To begin with, there is a conflict of the definitions of trust levels. The description of the “Lounge” category states : “An exclusive place for general discussion and ideas. Open to members with trust level 1 and higher.” Yet, the actual definitions of trust levels state that the Lounge is only available to trust level 4. Looking at the number of users who have attained trust level 4 and even 3, these are pretty few! No surprise then that there’s hardly any traffic in this category. The old Cafe forum used to have more posts in a few days than the Lounge has had so far. The former used to be a very lively place and didn’t have any such restrictions, nor did it need any.
There are e.g. a few topics I could post but they are not appropriate/relevant anywhere but the lounge.
The current trust levels are far too rigid and, for levels 3 and 4, far too demanding. They are really just not fit for purpose it seems to me.
I miss the old forums badly, I have to confess. Overall, they used to be a much busier place, and the structure was far superior too.
On the other hand, I have to admit that Discourse has become almost as friendly a place as the old forums, and it’s also good to see a number of the old moderators here. But overall it seems to me that many old forum members have not come along to Discourse. Which is regrettable I guess, because one of the things they’re missing out on is the frequent interaction with Canonicallers, something we didn’t have in the old forums.
@guiverc - I saw this in a long post on all the requirements for each trust level and what becomes available with each. Regrettably, I can’t remember where this post was located or its title but I would assume that maybe it was an out of date post? Also, the Lounge still doesn’t allow me to create new posts although I’m level 2. Well I’m blowed - now it does!
Blog Discourse: Upon transition to trust level 3, users are sent a longer form PM describing their new abilities and inviting them to the lounge category to meet their fellow TL3 community members. This PM also links here to this blog post.
Each site will have its own standards and rules they define for themselves, and if we have something that needs correcting, I’d love to correct it. Generic software defaults however as listed on sites like that won’t of course always apply to any site using Discourse software, unless they left the software at its defaults.
Glad it works now… I won’t explore your problem, but if you do have problem, you can ask again.
Hello werewulf75, we are glad you are here. What happens when you try to post in the lounge is the button missing or do you receive an error message?
You should be able to post in the lounge and we lowered the trust level to 1 so almost everyone can use it shortly after registration.
As for the cafe being real busy on the forums it had not been that busy for a long time at least not what I was use calling busy because I had been with the forum for 18 years so we may look at it differently depending when you joined the forum.
From a moderator point of view we had a bad spam issue which we spent a lot of time removing.
Here on discourse we can not set spam filters for individual categories but the trust level being adjusted to 1 is the best compromise we can do to let users be able to post in the lounge shortly after joining.
We have done a lot of work to make things easier and friendly here and we still have meetings every two weeks to discuss how to continue to make things better and easier so if you have suggestions please let us know and if we can do it we probably will because we may have not thought of something yet because it’s a big undertaking revamping discourse for support.
You may have just reached trust level 1 when you checked and the server needed a minute to catch up.
The platform here is much more secure and stable and the old forum got to a point it was not secure enough and couldn’t be maintained it was dying and we had endless discussions on what to do about it and what platform to go to and we all worked hard to make it happen.
The moderators here were awesome helping us learn our way around here, the Community Council supported us all the way and we have had great help and support from the community team that is employed by Canonical.
It is much better here it just takes time to learn the platform. We have devs and Canonical employees here is which is great, many answer questions when they have time and being here we are more up to date on what is going on in the community.
Support belonged here all along in my opinion because it is great to bring us all together under one platform that is much newer and better maintained.
@guiverc - I’m beginning to think that the browser didn’t display the Lounge fully as now I see one heck of a lot more posts also! And you’re right, it was " Understanding Discourse Trust Levels" that I’d read. Oh well, all’s well that ends well I guess. No problems then. I’ve been on Ubuntu Discourse since middle of '24. It’s certainly turned into a much better place than I anticipated when the announcement came in the old forums that they would be discontinued in favour of moving here. It’s just a matter of getting used to the different format I guess. This Discourse has become every bit as friendly a place as the old forums really.
Hello @Wild_Man, been here since middle of last year already and got to TL1 on day 1, and just didn’t like the format really, but getting used to it and it’s certainly turned out far better than I would have anticipated when the move from the old forums was first announced. Become very friendly, too. I think I might have had a browser problem in that it wasn’t displaying the Lounge fully and properly. I now see a whole lot more posts and the new topic button is there and functional, so no more problems.
That’s also why I thought the Lounge was less busy than our old Cafe. I’d been occasionally lurking in the old forums for a long time years (too busy to join, alas!) before finally joining sometime around 23 or early 24.
Yes, I used to note that there was quite a bit of spam but you mods and admins got on to it pretty swiftly. (ISTR spammers/spam bots used to get send to Jail?)
Off the top of my head I’m afraid I can’t really think of any specific improvement suggestions, but I’ll post if and when anything comes to mind. I think all in all you all have done a remarkable job already.
Was absent due to health issues since end of last year till recently, but shall try and be more active from now on as and when time permits. (Still fairly busy modding 2 private forums, admining 1, plus doing a lot of Linux/Ubuntu and privacy software advocacy.)
Thank you very much for your reply and all the detailed info and insights…
Oh well, all’s well that ends well I guess.