This is so weird so many Hopscotchers here!
Thatās almost inposible admit it everyone pretty much had at least one flag and I am assuming even you!
Remember that for the current TL3 calculations, āflagsā only refers to flags that an admin or moderator agrees with. Just because a random user flags you for no reason, doesnāt mean you lose the ability to reach TL3 (or TL4 in this discussion). Also, I would assume if something like this was done it would be over a certain number of days like TL3, not āall timeā.
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Hmm @kk091 is a leader and moneter on are forum and she approves flags I assume she has at least one flag though!
I am assuming you arenāt a moderator based on your last post (apologies if you are), so let me give a few more details on flagging. When a post is flagged, moderators see a red icon appear on the hamburger menu (like blue and green users see on their profile picture). Opening the hamburger menu, you can access the flags system. There, you see what specific post or topic was flagged, by whom, for what, and if the āsomething elseā flag, their message. You then have a few options - agreed, disagree, and defer. With agree/defer there are also some quick tools like delete, hide post and send PM, etc.
It heavily depends on the site and how the moderators work, but from what Iāve seen discussed here on meta in the past, most flags are deferred unless they are very clearly an issue. Over at Stonehearth, for example. we get flags if a user notices a duplicate topic. We donāt āagreeā with the flag, even though it is a duplicate, as that hurts the user whose post was flagged. We simply defer the flag, and then merge the topics. The mods at Hopscotch would have to explain how they do things, but I can say with at leat 90% certainty that most users have no āagreed withā flags.
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I think some confusion might be because of what is shown on a memberās admin/users/{id}/{membername} page next to Flags Given / Received.
For example, on my test forum, PersectorGuy1 habitually Flags all of LeaderGuy1ās posts.
(which are then promptly disagreed with)
On LeaderGuy1ās Admin page is shown
Flags Given / Received 4 / 12
But going to LeaderGuy1ās Trust Level 3 Requirements shows
Flagged Posts 0 max of 5
Users Who Flagged 0 max of 5
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Thatās a good pointā¦Iāve noticed that as well. Could it perhaps be changed to:
Flags Given / Received (agreed) 4 / 12 (0)
or
Flags Given / Received / Agreed 4 / 12 / 0
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My point exactly. Only really good Forumers would be able to get leader, unless by manual promotion.
And btw, itās spelled āreceivedā not āreciveā.
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@Intellection_74 and I donāt have any, and I believe @Mathgirl has none either. Itās a matter of patience.
I am not for this idea, but as @kk091 mentioned, if we did add this, I would think that the requirements would be very strict, especially for our forum, considering it is mostly kids under the age of 13.
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What has been your experience with the members that made it to Trust Level 3 ?
That could be a sort of reference point for how well automatic Trust Level 4 promotion might go.
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Most tl3 users are pretty kind and helpful, but some have abused their power. Theyāve changed titles to inappropriate/rude things and abuse their flagging rights (they use the amount of flags they have to close topics). Weāve given warnings to most of them.
I feel with āautomatic promotionsā, people might abuse their powers even more. Tl4 users are completely trusted by mods and admins, and I feel many people on my forum canāt be trusted to become a tl4 user. Some are too young to understand what should be closed and what should not, and others might use their powers for the wrong uses.
Overall, I enjoy the way trust levels are given out on my forum. But then of course, admins can change the settings of their forums to prevent automatic promotions, correct?
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If (emphasis on if) automatic promotion to TL4 is implemented, I would assume it would be done like TL3, and all requirements would be customizable by the individual site.
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Bumping this as Iāve been thinking about the Leader role and how to really utilize on our forum. I would love to gain insight into who should be promoted programmatically (if not automatic). I think itās also important to limit it by regulars:leaders ratio based on activity.
Our problem is that with a manual process, itās easier to promote and much more dramatic to demote, but in both cases itās due to needs of the forum that come from organic usage.
For example, what I would love to see is:
- For every
xregulars, promote the top regular to leader
This allows the position to scale dynamically based on how much forum activity there is to moderate. Using the regulars count seems like a good way to measure overall activity but you could also include things like:
-
ytopics per month -
zglobal unique topic views
etc.
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I like this a lot. It solves two problems simultaneously: first, that demoting people is a dramatic thing (rather than a system event that happens naturally) and it enables some progression to the leader rank to happen automatically. It removes political disputes that can happen when moderators are promoted too (generally when one moderator is promoted over another, the biggest complaint is that the non-promoted candidate has some trait thatās more important and wasnāt considered prior to promotion).
I think a safeguard could be put in place to stop this promotion on problematic users (like # of flags, or the ability to blackball promotion on a candidate)ā¦but I donāt think itād be necessary.
If people are scared about automatic promotion to leader, Iād be fine with having a switch to turn it off. That being said, I think one of the most unique and innovative features Discourse has is the trust system in the first place. Seeing it expand (not stay as it is) would continue this trend. I know there have been discussions about moving TL4 to a non-TL role cosmetically, but I think this is a step in the wrong direction. Iād much rather see automatic promotion worked on and tested than discarded entirely.
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Thatās a very good idea! On our forum, leaders were taken away and people starting trying to get Regular because of that. Itās been a mad house ever since leaders were taken away, and the admins arenāt very active, so that would be a great update.
Is it a forum you own? If not, the admins might not necessarily be happy about people being automatically promoted to TL4 and might just turn it off.
One idea is to present a list of promotions to an admin for approval, turning the automatic promotions into suggestions rather than actions.