Why is it intentionally opaque as to when new topics can be created? Not clear whether posts or just ‘reading’ is needed… and why do you enable abusive bans by not even providing rationales and not even making it clear what happened, just a logging out? Honestly, all this and more makes this forum software the worst IMO, regardless of its dynamic updates, because you do this intentionally with malice…

Hello and welcome @whywhy :slight_smile: As Discourse Trust Levels are customisable, different sites can have different abilities and thresholds for each. I think our defaults are relatively easy to understand, but not every site will stick to those defaults and will tailor them to suit their own community values. You’ve obviously had a less than ideal experience at some point, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that the software (or Discourse communities in general) operates with any intentional malice. We’re here to promote civilised discourse, so that kind of ethos would not be in keeping with that.

It’s civilised discourse to let accounts be ‘disappeared’, practically, without any rationales whatsoever? Discord does the same thing (maybe it’s all those that begin with ‘dis’…) and I think it’s the worst online practice. By the way, it’s the opposite of ideal… I just gave up and posted some irrelevant topic on someone else’s years old thread (due to being unable to start threads), which is clearly what is encouraged by default in this software… (oh, and a few minutes after the level magically bumps up, at which point, I suppose, it’s sensible to delete the post on the irrelevant thread and create my own thread… if you seriously think this is at all close to “ideal”, I swear…)

We would tend to recommend Anonymisation over deletion as it can leave holes in the conversation that would make disjointed reading for those coming to the topic later on. Though we also like to provide a range of tools to allow communities to effectively moderate themselves according to their own guidelines. New users can create topics here on meta in most categories as soon as they sign up. For more detailed information on those categories where it’s not possible you can check out the category info in their About topics (pinned in their respective categories). Was there something in particular you wanted to ask? If you give me more details I could advise you on the best way to accomplish what you’re after?

I was trying to create a thread on another forum, not here, but thought of discussing these software aspects as, literally, every time I encounter this software on some site I always anticipate this inevitable annoyance, and wouldn’t mind if developers truly reflect on whether the above experience is at all close to ideal whatsoever…

The admins on that forum made it that way. Almost anything can be changed by the admins to make the forum as good as it can be in their eyes. This is something to contact the admins of that forum about instead of meta. You can find an email on the about page of that forum ( /about)

Point is that this seems to be the software’s default (it might not be, but the question remains, why should it even at all encourage irrelevant posts?) - and most people go with defaults, and so the question then is: why is such an awful experience as above the default?

[image] whywhy: but the question remains, why should it even at all encourage irrelevant posts? How does this software encourage irrelevant posts? By default, as a new user, you can start 3 topics. Since the default requirements for the next trust level can be accomplished within ten minutes of reading, I think the default is not bad. [image]Understanding Discourse Trust Levels Users at trust level 0 cannot … … Post more than 3 topics

As far as I know, on many sites I seem to want to post on, at least, I can’t even create a single post upon registration, which is why I assume irrelevant posts are needed (I tried just waiting, but nothing happened, and then the level changed as soon as I posted…)

Most likely is that the settings on those site were set to only allow new topics be created by members at trust level 1 or 2. The default setting is trust level 0 for that. This doesn’t mean that irrelevant posts are necessary, just that reply posts to established topics are required first before a new member can start their own topics. [new topic creation trust tier setting]

Which would mean the posts are irrelevant, to the threads that are forced to have them due to this weird system… and it might not be the default, but for some reason it seems to happen most often with this forum software (some others might have made the unbelievably idiotic decision to pre-approve every account before they post… don’t think I can ever remember the sites again after, if ever, they’re approved, so at least this software doesn’t lend itself to that)… so, why is that? Is this sort of thing not available in other software? Surely it cannot be said that posting irrelevant posts is rational, though…

Why could I not create a topic before posting?

Product Support

merefield (Robert) December 20, 2023, 9:53am 16

Have you spoken to the admins or moderators of that site? They could probably explain their local policy?

(but agree with Ed, it’s probably an anti-spam measure).

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Why could I not create a topic before posting?

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