Can those changes be written on the badges too, or are these descriptions from the discussions platform provider?
That’s my last question for today, I need to go.
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My badges. 
I guess they’re a fun little feature to have. 
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I was granted the “Regular” badge not too long ago, but I didn’t see the point of using it as a “title,” either. And now I don’t see the “Regular” badge on my profile anymore. I guess they took it away?
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Among volunteers who get no pay, how does anyone become “staff”? Seems to me that puzzlement about the Lounge and who uses it t is due to a lack of knowledge about how things work. But there are apparently no old-timers who know?
And if nobody is certain about Discourse, why not explore the Discourse.org website and find out what potential it has?
The “About” page says,
Discourse is a from-scratch reboot, an attempt to reimagine what a modern Internet discussion forum should be today , in a world of ubiquitous smartphones, tablets, Facebook, and Twitter.
#### We’re civilized.
Our trust system means that the community builds a natural immune system to defend itself from trolls, bad actors, and spammers — and the most engaged forum members can assist in the governance of their community. We put a trash can on every street corner with a simple, low-friction flagging system. Positive behaviors are encouraged through likes and badges. We gently, constantly educate members in a just-in-time manner on the universal rules of civilized discourse.
#### Uncompromisingly open source.
There is only one version of Discourse – the awesome open source version . There’s no super secret special paid commercial version with better or more complete features. Because Discourse is 100% open source forum software, now and forever, it belongs to you as much as it belongs to us. That’s how community works.
Everything that most communities would want is included out of the box; a giant collection of complex plugins should not be required to have a great experience.
#### Simple. Modern. Fun.
Discourse pares all the complexity away and puts just the essential stuff on screen – the conversations you care most about, based on your participation.
All the modern amenities you’d expect from a big social website like Twitter or Facebook are present in Discourse. Mention someone by @name. Paste in a link or an image, and we make it awesome on your behalf. Simple quoting and linking of replies and topics. Reply wherever you are, online or via email.
And it “just works” on your phone and tablet.
And why not find out who chose the Discourse platform, decided on what options, and customized it for Viki? And discuss with that person (or those persons) what is currently working on the Viki discussion board and what is not working . . .
I personally think that whoever set up Discourse for Viki was a competent IT person following instructions that said, “We want these options.” However that person was given no guidance as to how things should look. Competent IT person does not necessarily equal competent Web designer.
The Web designer is usually the one who has an elegant, simple idea of how the various bits and pieces of a website should work, how they should connect to each other, and how users should be able to navigate those bits and pieces.
An industry standard used to be that a well-put-together website is one on which a user can generally get from where he/she is to where he/she wants to be in three clicks. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the discussion board.
And personally, I find the visuals for the discussion board very distracting. Waaaay too much white space swamps small text. Readers have to scroll and scroll and scroll through messages to find what they are looking for.
There is a feature that puts responses a post on a separate small screen from the post itself. That covers up some of the posts under a particular topic. It also makes it possible to click away from a post before being able to reply. Of course, if I hit reply, I will find the reply under the post I am replying to, but it can take a bit of searching.
The discussion board has a lot of layers that are hard to navigate. The actual “drama pages” are a model of easy reading, good use of fonts and “white space,” simple click-tos and click-backs and what not.
The mindset with the discussion board seems to be that everybody has to be able to do everything and discuss everything and nobody can be denied what they want to do or say. There are no is no mechanisms for suggesting changes that would be really helpful, no help desk, no web master to oversee really big changes, no volunteer team to routinely review the discussion board’s activities and determine how to make it more readable and easy to navigate.
Seems to me that, if a few of the big puzzles and frustrations of the discussion board get addressed, then a few of the little puzzles and frustrations would disappear.
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When I click at your avatar, I see this,
It says, you’re a member.
When I joined Discussions, I got a message from Discourse Bot saying I am promoted to Basic level and it also provided me this link.
https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-trust-levels/
Maybe, it can help figuring out different trust levels.
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Sorry, I had to laugh at that. Bitterly. When did our suggestions about anything get listened to and given any heed? And I’m talking of very important things, features to help make our actual volunteering jobs easier and more streamlined. Has Viki done anything about that disgraceful messaging system with no folders, no search and no address book, or about the Project finder and Volunteer Finder?
We’re not talking aesthetics here (not that I don’t care about them), but about essential functionality.
Greeks have an expression “To write someone on their old shoes”, That’s the polite version. The normal version is to write someone on their (pair of manly attributes).
They both mean caring for someone/someone’s words as much as for a dog barking on the street, or a piece of 
talking.
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Hi @jeslynl
Can you explain this?
I mean the conversations we have privately on discussions are having views can moderators I mean can staff see them ?
If it is between 2 ppl the view count should be 2 why is it 13 ?
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Maybe because that’s the total number of times both of you have opened that message?
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Then that should be less than that.
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That’s exactly what I’m saying. I was given the Regular status a few months ago for some reason, and then it went back down to Member a couple months later. I really don’t care what level I am at. It’s just strange that it kept changing. That’s all.
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I think, not that I know, that it is kind of like the QC, if a certain amount of time is spent, you will get the higher level, if you don’t it will get taken away again, but what the parameters exactly are … I can’t even guess.
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Well this happened to me once and Mariliam said this is only good for certain time, so if you don’t continue regularly visiting, replying and reading topics I believe it’s during 100 days cycle computation so you can loose your “Trust Level” in this case the “Regular”.
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That link is informative, looking at that I don’t think I’ll ever get past Basic, I’m too choosy about the topics I visit, I doubt I get close to visiting 25% of new topics.
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Trust Level 3 – Regular
Regulars are the backbone of your community, the most active readers and reliable contributors over a period of months, even years. Because they’re always around, they can be further trusted to help tidy up and organize the community.
To get to trust level 3, in the last 100 days…
- Must have visited at least 50% of days
- Must have replied to at least 10 different non-PM topics
- Of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 25% (capped at 500)
- Of posts created in the last 100 days, must have read 25% (capped at 20k)
- Must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes.*
- Must not have received more than 5 spam or offensive flags (with unique posts and unique users for each, confirmed by a moderator)
- Must not have been suspended or silenced in the last 6 months
* These likes must be across a minimum number of different users (1/5 the number), across a minimum number of different days (1/4 the number). Likes cannot be from PMs.
All of the above criteria must be true to achieve trust level 3. Furthermore, unlike other trust levels, you can lose trust level 3 status . If you dip below these requirements in the last 100 days, you will be demoted back to Member. However, in order to avoid constant promotion/demotion situations, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining Trust Level 3 during which you will not be demoted.
Some of us are doomed never to reach Regular status. I tend to interact in spurts, other times I just read a few post but not add to the topic. If only they had a Regular stalker badge…
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Just because of one #%%$##@#@!!! drama queen user.
Anyway… Since you decided that, tell someone to correct the description of Regular as well so that it doesn’t include features that are no longer there.
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You are too funny 
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Ah, yes, bitter laughter. What intelligent and conscientious person has not laughed in that way?
When I worked in the Parking Bureau for the City of Rochester, NY, I spent a lot of time bitterly laughing about a suggestion I kept making over and over for three years.
We used a carbonless three-part form that had one white page, one yellow page, and one pink page. Under certain circumstances, customers needed to come in and get a copy of the form to prove to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles that they had no outstanding parking tickets.
I was one of the clerks who checked to make sure a customer who needed the form had no outstanding parking tickets. I would then use a twenty-five year old Selectric brand typewriter to enter certain information on that form. I would then take it to another office within the Parking Bureau.
A clerk in that office would give the waiting customer the white and pink pages of the form. (The white page was for the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the yellow page was for the customer.) The pink page went into a file.
Everybody in the office HATED the three-part form and the typewriter because it made a complicated procedure more complicated and wasted so much time. I called the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles and found out that, as long as we had a form that contained all the same text and looked like the 3-part form in shape and size, we could use a computerized version.
I told this to my supervisor, a nice woman, who said I would have to check with the cash office supervisor, who said that I would have to get it approved by his supervisor . . . who was a very nice, reasonable woman, but she was never in the office when I was.
Because I am dyslexic and have never typed on a typewriter more than 40 words per minute on a good day, dealing with “the form” meant that I always got the most dog poop dumped on me. So, I kept reminding people that things could be done more efficiently, but at the time I left that dysfunctional office, the form was still an unresolved issue.
My perspective on these things comes from the fact that I started college as a painting and print-making major, changed to English lit, suffered through English lit in grad school (because of some really mysoginistic professors), and had that perspective was still alive and kicking when I finally got a “real job” after graduation.
Virtual communication is of course technically more complicated than real-time communication, but it does not have to be rocket science, especially if the supposed view of Viki money-makers is that they want to make the community a “happy and safe place for users and subscribers.”
The subbers need to adopt me as their honorary helmoi/nainai/obachan. I am pretty sure I can give some suggestions about how to politely, deferentially, thoroughly (and virtually) slam a few people on the shoulder until their arms fall off and lie quivering like fresh blood sausages.
If I include my tenure as a City of Rochester NY worker bee, I probably have 35 years’ experience in graphic design, writing, editing, proofreading, and troublemaking.
Currently I am the assistant to the head of THIS group that has been making its mark since the start of this year in my city, especially regarding AAPI violence. I’m doing his speeches, designing brochures and fliers, sending emails to people.
I like to think my spirit animal is a Rottweiler. Tough as a pitt bull terrier, but deceptively mild-mannered . . . until someone does something stupid.
(YouTube)
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I’d win that one!!! Discussion Stalker
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How about . . . a “Dear Stalker” badge? A play on the word “deerstalker,” the type of hat Sherlock Holmes wore when he and Dr. Watson were out in the field.
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