This site has a nice crew who are open to suggestions, which is vital for any site to be good. Here are some suggestions to make the site more member-friendly and encourage active members to contribute more by simply allowing them to do so.


The 7 Days Rule:

Lets first think, why is it needed? One thing that comes to mind is to prevent spamming and advertising. Does it do the job? To a certain degree it does, simply because most of these spammers and advertisers register to make one thread to say what they want and/or post a link, then forget about this site. I will address this point later to see how good this system actually is against spammers.

However, as effective as it seems, this method is also a hindrance to new members who look forward to contribute in making D2P a better place. So, what is the solution? You might wonder. To answer that let's look at the dota site with the biggest internet traffic: PlayDota, and see what they did. Does that site have a "7 Days Rule" ? No. Then how does it protect itself against spams and advertisements? One word, moderation. PlayDota has an excellent moderation system. You might think that they have a huge moderator base, but if you compare moderators to members ratio in that site to the ratio of moderators to members here, you would see that the ratio in D2P is tremendously bigger. That tells me that if moderators there could manage such a huge member base, then moderators here should be able to do the same.

Furthermore, while this system does protect against outside linking, it is still vulnerable to spamming threads. What if a spammer didn't post a link but instead made a thread? the 7 days rule wont stop him, but moderation will. So why rely on a rule that does half the job and hinders members while doing so in the first place?

News Section:

Why not allow regular members to post news? A valid argument would be news will show up on the main page and you wouldn't want garbage to be in the front page. To that, argument would be: but why do all news go to the main page in the first place?

Instead, I suggest allowing members to post in the news section and restricting news that get transferred to the main page. In other words, only if a moderator approves that this said thread is worthy of being a main page material does the said thread put there. In fact, this will make things easier for moderators because they wouldn't have to go through the pain of writing and reformatting a whole article when somebody is already willing to do so. Furthermore, it will allow news to reach D2P's main page faster, which will make the site more important to those looking for new dota news.


Lastly, I want to mention that whatever criticism I posted in this thread is only a mere advice aimed to make this site a better place and is by no means meant to offend anyone who put the efforts and thoughts into making the current system. Remember, no matter how good your system is, there's always room for improvement.

itsmee.

Ty for your detailed feedback. +rep for it. So, let's start.

1. This 7 days rule was implemented few weeks ago, after killing sprees of random advertising. Mostly HoN ads. After this system, those posts dropped by 60-70%, so it does really good job. I am aware that members like you are here to contribute to global well being, but i really have to keep this system. Think of those 7 days as some kind of test period before you get full membership status

2. Ok, this is really relative, like your first suggestion, and of course, like anything. Topics made in that section go to our home page, which is literally viewed tens of thousands times every day. So, that's the only reason why i wan't to have at least some control over it. So, imagine next thing > if i remove that block, some random troll can easily come, register in few mins, and rape our section there with useless info. Those things happened here, so we agreed to put that kind of blockade. But if you really have some cool info to share, you can always contact any of glob mods, and of course me, who will then publish it.

Very good feedback let me start
1. If anyone wants to post links they just type it a bit wrong like with space and after a mod(mostly me) turns it into a valid link.
So this can stay for a while.
2. If feedback couldn't have it's own section then why would news have a section for new members to write in and another where goes to main page it's easier to just let mods and forum councilors to do it instead of deleting tons of threads ruining the portal and maybe deleting some good posts in it so we made it how it is now. Maybe will get changed maybe it wont.

cool feedback, all necessary for improvement of the portal, but IMO the only ones who have power here are the Global mods and the admin themselves, we Forum Councilors can only have power over those non-dota-related sections of this portal.

by the way, Avalon, I think its time again to promote members to power as we are becoming larger and larger for maximum contribution for this site

@Avalon:
1- If this rule helped decreasing spam and ads by 60-70% then I have no complains, its doing its job.

2- I understand but why let all news in the front page in the first place? select the ones you approve and problem is solved.
btw thnx for the rep

@banebu:
1- yea I already did that when I linked the interview that's currently in the front page. used "dot" instead of "."

2- Easier doesn't mean better. We have many moderators and I have faith that they can handle a news section, especially since news don't come as often as other forum materials. don't be lazy ;)

Spades wrote:

cool feedback, all necessary for improvement of the portal, but IMO the only ones who have power here are the Global mods and the admin themselves, we Forum Councilors can only have power over those non-dota-related sections of this portal.

That means even fewer members than I thought have access to the News Section.

Nice feedback, you deserve a rep XD

Now my comments:
So that is why the forum is inactive. Any techies here though? Would really like other ideas than the 7day link restriction rule. True it is a very good job(this system) but this is very restrictive and hindering for those who don't know how to bypass it. So yeah brainstorm your ideas and post it here. Discuss and have unanimous votes?

My Idea:
Why not try giving the rights(for links only) to those who have a +1 rep? Those who introduce themselves will have the right to add links into the forum and gain a +1 rep. Surely I think it is a better system than the 7day link restriction rule. + only spammers log in and post links, they hardly ever ever ever get to introduce themselves...

Those however who want to contribute for news have to gain a little bit more rep(i.e. 5 or 8?) and it can be gained by sending information that is useful to our community to the mods. The mods will pump their reps after a number of contributions and they are free to post their news.

Gotta make a use for every system we have here, rep and others.

Sry, but 7 days restriction will and must remain. But yeah, i see what you r up to. I was thinking about creating additional group called Senior Members. Members of that group will be able to post links and open new topics in news section, once me, or any glob moderator accepts him in group.

Avalon wrote:

Sry, but 7 days restriction will and must remain. But yeah, i see what you r up to. I was thinking about creating additional group called Senior Members. Members of that group will be able to post links and open new topics in news section, once me, or any glob moderator accepts him in group.

Group accept-ion will be a much better option than 7 days restriction. One has to contribute to post links. Or at least behave for a certain amount of time. As you can see the 7 days restriction is by passable with simple methods. Where as this, in my opinion, is impassable unless hacked.

Avalon, can you lend the FC's more power like closing,locking,moving threads in some other sections? rather than the tavern and forum games, maybe "Questions & Discussions" Section? becoz of the current style we have, we totally look like random talk section mods

@GoSuJinz: Thak you, the whole point of this thread is to start such a constructive discussion.

@GoSuJinZ

Think there for a sec. Members will still be able to post links if not included in Senior Member group, over those ways you mentioned. Members of Senior Member group will have access to opening new topics in dota 2 news section, nothing more. I might disable this system for one period, just to see will we have advertisements again, nothing more.

@Spades

I will think about your props.

at last my proposal has been taken!

Spades wrote:

at last my proposal has been taken!

Good job with your persistence bro.

Avalon wrote:

Think there for a sec. Members will still be able to post links if not included in Senior Member group, over those ways you mentioned.

I'm not sure who is misunderstanding who but I think we are going different ways?(Of course I am no techie and I apologize if I am the one that is misunderstanding)
Do you mean there is no way for a person of ranks below a certain reputation or certain group to be restricted from posting any links? If it's not then why not?
True it may still be passable but it gives more ease and freedom for those who want to contribute early and grab their opportunities isn't it? Plus, it gives more confidence for people to access links. Links that are not hyperlinked are considered spam or viral or bad in a sense(as an example not a 100% applicable thing) while those that are hyperlinked(normally given by those which already has the rights) are considered more relevant and for the good[again not 100% applicable but at least better IMO]

GoSuJinZ wrote:

Nice feedback, you deserve a rep XD
My Idea:
Why not try giving the rights(for links only) to those who have a +1 rep? Those who introduce themselves will have the right to add links into the forum and gain a +1 rep. Surely I think it is a better system than the 7day link restriction rule. + only spammers log in and post links, they hardly ever ever ever get to introduce themselves...

Those however who want to contribute for news have to gain a little bit more rep(i.e. 5 or 8?) and it can be gained by sending information that is useful to our community to the mods. The mods will pump their reps after a number of contributions and they are free to post their news.

Gotta make a use for every system we have here, rep and others.

Ok this is not the worst idea but it's not the best cause you can get rep for various stuff and random talk so I do not agree with it.

Avalon wrote:

Sry, but 7 days restriction will and must remain. But yeah, i see what you r up to. I was thinking about creating additional group called Senior Members. Members of that group will be able to post links and open new topics in news section, once me, or any glob moderator accepts him in group.

This Senior Member is a good idea. Very well thought

thanks Gosu

On-topic: let's see what will happen with the 1-month non-7 day link posting issue, with that away, our growth percentage will go to bigger number, there are also advertisers who just want to show their love upon an object (unless it is total non-sense anyway, like HoN members coming here advertising their game, [i mean seriously, why would you advertise in a forum of an another game that is in thesame genre and style? its like a running politician advertising himself infront of it's rival poilitician's house :/] ) by No means, let them advertise something useful for the portal, members or anything useful for our daily lives, and just delete all advertisement posts that offend the portal and its members

So, as said in portal chnges topic, i have removed that 7 days system. Not for good of course, only for 1 month. And yeah, there is no way to create what you want. So, from now on, all new members will be able to post links, but to make some balance, i have given special rights to members of FC, so they are able to delete and remove any kind of advert. topic.

IMO, this will work very well.

Lets hope it will and get us more active members because our staff member ratio is way to high

Only Glob Mods are full staff. Other groups are here to kinda help out mods and me.

Let me rephrase. Our mod member ratio is high

expect us to help sir ;)

also avalon, by what means necessary, you could promote 2-5 active members to FC, so there would be much help to us old FC's and from us for you Gm's, coz I noticed lots of FC's are inactive nowaMONTHS.

Send me a pm of new members of FC. Then we will contact those members.

thinking hard, ._. , it's hard to think coz this 2 weeks this site kinda gone for a sub-inactive state..... which means none has been active for the past 2 weeks (except for banebu for the matter)

What is FC if I may ask?

Forum Councilors, they are below Global Moderator rank but Higher than a regular member, have less power than a Global Mod, have the most minimum Moderator power out here