As an integral part of the community, enforcing the rules and regulations should be prioritized for new members.
I won’t say too much, as this has already been discussed, but #development-discussion and other categories are facing a significant flood of replies and topics that break the community guidelines, usually by new members.
My personal experience when I joined the forum, wasn’t as clear to me as it should have been. After around 1 month, a @discobot tutorial appeared, and guided me through becoming familiar with the forum. I feel a bit guilty here but in that 1 month, I wasn’t even aware of the rules in the first place. Even after completing the tutorial I didn’t check out the guidelines, and was only aware when I actually broke a rule. Thankfully, others guided me as to why it was wrong and directed me to learn more at the relevant page. (A lesson well learnt)
I propose that the @discobot tutorial should have a mandatory step that requires the user to check the guidelines page. In the meantime I wasn’t inclined to visiting the link, because I couldn’t be bothered to click an external link and tbh I didn’t give a crap. Yes, at that time I couldn’t care less.
I think as the forum expands, this will become very relatable and often users wouldn’t even start the tutorial or they wouldn’t consider the link at all.
Oh, and btw It took 1 month for the tutorial to appear because I didn’t bookmark the page, nevertheless that wouldn’t change anything.
I’m not sure if the message template has changed over time though.
I don’t think this extra step would solve much. You are told to read the guidelines when you are newly promoted and the rules is literally the 2nd post you see when you go on the forum. Requiring users to read the guidelines doesn’t actually ensure they really read it or would follow it at all.
I understand, however that wasn’t the reason why I brought It up. Not many new members would want to actively click links, disregarding the rules.
It may not ensure they follow the rules. however the discobot tutorial help users navigate and learn about the forum. Just because it’s stated when your promoted to a member, doesn’t mean they are going to pay attention at all. The tutorials engages new users and may appeal to them easier.
It still doesn’t change the fact that a majority won’t actually read through it. When you get a new game and you are prompted to read the ToS or EULA or whatever, people usually go straight to the “Agree” button. Unless the Community Sages wants to develop a plugin that would track users’ time reading the guidelines or some method to ensure they really read it, I think it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Ok, I understand. We shouldn’t consider that at all. I just wanted to help newcomers read the rules atleast, because the majority don’t. This happens all the time, but I guess you don’t want a way to enforce it
Personally I think adopting what my University did for my induction would be useful:
A forced induction page with all the rules etc. and then a randomly generated quiz which asks questions on the subjects. At the end of the quiz you are given a score and a breakdown of how well you did - if you don’t get a required threshold on the score (75% for example) then you simply cannot continue on the forum until you do produce the score. When you get a question wrong it then prompts for you to view the section to read which contains the answer (not an exact line) which encourages you to go back over it.
The ideology behind it really is that your asked 10 questions and not told at each question if you got it correct or incorrect - therefore users can’t just back click and change any answers. Its also hard to remember the answer to every single question in the generated quiz.
I’ll be honest I hate actually doing the induction modules and I can personally testify that its very hard to answer rule specific questions correctly without having the foreknowledge. Using questions as well which don’t have blatantly obvious correct answers is also a good idea. An ever expanding question list would then also be advisable.
It’s not that I don’t want to enforce it. I think the guidelines being in the promotion message and literally the 2nd post on the main page would be enough.
The forum isn’t some place for people to just join and think there’s no standard to be observed. They should be interested enough to know about what is expected of them and not just jumping right into asking support questions.
Hence you make it an ever expanding list, removing questions occasionally and adding them. Its very unlikely that a single person is going to map the entire test - it wouldn’t exactly be beneficial to anyone and a waste of time. Trying to map every question as the test develops as well would be highly improbable due to the amount of time it would take - it wouldn’t be feasible.
10 questions would obviously be instantly solved, but as the number increases to thousands it would be a painful task which by that point you could just do the test and read it all in less time to map it out.
Yeah I understand. I just feel the promotion message and whatnot aren’t effective. I’m sure a lot of new users don’t even click on them and that’s understandable. I don’t find it effective because:
It’s not engaging
It’s looks bland
These are just some of the ironic reasons. For some reasons and I don’t know why it didn’t seem to get to me and this is from the perspective of a brand new member
This isn’t feasible in terms of scalability. This is why the manual approval process got removed.
The forum is being made open to developers that have a passion for developing. Simply reading posts actively is a good enough measurement for promotion (although this is being debated on). There are users with mental disabilities that could prevent them from answering this test properly.
Someone was able to obtain the requirements for promotion to member. I don’t see how this test would be any different. Anyone who is determined enough will map the test.
As someone who actually has minor experience in working with people who have mental disabilities: a vast majority can easily do these forms of tests when asked to (providing they read it like everyone else) especially when no time limit is required and in cases where they struggle they can always ask someone for assistance in completing it. A majority of users, including them, will likely have the rules page open to make it easier to answer the specific questions and providing the questions don’t come down to elements where its simple spelling mistakes etc (so each answer is distinct) then they cope perfectly fine.
Seeming as the criteria mostly relies on read time and posts read that isn’t particularly hard for anyone to trial and error their way into it. I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to do this as its literally a single day task at most (I believe the threshold to enter is ~3 hours). Simple preventatives such as a timeout between tests (of around 5 minutes for example) would slow the process down - making it essentially pointless to do this as a singular person as you’d waste tons more time actually mapping it out instead of just saying “simply read the rules for about 5 minutes and you’ll get through fine”.
I also don’t understand how this doesn’t have “scalability” especially when this process is machine based and not through manual approval.
Why should the staff add more questions. Why can’t it just be an automated test, that generates random question based on select categories of the guidelines?
The thing is, even if you reword a question a thousand times, the answer to that question will always be the same or synonymous.
Posting intentional NSFW will merit:
A) 3 Strikes
B) 2 Strikes
C) Total Removal
D) Suspension
Someone posted NSFW on purpose, they will get:
A) 3 Strikes
B) 2 Strikes
C) Total Removal
D) Suspension
Your friend jokingly posted NSFW on your account, you will get:
A) 3 Strikes
B) 2 Strikes
C) Total Removal
D) Suspension
AI generated questions isn’t even accurate enough to ensure there are no false-positives. If it were, I’d expect most schools to be using this technology by now. Or perhaps, it is accurate enough, but it comes with a jaw dropping price tag.
I feel like this thread has derailed a lot from the original post. I will leave this off here.
I mean there should a variety of questions(not duplicate questions). It may be worded differently, but your point proves nothing wrong. I doubt that this system would be hard to implement. Most schools use AI generated questions for online tests, ect.
Thanks for taking your time to reply, much appreciated
I’m not sure if that’s possible the badge just is probably awarded when you been on the page for some time or until you scrolled down. There’s no way to actually know if someone read the guidelines.
