New user indicators and post counts

dkf

@tufty said:

narcissistic wankers

Hello!

dhromed

@Maciejasjmj said:

My first thread got me bashed for about four pages

I'm sowwy

lol nope

end

I moved a post to an existing topic: What have you done?!

HardwareGeek

@Maciejasjmj said:

My first thread got me bashed for about four pages. So, i don't know... when someone appeared and started talking shit, they didn't really get a free pass.

From what I've seen in my almost a year of hanging out here, new users who behave civilly are treated with civility (or what passes for it around here, anyway). New users who are assholes get treated like assholes.

Maciejasjmj

@HardwareGeek said:

From what I've seen in my almost a year of hanging out here, new users who behave civilly are treated with civility (or what passes for it around here, anyway). New users who are assholes get treated like assholes.

"Civil behavior" is independent of "being a WTF to deservedly ridicule".

abarker

@codinghorror said:

This is exactly what the light grey new username is designed to convey.

What criteria does Discourse use to determine a new user? As I pointed out before, it appears to be solely based on how much that person has read, which isn't highly meaningful. So, you have a difficult to notice feature that conveys information which most of us, and I bet many forum users in general, don't really care about.

abarker

@Maciejasjmj said:

... when someone appeared and started talking shit, they didn't really get a free pass.

That falls under

@abarker said:

or participated in rougher conversations

end

That's completely reasonable, so you could say

Hey, I want the new user indicator here to also stay grey until the user has posted at least 10 things. And the grey is too light, we need a more visible CSS rule on that span

riking

.username.new-user {
  border: 10px solid red;
  padding-left: 8px;
  margin-right: 8px;
}

10/10 best CSS

Also, that 10 posts thing might be somewhat of a good idea, even if it is 1 or 2 by default. (Make sure that 0 works, too!)

ben_lubar

It needs text-decoration: blink;.

Zecc

@codinghorror said:

If you just want to know if someone is a newbie, new users have light grey usernames.

That's terrible. Make it an icon instead, like the moderator icon.
I suggested a pacifier.

Edit: as already suggested by dhromed:
@dhromed said:

You can display a wee babby icon below their avatar.

Edit 2: except I meant after the username, so the equivalent to <i class="fa fa-trophy"></i>.

PJH

@Zecc said:

Make it an icon instead, like the moderator icon.
I suggested a pacifier.

?

end

Adding a glyph can also be done with CSS, using the CSS before and after directives.

Admins can specify override CSS at will, in the settings.

PJH

Hmm.

Perhaps?

Just need to find a new user to play with...

end

A Font Awesome glyph is easiest, as that font is already loaded. See

http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icons/

We are not at 4.1 yet though.

Zecc

I've amended my post above.

I don't know how the mod trophy is being written to the page and I can't be bothered to find out, but you could use similar logic to add a corresponding icon.

Edit: just wanted to add: I think using a glyph is preferable to using colors, not just because of contrast, but because it facilitates using custom CSS. It's one less rule to think about.

PJH

@Zecc said:

I don't know how the mod trophy is being written to the page and I can't be bothered to find out, but you could use similar logic to add a corresponding icon.

No. You can't.

Just spent the past 1/2 hour trying to figure out how to do it for a user that's 5 days old, made 5 posts.

Just figured out they're a 'regular user' - so there's nothing to differentiate them from, say, you.

(Even so, I'm still having difficulty figuring out what I would need to do, where, even if there was another/different class attached to such users - CSS not being my forte - since I can't use fa-trophy or fa-magic as examples, and my last attempt at modifying CSS on here had bugger all effect for anyone except me...)

trithne

~~I volunteer for tribute~~

Oh wait, apparently my 3rd post is enough to not be new, since it's what, based on # of threads I've ogled?

PJH

@trithne said:

Oh wait, apparently my 3rd post is enough to not be new, since it's what, based on # of threads I've ogled?

Indeed. Ta anyway.

PJH

Ah - just remembered one I can use and experiment with...

Zecc

@PJH said:

Just figured out they're a 'regular user' - so there's nothing to differentiate them from, say, you.

I can understand there being an explicit boolean field isModerator but not an isNewby, but is it really that hard to determine a user's join date and/or post_count? ꖴ_ꖴ

PJH

@Zecc said:

I can understand there being an explicit boolean field isModerator

Or 'isAdmin':

<div id="ember1902" class="ember-view names">
  <span class="username staff">
    <a href="#">PJH</a>
    <i class="fa fa-trophy"></i>
  </span>
</div>

but not an isNewby, but is it really that hard to determine a user's join date and/or post_count? ꖴ_ꖴ

isNewbie (level 0) is a thing:

<div id="ember1781" class="ember-view names">
  <span class="username new-user">
    <a href="#">ChiefJusticeRoberts</a>
  </span>
</div>

However the presence/absence of that new-user (i.e. the transition between level 0 and 1) is dependent on (defaults in brackets):

How many topics that user has entered (5)
How many posts that user has read (30)
How long they've spent reading (10 mins)

Post count doesn't enter into it.

There is however, apparently, no (DOM) differentiation between a Basic User (level 1 - trithne at the moment) or a Regular User (level 2 - you,):

<div id="ember1919" class="ember-view names">
  <span class="username">
    <a href="#">trithne</a>
  </span>
</div>

<div id="ember1885" class="ember-view names">
  <span class="username">
    <a href="#">Zecc</a>
  </span>
</div>

but the transition between those two involve (again, defaults):

How many topics that user has entered (20)
How many posts that user has read (100)
How long they've spent reading (60)
How many days they've visited (15)
How many likes they've received (1)
How many likes they've given (1)
How many replies they've made (3)

That last is probably the nearest we could get to what we're after, but as I've pointed out - there doesn't appear to be anything to hang any CSS onto.

But other stuff (current and probably future) also may on the differences between Basic and Regular, so increasing that limit may have side effects.

boomzilla

@codinghorror said:

do we want a lot of what this number signifies?

YES.

Seriously, I'm quite familiar with the effects of measurement on human behavior, both abstractly and from personal experience.

@codinghorror said:

what will it be like when people do everything they can, even unethical or incorrect or abusive things, to make this number go up?

The good old days.

@Maciejasjmj said:

My first thread got me bashed for about four pages. So, i don't know... when someone appeared and started talking shit, they didn't really get a free pass.

Indeed, it's quite possible to hit the ground running around here.

PJH

@boomzilla said:

Indeed, it's quite possible to hit the ground running around here.

Really⸮ Can't say that I've noticed that happening...

Zecc

Wait, hasn't it been established that username color for newbies is different?

So this logic must already exist somewhere.

Plus, I think you're discussing implementation logic while I was talking purely cosmetics.

PJH

@Zecc said:

Wait, hasn't it been established that username color for newbies is different?

Yes. And that is done via new-user class in the span for the user href which is placed there for level 0 users through CSS.

Jeff's suggestion is to also use that CSS class to append an icon akin to the trophies and wands for admins and mods.

However that new-user color only lasts while the user is level 0 (new user). Once they become level 1 (basic user) that differentiation goes away.

Your definition of non-newbie, I suspect, doesn't cover someone who's read 5 topics, 30 posts and has been hanging around the site for 10 minutes.

So this logic must already exist somewhere.

Yup. In the guts of Discourse.

dhromed

@PJH said:

Hmm.

Perhaps?
Just need to find a new user to play with...

That looks like some kind of sci-fi ankh.

boomzilla

@dhromed said:

That looks like some kind of sci-fi ankh.

I prefer sci-fi morporks.

dhromed

I propose a large, red "N" below new users' avatars.

DrakeSmith

@dhromed said:

I propose a large, red "N" below new users' avatars.

Like a scarlet red color maybe?

cconroy

(recolor as necessary)

PJH

@cconroy said:

(recolor as necessary)

skotl

@dhromed said:

codinghorror said:
And it's unclear to me how you want to treat new users here. The usual derision and sneering?
==where the nested quote would be, if we had nested quotes==

...We don't do that.

Maybe you can dig up some dirt and I'll be like whoa but in my memory we've never stepped on someone for having a tiny post count. An e-nis, if you will.

Hey... did you note the unnested quotes?

Jeff - again! - you don't know the TDWTF forum otherwise you would know this does not happen here ("there"?), or so rarely that we don't remember it happening.

Perhaps you would save a lot of typing time if you simply responded "NO!" to every post? It amounts to the same thing.

Lorne Kates

@codinghorror said:

This is exactly what the light grey new username is designed to convey.

Lorne's Second Law of Web UI Design:
Colors are not a good, useful or adequate indicator of anything. Any information conveyed by colors or contrast will be lost.

First Corollary To Lorne's Second Law:
Users can and will override your colors by choice.

Second Corollary to Lorne's Second Law:
User's devices can and will override your colors, or be incapable of displaying those colors at significant contrast levels to be relevant.

Third Corollary to Lorne's Second Law:
10-20% of user's BIOLOGY can and will override your colors, or be incapable of recognizing those colors or contrasts. Excluding these users makes you an asshole.

Lorne's Third Law of Web UI Design:
Numbers and words are universally always better than colors and icons at conveying information, in every case, always, with no exceptions.

Corollary to Lorne's Third Law:
In the rare case there is an exception, you are wrong and need to redesign.

Second Corollary to Lorne's Third Law:
In the extremely rare case there is actually an exception, you must present both. Icons and colors alone will not convey your information.

Zecc

@Lorne_Kates said:

Icons and colors alone will not convey your information.

subscript_error

@PJH said:

cconroy said:
(recolor as necessary)

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

error

@PJH said:

@boomzilla said:
Indeed, it's quite possible to hit the ground running around here.

Really⸮ Can't say that I've noticed that happening...

What he means is, it's quite possible to get hit and start running (on the ground) around here.

darkmatter

@error said:

Indeed, it's quite possible to hit the ground running around here.

Necroing this topic at the Suggested Topics' suggestion to prove that I did not hit the ground running, it took 7 or so years to get the hang of things. It took some new awesomely disjointed forum software for me to feel comfortable enough to post more, assured that the Real WTF would be the forum and not me.

DrakeSmith

You forgot to mention @presidentsdaughter

darkmatter

You're right. I am still not running.
@presidentsdaughter c/o @the_dragon

the_dragon

@darkmatter said:

You're right. I am still not running.
@presidentsdaughter c/o @the_dragon

You can't have her. @faoileag tried, but fortunately, he only stole the android decoy. Now I've got to buy a new one. Time to go steal some more treasure.

Groaner

@codinghorror said:

Forum software is reviled and arguably dying. Institutionalized 1999 era bad decisions like these are a big reason why.

1999 is 15 years ago, which is a pretty long time for software. It could be argued that a system that can meet the requirements for that long is a good system.

@codinghorror said:

Agreed, so why have them at all?

It's an easily-digested metric of how established and credible the poster in question is. And when displayed beside their avatar, it doesn't require me to click their profile and then perform mental math on derived metrics
(likes per post? replies per post?) to hazard a guess at how credible that particular poster is (since we're not allowed to trust post counts because that metric can be gamed).

Other metrics can be gamed, too. The Likes thread is proof of that.

@codinghorror said:

Why give them a weapon, then?

It's only a weapon if the rest of the community lets it become one. People develop reputations, they make their bed, and they sleep in it.

@codinghorror said:

And it's unclear to me how you want to treat new users here. The usual derision and sneering? But without some influx of new users, eventually your community will die.

4chan's been around for quite a while, and they go out of their way to treat their new users like crap. We're positively cordial in comparison.

Communities can die for many reasons. Is it within the purview of the software architect to account for an Unreal Tournament clan from 2003 naturally dispersing as game servers go offline, its members age and they go their separate paths in life?

Heavyweights like @blakeyrat, @Lorne_Kates, @morbiuswilters, @moderator et al. add a certain personality, vim and vigor to the forums. While one could expect to have some ambient rate of attrition, when someone like that leaves or goes inactive, the forums become a much quieter place. Those are big shoes to fill.

darkmatter

@Groaner said:

Heavyweights like @blakeyrat, @Lorne_Kates, @morbiuswilters, @moderator

And whatever happened to @El_Heffe?

Arantor

Here's a thought... 1999 era design decisions for web based forums - in the likes of UBB et al - were originally replicating the much earlier design decisions of the original BBSes.

Thing is, you're not talking about 15 years of design decisions. You're talking about 30 years or more of design decisions split across different mediums with different UI paradigms where they're fitting the medium of the time; the same base format of having discussion areas that are split off, with discrete topics within isn't just a 15 year old paradigm. The only paradigm there that's 15 years old is putting it on to the web in a graphical user interface where mice were the predominant user interfacing tool.

We're still in that same age of graphical user interfaces with mouse interfacing - sure, we're going mobile with phones and tablets but for the most part you're just replacing an accurate pointing+clicking device with a less accurate one and with generally less options (people demanding fucking two-finger taps to get a right menu need to be shot), and applying a few similar but not identical UI conventions with others (click → tap, click+drag → swipe for example)

Things like post counts aren't suddenly broken. Yes, they provide a certain amount of fodder for narcissism. But there's plenty of other ways for narcissists to be all narcissistic in everyone's face without post count. And it can be a useful measure of establishment - someone with an obscenely high post count is often taken as a source of authority on a matter since people with obscenely high post counts don't usually make many many many many drivel posts without getting moderated to some degree anyway. Just my observation, anyway. (IOW: communities usually stamp on such people before they become a problem.)

end

@Arantor said:

someone with an obscenely high post count is often taken as a source of authority

Someone with an extremely high post count has a lot of time on their hands. That's the opposite of expertise, unless they're retired.

Authorities also don't generally need to post 10 or 100 times to communicate effectively, do they?

@Groaner said:

Other metrics can be gamed, too. The Likes thread is proof of that.

It's proof that you have moderators here who are willing to increase the daily like limit to absurdly high levels, presumably for testing in that topic, I guess.