like if it was restricted access?
The main idea:
!. ANYONE could VIEW the forum.
2. Only members that meet the admittance requirements, would be able to POST in the forum. Gee spawn, this sounds great! A near utopia of hegemonic single-mindedness, brown-nosing, and boredom.
Example restrictions:
1. Must have linked gamertag
2. Must be a member of Bungie.net for at least 1 year
3. Must have a current title/prefix of any kind - so "honorable member", "forum ninja", or "Bungie Employee" could post there.Now spawn I know you mention the small faults of this system down the way but surely you cannot think such attributes would allow entry into our septanirvana. First off, it's foolish to think that new users and trolls are the true degraders of the discussion. Take a look at these meaningful, well-thought, and purposeful posts following the news:
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=61563623
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=62070205
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=61581655
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=62070210
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=62412797
You silly mislead fool, it's not the newer less-titled members we should be concerned with, it's the older ones! The older ones and those damned crafty employees are taking away our INTENSE discussion. I do agree that a linked gamertag is a wonderful indicator of trust, because I back you in the belief that users with linked gamertags are incapable of contributing to even the most elementary of discussions.
The purpose?
Have you ever wanted a forum that was based on INTENSE discussion?No. Unless we get guns. Then, yes.
With adding restrictions to the forums, users would have to meet the criteria if they would like to participate. This would eliminate the common alt accounts, trolls, spam, and other unwanted posts.spawn I'm fine with not letting small people on the big person ride but dammit man that's for safety. What are these 'unwanted posts'? Once you take away the trolls and such all that's left are new members. Spawn, I can understand not wanting new members into already bursting exclusive Bungie Heaven, but calling them "unwanted posts" is a little demeaning.
The forum would keep the same discussion value, being about community related topics, the website itself and other Bungie related material.Holy -blam!- I love this sentence! Of your entire post I believe this one holds the most truth. Nothing could be more true. The forum would keep the same discussion value. Your ultimate endgame of improving user-content in the forums would be in vane. Thank you for this sentence.
The idea is that this forum would set the examples and hopefully "bleed" into other forum attitudes on bungie.net.What the -blam!- spawn?
When I used antagonizing terms like same-mindness and hegemony above, I was joking. I had no idea you wanted everyone to act the same way. This won't improve the quality of discussion, having everyone be supportive and unquestioning and like-minded. We need raw ideas and criticism to create genuine content. If everyone's all "that's great I totally agree good fer you" I frankly would not want to read it. It would be boring and repetitive.
If you're a consistent contributor in this forum, you have obviously proven that you're capable of following the rules.Nope. If you considering someone making a post that doesn't violate a rule to be 'contributing', then sure, you're right. But when I hear 'contributing', I think of people posting meaningful, dynamic, and even dangerous posts about improvements, opinions, and critiques. If someone's going to contribute something unique, they're going to be creative. If you honestly think creativity will bloom from conformity (to the rules), then you're just plain crazy.
If you act out of line in this forum, you could still be "banned" or "warned", yet you would also lose your privileges to post in the forum until you regain some title.Great idea! Someone posts something in the gray area, and pow! You can't post here. Safe topics only!
The incentive for positive contribution is there.Are we going to just cut out anything you would consider negative?
Creating account is much loose here. Knowing that, it's relatively easy to spot when someone is just spamming a forum with useless content or breaking rules.I still think new members are better.
With the one year membership in place, is it honestly worth it to create an account and work it's way up to some title only to have one infraction and in a sense "troll" the forum for 10 minutes or less, only to be removed from it? I don't see a reason to spend all that time for that one moment.I would do it. You clearly underestimate the power of desire. You're working your argument as a means to deter trolling, but ultimately your cutting out a large quantity of the userbase in doing so. Swatting flies is one thing, but targeting people who may not be trolling or may even contribute worthwhile content is really undermining the quality your bland bnet haven.
Member titles aren't always a best indicator of a user's trust - but they're usually fairly accurate.I agree. Even though I've been banned regularly, and likely in total more than a year, I'm a mythic member. System works fine! As of right now, this idea doesn't seem plausible due to low activity. But once Bungie shows off their new baby, activity will kick back up just like development for any of their prior games. Think of it like the Optimatch forum. It would have restrictions, but anyone can view it.While we wouldn't be improving the current memberbase of veterans who post the same crap, we would at least cut out new members capable of new, quality discussion. Great!
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.*
Fauxman made a nice post, but when you think about it, if you want the forums to be more readable and self-regulating, your target is not newer members or trolls but the existing members. Trolls just get banned, and newer members eventually figure things out. The dream-like Bungie you and Fauxman desire requires you to change the posting habits of our regular members. We're perfectly capable of doing it just as we did, but instead you simply want to cut some of the userbase off instead of trying to get us back into the swing of things. Restricting the forums to the current people won't accomplish a thing, as this these older members will not spontaneously become more readable and self-regulating; they certainly don't act it now. Also, if they're so capable of self-regulating, then all these improvements would be wholly unnecessary, as they could just help improve the lower echelons of the userbase, or just be mature and ignore posts that don't contribute.
All in all the goal is simply this: The public forums are moderated by the moderation for how efficient they are, their are only so many hours in a day. This forum would help create that "homestead" for regular users. I'm not talking about user that log into Bungie.net 1 or 2 times a week for 10 minute sessions. I'm talking about the users like you and me that log in daily, participate in groups, interact with the Bungie Community Staff, take part in contests and weekly write-ups that try to improve the community.
The point of this forum is for US to have a place to discuss what the community is about. Highly intelligent posts and threads with regards to Bungie.net as a whole. This isn't a "safe haven" from all the bad users on this website. This is just a quieter place where the member that are "regulars" around here can sit down and ask questions and talk about the community with users that have been around for a while.I would not classify this board as 'highly intelligent'. If you're going to make this into an US vs. THEM issue, you may realize that there are just as many intelligent newer users are there are older ones: not many. To see newer users as only rule-breaking idiot trolls and older septagon-frequenters as interesting and intelligent is simply fallacious. If you want to improve the site, think of improving the members, not just splintering the community based on adherence to rules or account age.
[Edited on 05.16.2012 8:15 PM PDT]