[2019] "You are out of votes"

Howdy!

So this forum package has what is known as user trust levels. Each user begins as trust level 0, and will automatically earn higher trust levels as they spend more time on the forums. Going from 0 to 1 is very quick and mostly designed as a bot-check - those on user trust level 0 have their posts checked against a spam filter, while no other users do. The higher your trust level, the longer it will take to move from your current one to the next.

Here is how many votes people have to spend.

Votes Per User Trust Level

• Trust level 0: 4
• Trust level 1: 8
• Trust level 2: 12
• Trust level 3: 16
• Trust level 4: 20

The default for each user trust level is half of what they are currently set to.

As speculated above, when a thread is locked, the votes spent on it will cease to apply against the user’s vote cap. If the thread is re-opened, it will once again count against your cap. As with Mana, you can go into negative votes remaining - there’s no punishment for doing so; it just means that you’ll be waiting longer to be able to start voting again.

Here is how each user trust level is obtained.

User Trust Level 0

This is the default.

User Trust Level 1

Read the posts of others.

The requirements are spending at least 10 minutes reading forum posts, comprising of at least 30 individual posts, which consist of posts in at least 5 threads.

User Trust Level 2

Become a more active participant of the forum.

Visit the forum on 15 different days (not consecutive). Like a post and post something that is liked by another person. Post in at least 3 threads started by other people. Spend at least 60 minutes reading a minimum of 100 posts which are in at least 20 different threads.

User Trust Level 3

Be a cornerstone of the community.

Users are granted user trust level 3 when they;

• Have visited the forum on at least 50 days out of the last 100 days.
• Have participated in at least 10 different forum threads.
• Have looked at a minimum of 25% of forum threads created in the last 100 days. *
• Have looked at a minimum of 25% of forum posts created in the last 100 days. *
• Have received at least 20 likes, and liked at least 30 posts (not PMs). *

The requirements I’ve marked with * have caps to the number of posts / threads which you need to view, and how much individual users can contribute to each of your respective like counts. There’s some additional requirements regarding moderation - in short, if you want to become user trust level 3, don’t force us to issue you a temporary ban.

User Trust Level 4

Be trusted with moderator capabilities.

User trust level 4 is given to all members of Eleventh Hour Games who participate on the forum, and is only available through a member of staff choosing to issue it to someone.

We don’t have any concrete plans regarding this user trust level - be it granting it to people, or withholding it as a staff-only thing indefinitely. As a result, currently the number of votes open to community members with this trust level is a bit academic.

Currently forum threads posted in Feedback and Suggestions - the only section where votes can be cast - will be locked automatically two months after they are last posted in. This is also true of most other forum sections, though there are a small number of exceptions to this.

I’m happy to adjust the number of votes available at each user trust level - however I’d prefer to make multiple gradual increases (if necessary) than to make a single dramatic change. Feel free to post feedback on this here and I’ll keep an eye on it.

You should be able to view your user trust level on the summary tab of your profile.

Here's which user trust level each of the labels refers to.

• New - Trust Level 0
• Basic - Trust Level 1
• Member - Trust Level 2
• Regular - Trust Level 3
• Leader - Trust Level 4

 
Edit: Most forum posts can be liked. This isn’t true of the first post in threads posted in Feedback and Suggestions. The reason for this is that being able to both vote on a thread and like the initial post in it come down to having two different ways of upping the number for the same post, which seems a bit superfluous. This is something we can enable - so let us know if you would like to be able to like the first post of threads in that section.

Unlike your generosity.

Please click on “Here is how each user trust level is obtained.” in the post you’re replying to.

Earlier I made it possible to like the first post of threads in Feedback and Suggestions. I would like to clarify something regarding this functionality and how we will consider it.

Post likes will not be viewed as mini-votes. Liking a post is how you indicate a post was constructive, polite, and the kind of post you’d like to see more of. You can feel this way about posts regardless of whether you happen to agree with the person who wrote it.

That is very important.

Politics is steadily becoming more divisive in several countries. To comment on two examples - in the UK there are the pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit camps, and in the US there are the pro-Trump and anti-Trump camps. In both instances, the middle ground is being eroded as both sides of the debate become ever more entrenched in their positions. This leads to ‘compromise’ being seen as a dirty word, and those on the other side being seen as ‘the enemy’. Civil discourse is a casuality of this - and civil discourse is what these forums (and the Discourse forum software) were designed for. That trend in politics is regrettable, and not to be emulated.

Anything that discourages people from liking a post is harmful. We don’t want people to hesitate to click the button because it might lead to the developers doing something they disagree with. Or, indeed, hesitating to click the button for any other reason.

I have increased the number of votes available for most user trust levels.¹ The number available at user trust level 0 remains unchanged. All others have been again doubled, and are now at four times the default values. Further changes are likely to be tailored to specific user trust levels rather than being a single change applied globally.

Here are the current number of votes available at each user trust level.

• TL0: 4
• TL1: 16
• TL2: 24
• TL3: 32
• TL4: 40

 
¹ While I was there, I also disabled the ability to include emoji in thread titles. In the body of posts they’re fine in small doses, but I don’t think they need to be shown on index pages.