The discussion revolves around increasing a user’s trust level (TL) to level 3 when they primarily view topics via email. EricGT states that for users who mostly read topics via email, Discourse cannot track their views, making it difficult to increase their TL. The only way to increase view numbers is for them to visit the site more often.
EricGT is motivated to help a user who prefers reading topics via email but wants to reach TL3 to have their links followed without the “nofollow” tag. HAWK and Heather_Dudley question the importance of TL for users who don’t frequently visit the site, as they won’t benefit from the added features.
Heather_Dudley suggests that trust levels are meant for regular users and proposes turning off the “nofollow” option if it’s the only concern. However, EricGT clarifies that removing “nofollow” for all users, regardless of TL, would make more sense. pfaffman confirms that Discourse cannot track email views, making site visits necessary to increase TL.
For users who would like to increase their trust level to level 3, they need to read many topics and post.
For a user who views most of the post via e-mail, Discourse does not have a way AFAIK to increase those counts necessary for reaching TL3 when the topics and post are read as an e-mail.
Am I correct that for those users the only way to increase the view numbers to reach TL3 is for them to visit the site more often and visit more topics and post at the site?
I am aware that as an admin I can promote them manually.
I’m curious as to why someone would care about their TL if they don’t visit the site. They won’t get the benefits of added trust anyway. Can you elaborate?
This is just my guess, but the conversation with the user started when I noted that TL3 users earn
Have all their links followed (we remove automatic nofollow)
The user does visit the site from time to time, but prefers to do most of their reading of topics via e-mail, also they do create topics and post replies. In which manner I do not know.
Honestly, trust levels are for people who are, well, regulars. If they don’t actually use the community much, they’re not regulars. They’re members, who occasionally use it. I have this with my forum; we’re seasonal. The only people who will ever really be TL3 are the ones who hang out year round. I’m okay with that. What use are the expanded features if they’re not visiting the site to read?
Anyway, if all your’e concerned about is nofollow, then maybe just turn off the option to add it?
Discourse can’t know that they’ve read the posts unless they read them on the site. It just doesn’t make sense to assume that because someone has been sent an email that they have, well, done anything.
