Removing Certain Junior Member Posting Restrictions in the Gameroom

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hullo folks
Firstly, sorry for the long title - I never was very good at abbreviations/cutting out unnecessary jargon and the such like

Anyhow, this has been something I've been sitting on since the huge Capo I mafia game in January last year (which many Junior Member, including myself, signed-up for).

What I was thinking of was the removal of the Junior Member inability to post in existing Gameroom threads. Their inability to create new threads would remain under my idea, although editing their posts could possibly be allowed since in many cases players may wish to hide any tactical slip-ups they have made.

The problem is that the current system undermines the entire ideology behind Junior Member to Member promotions. Joining and playing mafia games can be used as a method for Junior Members to bypass the "positive contribution" system. I must confess that I manipulated it at the time for this purpose.

Additional benefits also brought by my suggested change would involve less work for staff, and possibly more users actually deciding to join in with the Gameroom games - going through the process of PMing can be awkward for some newer forum users.

Another something I was thinking about is going all the way and dropping Junior Member status/restrictions all together - I do feel that it may be a little redundant. That, however, may be a little too drastic for now, so possibly could be a consideration in the future.

Thanks for reading

[Andres]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind Junior Members being able to post in the Gameroom.

Junior Members can post and edit posts in the mod sections, can't they?

Would this be possible for the Gameroom as well?

[caravel]

I thought there was talk about doing away with the Junior Member rank altogether? Any news on that?

Really though, this Junior Member rank is just putting off a lot of decent would be orgahs, I really do think it's about time we dropped it.

To the would be member the whole thing exudes exclusiveness, snobbery and shows the forum up as one that seeks to filter out "undesirables" as a priority. We're basically classing everyone as a would be trouble maker from the start: Guilty until proven innocent.

As I've said before, there are more than enough mods to deal with this and it's not as if we get trouble makers on a daily basis anyway. Junior Members have access to most of the forums now and if there was going to be any trouble there would have been already, so I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Removing the JM rank can only be a positive thing: More gameroom players, more diverse views in the backroom, more diverse frontroom threads etc, etc, etc.

[Quirinus]

But then again, it could also be a motivation for junior members to make posts of a higher quality. I know I consciously put more effort into my posts than I would otherwise have.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

But then again, it could also be a motivation for junior members to make posts of a higher quality. I know I consciously put more effort into my posts than I would otherwise have.

Although this could be considered a reason for the keeping of the status, it seems that nowadays every frequently posting Junior Member, with the exception of persistent trolls or suspicious appearing accounts, end up in the Member rank within at most three or four weeks.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being critical of the senior administration's judgement, but more of the fact that if practically all users will get there eventually, then it probably would be easier for everybody to simply allow them to skip the fairly punishing journey up to the higher rank.

[Quirinus]

Hmm.... I suppose that's true. Junior Members, for the most part, have no way of knowing though, if one is judging by the threads about "how to become a member". If the purpose of this segregation is to motivate new members to get into the habit of posting higher-quality posts, it would have achieved its purpose, right?

Or at least that's how I see it.

[caravel]

But then again, it could also be a motivation for junior members to make posts of a higher quality. I know I consciously put more effort into my posts than I would otherwise have.

To be honest, the fact that you see it like that does show how flawed the system is. It implies that you're a bad boy that needs a system to be in place in order for you to be incited to make half decent posts. This in itself is wrong and quite condescending.

It should not be about making quality posts for the first few days, in order to get promoted and then degenerating into spam for the rest of one's time here at the .org. Someone that appears and makes quality posts without incentive is worth one hundred of those that are only posting in a civil manner in order to be promoted to a higher rank.

I've seen this elsewhere. On a certain forum (not the .org) I've seen moderators and admins that seem to be of the highest calibre, conducting themselves in a most exemplary fashion, then meeting up on another forum using foul language and slagging off the members they hate the most at the forum they are moderating. What is the point in this if it's essentially fake?

[Quirinus]

I'm not saying that my posts would have been spam without this, but that different forums have different 'posting cultures', and expectations of what is considered acceptable, what is considered spam. This is one of the first forums I've been, for example, where posts of ten lines and above are, if not exactly the norm, very common. By making the granting of Member rights conditional, it (in theory) sets a point of reference against which forum behaviour can be judged (personally).

An analogous case would be speed limits on motorways. Even without speed limits, most of us won't be driving at 200kmph, but if the limit was set to, say, 90kmph, those drivers who might have otherwise driven at 120kmph or thereabouts know to adjust their driving speed. Hence the speed limit helps make the roads safer. Does implementing the speed limit imply that all drivers are bad drivers who need a system to be in place for them to drive even remotely safely? Not neccesarily.