The higher the Trust Level, also means the higher the responsibility. I’m not that used to how Discourse works, either, but this seems a good compromise between some enthusiastic members getting (understandably) frustrated and the Mods having to remove a mountain of junk (which I’ve experienced in the past).
If you contribute, you will likely get noticed. If you demand promotion, that might not be such a good option for your cause …
I am 66 years old so you cannot feed me a line of bull. Now I really hate debating with anyone especially someone that has no idea of what he speaks. Peace 
Temporarily closed to let folks step away and cool down. If folks are so eager to earn their keep, find a #support post that needs an answer, maybe. 
This:
Plastered with emoticons I agree with, but showing emotion on a forum is a useful thing and should not be dismissed as trivial or unnecessary. Perhaps a little notice on how to responsibly use emoticons might be helpful?
I understand the forum is primarily technical but it is good to remember that part of Manjaro’s good reputation comes not just from the excellence of the distribution but also from the friendliness and humanity of it’s forum. Just a thought… 
Stuff like this is starting to get quite irritating because people can’t post links:
Ref this post forum dot manjaro dot org/t/package-conflicts/20004/2
Seems to me that this whole trust level thing is akin to assuming ‘guilty until proven innocent’. Let people post what they need to, and trust the mods to take down any spam. That’s part of what they’re there for and who cares if there’s some spam for an hour or two until they get around to dealing with it?
Let’s remember these moderators are volunteers, and those from the Manjaro Team who intervene are only doing so when they are not busy working on the distribution itself. The forum is important but without a distro there would be no forum.
Things do seem a bit “tight” at the moment but this forum is gradually rebuilding to it’s former self. I think that the team and the forum users both need to listen to each other and hopefully that is what’s happening. Guilty until proven innocent seems a bit harsh. Give it time. Rome (Manjaro) wasn’t (re) built in a day.
Thank you for your trust. 
However, as already discussed that would be…
@wordler They just need to provide the permissions as stated in the forum documentation. Then things would settle down. Also it is up to the forum staff if they want to be formum mods or whatever. So quit crying about how overworked they are. They signed up for it. And I have been on these multiple boards of Manjaro since 2011, haven’t seen quit the issues they created for themselves by not providing proper forum backups. What kind of organization is this. At this moment it seems to be pretty Micky mouse. Another question is what’s you story, are you plugging the forum staff to get in good so you can be a moderator or something, never seen you here before. Only answer what you are comfortable with I wouldn’t want anyone to think or accuse me of starting an argument. It is strictly up to you. Good luck with whatever interests you have.
Agreed. On a former Forum I was probably dealing with several thousand spam posts/ spambots etc. per year (dozens per day) (in my case night, as I’m mostly nocturnal). That was just me & there were dozens of others presumably doing the same thing.
Edited as I missed a bit! …distracted by the PSU lead going up in smoke …
Ultimately the manjaro team could go one of two ways with their forums.
would be to open it up and have the forums filled with spam / trolling / misinformation / etc… essentially destroying the high quality that people have come to appreciate, use and rely on. Saying that the mods should just deal with it is completely unrealistic. Even if they were paid and doing this as a full time job there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day to police the forums like that, and to say that they are volunteers so they can just deal with it shows just how little the understanding of how lucky we are to have the incredible volunteers that we have. Dumping this kind of thing on them would ultimately mean not having those volunteers and then the forums would quickly become a mess. Also by not having the gating in place any attempt of the volunteers to stay ahead of it would be futile because banning a user would just mean that the malicious person would simply just have to create a new account and start the spam / etc all over again.
Go with the way it is. This way we have forums that aren’t filled with spam / junk / misinformation / trolling etc… The cost of that is it takes a week or two before someone can post links in a message. People have posted in this forum several work-a-rounds to post a link (sure you can’t click them or have them partially expanded but if the link is truly that critical people can cut and paste your modified url into their browser (sure it will take 3 extra mouse clicks and touching your keyboard to remove a space or 2 from the url but your link would be there and the message would get across). Not to mention in a week or two when you have the ability you could go back and edit your original post if you feel that strongly about it having a proper link in it (however I’ve be willing to bet that while people whine about it they really don’t care enough to go back in a week and update their posts which just further illustrates that the links where probably not necessary to begin with).
Exactly. Being a Moderator pretty much IS a full-time job, often on top of a paid job. A LOT of responsibility and commitment required, on a voluntary basis. Most never become aware of this.
@cbDejaVu I believe in the good in people, yes there are a few who get carried away. But it is of my opinion that most users are sensible, nondestructive, rational human being,s. Sorry to hear you you feel differently. And yes the forum staff apparently are not payed, but it was there idea to take on the responsibility in the first place. Not easy but those are the the breaks. They can always step down if it becomes to harsh on them. I have been around the Manjaro forums since they began and quite honestly am tired of hearing how hard it is on staff.
And so to let you know: I believe in free speech as long as it does not impinge on another’s values. Good luck with anything that interests you!
Trouble is, not all are people. Some of these “spambots” are becoming quite effective at making a post which does look rather like it came from a Human Being.
The guard really can’t be dropped, especially as we go forward with “AI” and suchlike.
I’m also pretty sure that there are people being paid to put spam on forums. But I haven’t seen so much spam on this forum, so I guess the rules (and/or mods) are effective.
For your information I have been using Manjaro since 2013 and have been on the various forums for just as long. I reached the new “Trust Level 2/Member” the other day. It took me about 2 weeks and yes, it was very frustrating not being able to post links. I felt like my hands were tied and I didn’t like it at all
But 2 weeks of moderate forum use? C’mon, it’s not long in the scale of life really. As for my intentions, no I’ve no interest in becoming a moderator. I’ve been one before on a forum that dealt with outdoor pursuits (hiking, backpacking etc) and it was ok but it takes up a lot of time. That forum was pretty easy going as people just wanted to mention what they’d been up to mainly. This forum is friendly but people like to voice their opinions more so moderating must be harder. I think I’m too opinionated for the task and I don’t have the time either.
All I was talking about was the need for a bit of calm and patience on the users side and the need to listen to the users on the Manjaro team side. I know, that sounds like moderation in itself! 
I only once saw a suspicious post in the previous forum. Someone decided to start a topic that was promoting anti-vaxxer conspiracies. Nothing to do with Manjaro, Linux or computers. The mods took it down quite quickly.
It all starts again from the beginning. Dictatorial, like the old days here. And the funny thing is: linux-aarhus knows how to be more user friendly (from another forum ). Block me if you don’t like my statement, but you know it is so.
Was this really the way the old forum was set up? I don’t quite remember seeing any posts where people where using formatting such as forum[dot]manjaro[dot]org or some nonsense like that.
In fact, a quick perusal of the old forum, I found this thread where it seems like a brand new user was able to post a picture:
And this one where a seemingly new user posted a link:
So excuse my doubt that the forums would be a swamp of spam if it weren’t for these safeguards. Also, isn’t that what the “Flag” feature is for - so that people can help to notify mods of potential spam? Also, I find it hard to believe that in 2020, this is the only solution. Like as if email verification, captcha, and other technologies don’t exist to combat this sort of thing.