Discussion on reducing the trust level requirements of the Price & Trading topic

[Team_2E16]

My comments here Comments on issues brought up in the Trust Level Price/Trading topic here on meta

@Sotros25

What is the average age of the users here? One would think it were 12 to the degree that it seems people must bow and make obeisance before the school teacher. Closed systems die. That is a fact of life. If an idea cannot survive in the wild, it is unfit. Moreover, if you release an animal that was raised in the safety of captivity to the wild, it will die. We know this for a fact. It is through the process of striving and fighting that we learn to adapt, survive and thrive.

Precisely.

@VaCrunch

I have to admit, I’ve been a fairly active member of the forum for 1.5 years but I think this is the first time I have ever visited Meta. Didn’t even know what it was for. The name, itself, is a turnoff for me. Don’t know what significance this is, I just thought I would throw it out there. I’m wondering how representative I am of the sub-2 year group in relation to these feelings.

Precisely x2.

[Wong]

Wow, so much to read. I think by limiting the trust level on price topic will force new members to read around (getting to know about the project) before they mature into providing quality comments. I’m quite sure most common questions to ask already been answered in other threads. Consider Price topic as college level, first you’ve gotta finish high school first.

[Future]

@Sotros25

My dear, if one insists that after 12 years it isn’t a good time, might I suggest there may well never be?

@Sotros25 I think you’re taking the wrong landmark. You’re looking at time while I think you should pay attention to the status of the project. Everything has to be developed and compared to it, not simply time.
As I wrote previously, Maid is a revolutionary project that needs much more time than other project.
I think you can’t rush just cause 10 years have passed; You need to respect the development’s stage of the project. All in good time

[Future]

On the other hand, I think @VaCrunch is right about the forum. Of course, lots of things could be managed better and there’s always the path to improve here too. I never understood too what is meta and what its role is

[jm5]

@happybeing

If you want a substantial change, it is up to you to do the hard work of writing a serious proposal with enough detail for the community to understand and debate, and the mods will I believe be happy to put that topic on the front page as it deserves. Once it has been debated, revise if necessary and put it to a vote. I’ve said this several times in the past, but nobody has done this.

You could start by setting out a formalised version of the process I’ve just described. I think it would pass easily, and then use that process to tackle moderation and anything else you want.

What in heaven are you talking about? Why would anyone need to do hard work? Discourse has tools readily available to get these sort of things done. In fact, @Josh created a poll, it is still up there above.

@Josh made a poll within a thread.
59 users voted on said poll in 1.5 days.

Said poll was shoved out of view into Meta
Since being moved (1.2 days ago) the poll has received 3 additional votes.

This system obviously doesn’t work. And as the poll has been declared biased by a mods opinion I expect no change.

And as @Team_2E16 has pointed out

@Team_2E16

if the moderators deem this proposal to be ‘detailed’ enough, then, and only then, will it be presented to the community. This represents a further roadblock towards getting community support: that criticism of the moderators is approved of by the moderators for presentation to the wider community. Really? You really, really don’t see the problem here?

There are many examples of this occurring over time. Mods developing a standard of proposals being approved by them before discussion. The mods are not the gateway to the community and they shouldn’t be.

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

What I’m saying is that this persistent refusal to listen to the community or canvas for their opinion is the reason I can’t justify putting any more energy into this place. I know you will not do what the community is asking for, I have seen it too many times now.

There is no way to please everyone Jabba. So if we follow the exact ideas of you and several others to put “forum talk” on the frontpage, a bunch of other people will disagree. That way we always see an active small group of people not liking what we do.

We have 6800 members now and a ban list that is quite small. All these people got more than one second chance to stop doing what got them on the radar of moderation. From physical threats to scamming our community with several accounts claiming they had “lost their private key please send me some MAID”.

I know you and some others don’t like it. I know several members left this forum because of us moving things to Meta and being too strict.

I honestly wonder how we are too strict?? Far over 99% of all members never got on our radar for any misdoing. Far over 99% never had any of their posts flagged. And we have maybe a dozen people banned (apart from the real weight loss spam accounts) on 6800 members.

Price and Trading
There wasn’t a ban on that topic. But every time MAID made a move new members jumped on this forum to yell and scream and make a load of personal attacks on the devs. I guess 8 out of 10 flags were from that topic because even the common visitors here got sick of it. We restricted the topic to TL2 and we saw an 80% dump in flags. It was a great decision.

We have a topic in #staff now where we’re discussing this topic due to the discussion here in Meta.

EDIT: Just want to add that I also see discussion on Bitcointalk forum for several tokens. It’s quite a mess, not well moderated including physical threats to people. yelling and screaming with swears all over the place.

[happybeing]

@jm5

What in heaven are you talking about? Why would anyone need to do hard work?

I’m referring to the work involved in putting together a concrete proposal. In this case Savage didn’t have to do any work, his proposal was very simple. But the issue I’m referring to is how you make such a process formalised.

We don’t have a formal process - and this is a recurring problem. Sometimes somebody puts up a poll and it gets some votes, so those in favour want it to be acted upon. That’s all logical in theory, but no democracy works without having a formal structure to ensure those votes are informed and that everyone gets the opportunity to understand, question and ultimately vote. So the mods are in a difficult position, either act on every poll or face accusations when they judge the poll has not met some unspecified standard.

I don’t think that’s a big deal wrt Savage’s proposal in the OP - I’ve said, I didn’t even vote, so I really don’t care whether it happens or not. Jabba and I were discussing the wider issue of how this forum is managed and the way change can happen in ways that reflect what the community wants.

That’s where the hard work I’m referring to lies. In coming up with a concrete proposal for:

1. how a change process can be managed (fairly easy as I suggested in my previous post), but still not yet formalised, and

2. how the forum itself should be managed: moderator selection, moderator powers and accountability mechanisms etc. I think the reason nobody has created a concrete proposal for that is that it is hard work - but if you or anyone who wants to change how that is done I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. Get to it! Let’s resolve this and we can all get off this frustrating hamster wheel without feeling the need to leave.

It’s the fact that we don’t have such processes that leads to these discussions every so often, so I think it would be good to have them if they can be made workable. The reason I never came up with such a program (voting on mods for example) was that I couldn’t think of a way to make that workable. It sounds simple, but making it robust from attack is very hard IMO. And nobody has yet come up with a concrete proposal and asked for it to be put to the community - the opportunity is there and always had been.

[jm5]

This doesn’t need to be a long drawn out discussion.

@anon40790172

We restricted the topic to TL2 and we saw an 80% dump in flags. It was a great decision.

Yes, and a poll was made and thus far users wish to reduce the restrictions to TL1. Thus, what exactly is it that the moderators are discussing?

@anon40790172

EDIT: Just want to add that I also see discussion on Bitcointalk forum for several tokens. It’s quite a mess, not well moderated including physical threats to people. yelling and screaming with swears all over the place.

Yes, and they have 1,621,348 users. Which is what the point of the poll was. Are current restrictions preventing people from joining this community? But, it seems you don’t want that kind of growth because you have a fear of

@anon40790172

not well moderated including physical threats to people. yelling and screaming with swears all over the place.

off-topic sidenote: I am also wondering why if a community member wants to discuss the forum, it must be hidden away in Meta but if a mod wants to give an update it gets thrown on the front page under Community. Why the double-standard?

[jm5]

@happybeing

In this case Savage didn’t have to do any work, his proposal was very simple.

Even putting together a very simple proposal has a hard time with mods as this thread shows.

The mods seem to want to know how everything is going to go.

Just take it day by day, allow users to create polls, follow through with those polls, adjust, suggest ideas, keep everything out in the open, be accessible. Its called learning and growing together, it creates strength within the community, people protect each other, circle of trusts are formed. We can’t have everything laid out at once. (this to me is obvious stuff and feel silly for pointing it out but it seems time and time again you guys just don’t get it)

@Team_2E16 gave some good proposals here

@happybeing

Sometimes somebody puts up a poll and it gets some votes, so those in favour want it to be acted upon. That’s all logical in theory, but no democracy works without having a formal structure to ensure those votes are informed and that everyone gets the opportunity to understand, question and ultimately vote. So the mods are in a difficult position, either act on every poll or face accusations when they judge the poll has not met some unspecified standard.

If the community votes on a particular subject, lets use this thread as an example, to reduce restrictions on entering trading topic, and shit goes haywire, another poll just gets made to revert it back, what is the problem? No one can accuse the mods, they just followed the people, if the unspecified standard wasn’t in the poll that is not the mods fault and nor can they be accused of it.

But either way, this has gone on for too long. Keep discussing whatever you are discussing behind closed doors mods. I have been through this type of conversation before with you Mark and it gets very circular.

I will now patiently wait for a statement from the Maidsafe marketing team as to how they plan on solving this problem of mods stifling community growth. Perhaps they don’t see the necessity right now which imo is a mistake.

[dirvine]

@jm5

I will now patiently wait for a statement from the Maidsafe marketing team as to how they plan on solving this problem of mods stifling community growth. Perhaps they don’t see the necessity right now which imo is a mistake.

I realise what you are saying here, but my personal opinion is that is any part of maidsafe had influence here beyond respect and acceptance as a normal community member then we are in trouble as a community. MaidSafe should be seen for what they are, dedicated to getting Secure Access For All and the community run efforts must be left alone as much as possible. In today’s world we need to have an all out anything goes place and a moderated easy to read and get info without digging too much place.

I feel we can have both, so here where there is light moderation we have a place more like an echo chamber, granted, but we can get through a lot of info quickly. Then we have rediit/twitter and places like that for more open discussions, including trolls. So possibly it is good to have different channels that provide different approaches, so not all moderated and not all open. Then we stand a chance of pleasing more people.

The openness of this channel (discourse) should be quite rightly challenged and challenged often, that keeps it healthy. The mods job is pretty thankless and they really do take flak and often to go along with no reward and less free time that most. If we all realise the mods know they are between the rock and hard place then we will all get on better.

tl;dr Many channels offer many different approaches, lets use them all for our own comfort, wild west or eat coast regulations or anywhere in between. Difference is good, we should all love the fact the differences exist and we should not try and make everything the same in any way. As a small community we maybe don’t cover as much ground, but we are growing and I think strongly, we don’t seem to be caught in a hype cycle, but instead seem determined in our quest. That suits me, I always wish we were launched yesterday, but am never scared of the road in front either, I just know this is a road we have no choice but to travel. The world needs this and we need to be part of providing it, every last one of us.

[neo]

The discussion in this topic has been very helpful, even if there were some emotional posts.

Taking into account a number of aspects, like the poll results and the fact that gaining level 1 membership was increased (for access to invites for testnets) since the restrictions were placed on the P&T topic, the P&T topic will be changed to only requiring level 1 member status.

Also I proposed that a second P&T topic for other coins incl BTC be created on a trial basis. Other Coins - Price & Trading topic

The changes will be monitored and if the trolls and spamming starts up again then the decision will be reviewed.

The community has spoken and we’ve tried to provide a compromise between those who wish it to remain restricted to level 2 and those who wish for no restrictions. And considering many wanted level 1 restrictions, I personally feel that this should be satisfactory going forward.

NOTE: @frabrunelle will do the change in due course.

[happybeing]

Seems sensible to me, thanks @moderators for all the work you put in, and for keeping a steady hand when the topics get choppy.

And @jm5, I invite you to write your suggestion up as a topic that can be put to the community and a vote.

[pioneerbear]

This directly from Proboards.

“Before you open the doors to invite guests and prospective members to explore your new forum, the rules of engagement should be somewhat established. We say somewhat because they’ll probably change over time as others contribute to the management and growth of your community.”

[jm5]

@dirvine I appreciate you replying and take everything into account you have said. I understand it may be a lot to ask of you to read through this. I feel you are missing this point

@dirvine

Difference is good, we should all love the fact the differences exist and we should not try and make everything the same in any way.

That is exactly part of the point. There is no difference on this forum, it is all swept under the rug.

@Jabba

When you kill every discussion by putting in to meta you infuriate the people on this forum who disagree with you and want it discussed OPENLY. Give it its own thread to keep things on-topic, but moving it here is unacceptable and really highlights everything that’s wrong with this mod-archy.

@Jabba

Since 2015 I’ve seen so many people leave the forum because of the modarchy’s stubbornness regarding its own inalienable right-to-power. The meta move pisses off everyone you do it to. You guys piss off users faster and more frequently than I’ve ever seen in any community.

Key forum contributors have been driven away, folks like team_2e16, tonda, safety1st, alkaffir, jm5 (a mod himself) now ken… god knows how many more I can’t recall off-hand, but certainly several more than that. My PMs have dozens of threads that hit the 500 post limit. All of that content wasted. Some it real gems and fascinating discussions, much of it between 3 or 4 of us ata time. All of it hugely valuable. All wasted from SAFE Netowrk’s pov, hidden away, no place for it on the forum and contributors who refuse to post here while there is no voice for them or direct business management.

You guys don’ just fail to leverage content by preventing people posting off-topic stuff visibly (god forbid), you actually create cliques and drive content off the forum and into PMs in huge quantities.

Anyway, there is no changing this. This has not been a community run forum since the reins were handed over and the separation between mod and community was created. Many many people have said it, we’ve all been censored and had our opinions removed from public view. We’ve all had to abandon the forum because of it. I wanted to rage-quit two years ago when poor tonda fell victim to (as he put it) “this self-righteous bullshi1t”.

It would be one thing if this was a private forum run by a private company, or a community forum run by a community, but it is not. This forum is run by a very small clique of like-minded people with no experience in marketing and no appreciation for the consequences of their decisions. As I said before, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

A must read but to highlight my personal feelings

@Team_2E16

'Fate, it seems, is not without it’s sense of irony’

A decentralised project that will entirely remove all restrictions on internet users (within the scope of SAFE), having as it’s main community forum a very centralised, and, in the opinions of some of us, a censored and controlled course of discussion. Almost absurd enough to be funny, seemingly required enough to be unremarkable to most, and annoying enough to deeply irritate and disillusion the souls of some of us who saw in SAFE a solution, finally, to problems the human race is in dire need to rid itself of: centralisation, control and censorship by the few over the many.

So it seems that us that see the absurdity are banished to

@dirvine

rediit/twitter and places like that for more open discussions, including trolls.

[jm5]

@happybeing

write your suggestion up as a topic that can be put to the community and a vote.

seemed to me @Team_2E16 did a pretty good job already so i just copied their proposals and put them here in Meta where nobody goes and if the mods approve they can move it to the front page.

[VaCrunch]

For some reason, every time my eyes read “Meta” my brain goes “meh”. Seriously.

P.S. This comment doesn’t extend to the name “metaquestions”. That context makes perfect sense to me and is, I think, an inspirational tagline.

[anon40790172]

@jm5

Are current restrictions preventing people from joining this community?

Nope, the opposite it seems…

@jm5

Yes, and a poll was made and thus far users wish to reduce the restrictions to TL1. Thus, what exactly is it that the moderators are discussing?

getting consensus. That’s what we always do. the pros the cons etc.

@jm5

But, it seems you don’t want that kind of growth because you have a fear of

polpolrene:

I have no clue where this one comes from. I’ll hope we’ll grow to 20 or 30K members in the coming months. Just like we all want SAFE te get as much people excited as possible. I’ve spent quite an amount of hours working on a safe paper/primer over the last few months. Even while my health isn’t really supportive here. So to frame me and other mods as not wanting more growth because we’re scared we can’t handle it is quite absurd. And far away from the facts.

@jm5

off-topic sidenote: I am also wondering why if a community member wants to discuss the forum, it must be hidden away in Meta but if a mod wants to give an update it gets thrown on the front page under Community. Why the double-standard?

Updates bring new guidelines and informs people about certain things like new mods/leaving mods/new admins etc. That’s information concerning all.

We’ve had quite some discussions on the front-page about politics/this forum and even other projects. The consensus has always been to move forum talk away from the frontpage. It was a decision we took supported by a big majority of the community. Not a decision you agree with, but it was with full consent.

Like I said before; we could move forum talk to the frontpage and we’ll have another group of people asking us to un-do that again. It’s impossible to please all 6800 members here.

[Sotros25]

@neo

Taking into account a number of aspects, like the poll results and the fact that gaining level 1 membership was increased (for access to invites for testnets) since the restrictions were placed on the P&T topic, the P&T topic will be changed to only requiring level 1 member status.

Also I proposed that a second P&T topic for other coins incl BTC be created on a trial basis. Other Coins - Price & Trading topic

I think this is a good, pragmatic solution that takes into account the view points of many. In a community of this size (really, once you have more than 1 person…), it’s impossible to please everyone. However, outcomes that produce the greatest degree of freedom for all are to be praised, in my opinion.

I am also amazed and humbled by the degree of passion members of this forum have about not just the Maidsafe project itself, but also the community as well. Onward and upward.

[frabrunelle]

@neo

NOTE: @frabrunelle will do the change in due course.

Hey everyone, just wanted to confirm that I just made this change

[happybeing]

@jm5

seemed to me @Team_2E16 did a pretty good job already so i just copied their proposals and put them here in Meta where nobody goes and if the mods approve they can move it to the front page.

I’m not sure that’s a serious proposal, it was a very long piece and I don’t think many people will read and understand what he is proposing, if that is in fact the case. It was too long for me to read, and I expect most people in the forum have limited time.

So if it does contain a concrete proposal, I suggest somebody who wants it to happen bring it out as such, perhaps with a link to the full post, and start a community discussion on the changes proposed and a request to the mods for this to be kept visible.