About the New Blog Update
First published: Thursday October 14th, 2021
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Context
Yesterday, on Oct. 13, Stewart posted a blog about a new update to blogs (Link). It had three major changes. The first was a change in requirements to post blogs. Now, users must be at least level 40, and also must have been on the site for at least 6 months. The second allows users to disable comments on their content, and the third clamps down on toxicity on the site by banning users who spread hate.
Blog Requirements
For me, I am lucky to be able to avoid this. When I read the blog by Stewart, my first thought was "Wait, I might not be able to post blogs anymore" which is pretty bad for me, since I was planning on releasing a new blog soon. Fortunately, I've been on the site longer than I expected, at 8 months, and I am level 58, allowing me to still post blogs.
However, this isn't that good for other users. The example I am going to use is MiecraftMan. I'm sure a lot of you reading this blog knows about him, since he (pretty sure it's a he, given the "Man") regularly posts blogs. In addition, he is level 52, well above the 40 level minimum. However, he has been on the site for only 4 months, meaning he has to wait another 2 months to be able to post blogs again. I am going to assume that he was planning on continuing to post blogs, since he's been posting them regularly since August (if you want to correct me, MiecraftMan, please comment on that). He also does not post spammy blogs, and they often are quite interesting.
I am aware that this restriction to blogging was created to reduce the number of "spam blogs", or low-quality blogs, and I can understand where it is coming from. My suggestion would be to get rid of the requirement to have been on the site for 6 months, but still keep the level 40 requirement. This is since level 40 is quite hard to get to, and one has to have stayed on the site for a while to have gotten to it anyways. To me, the time requirement seems sort of redundant, but Stewart, Quizmaster, if there was any other reason to include it, please express it in the comments.
Comment Disabling
I don't really have much to say about this. I think this is a good idea, especially if some of the more popular creators on the site don't want repeating comments saying "Good quiz" or "Good blog" filling up their notification box. It could also prevent comments that are rude or toxic. Of course, the downside of this would be that the creator doesn't get any feedback or suggestions, so if there were a mistake, that creator would never know.
I do have a question about this though. Say there was a blog with several comments on it, and the creator decided to disable comments without deleting the previous ones. Would the previous comments still be shown, or not?
Toxicity Bans
This one I agree with, of course, since toxicity should never be treated lightly, and spreading hate is never okay. However, I do hope that this ban is used unbiasedly, although it is hard to think of a possibility in which there is a hate comment that Quizmaster would choose not to ban the user who posted it based off of his own preferences.
My other worry is that this ban might branch off later on, and lead to greater and greater moderation of the site. As long as the bans only apply to users who are toxic, however, I am good with it.
Imo, though level 40 is pretty high for some, it is still fairly lenient. You have to grind about 180 featured quizzes from level 30, and most of that can be done by searching for flags, countries, cities, borders, etc. quizzes in the untaken section of the user stats page.
me willing to pay big money for a time machine;)
Also, level 40 users are more familiar with JetPunk itself, and so are more likely to be respectful of its community and to not commit toxic behaviour.
The 6 month requirement, while drastic, is absolutely necessary. It is already in place for user spotlight, and it makes sense here too. Why should a new user who been on the site 2 hours but grinded to level 40 be able to create blogs? It's a massive flaw that has allowed inexperienced users to create bad blogs and often cause problems. By forcing users to be on JetPunk 6 months we eliminate the alt problem and weed out the spam users who can't be bothered to wait that long.
I think your argument makes sense, and I agree that new users who are unfamiliar to Jetpunk, as well as users who simply spam blogs should be weeded out. However, I still think 6 months is a bit too long. Not sure how you did your calculations, but if we assume that a user aces every quiz they take (which is quite unlikely), and they take an average of 4 minutes each quiz, I found that it would take a little over 10 and a half hours to get to level 30. Using the same calculations, it would take a little over 22 and a half hours to get to level 40.
Assuming the user spends 4 hours on Jetpunk per day, which is quite a lot, it would take 5 and a half straight days of grinding to get to level 40. I'm pretty sure any new user wouldn't do that, but let's assume that's what happened, and they are very dedicated to Jetpunk.
I would...
That brings me to the 6-month requirement. Yes, I now see that it is probably good to have a time requirement to post blogs. However, I still do think 6-months is a bit drastic. Even before the update, spammy or low-quality blogs weren’t that common in the RUB, and in those that were, other bloggers were quick to correct them.
The half a year wait to be able to post blogs, I think, could easily be overcome if the spammer in question simply moved to other blog sites to spam blogs, and then returned 6 months later to do the same here. However, like I said, I now do think a time requirement is...
Ultimately, though, it is not up to me to choose what happens here on Jetpunk; that would be for you and QM to decide. I can respect the new requirements that you made, and I also understand why you made them. My blog above was simply stating my opinion and suggestions, but I was also fully aware that you were not likely to change the requirements. That is okay. Thanks for the feedback, Stewart, and I look forward to more updates for Jetpunk in the future.
its much easier for you to meet the requirements than me