LOL thanks for the compliment, but I don't agree, there's many quality posters around and many more that will still keep joining. I was a noob when I joined this community, and after many years I feel I was able to contribute with what I learned and my own experiments. Some of the people we are welcoming now will be the ones innovating and bringing the nexus to the next stage in the future.

As for some of those links being in the past, that doesn't mean plenty of research isn't being done now. There are a lot of things in the background though, waiting for some completion so that they can be posted. I know of people researching in very interesting things at the moment, like different mushroom growing techniques, iboga hydroponics, novel plants being explored. I also have a few aces up my sleeve to be presented this year. Just gotta be patient

By the way also several older members have started re-appearing slowly. The nexus always had it's different phases, sometimes its slower, sometimes it explodes in novelty.

As for welcoming new members, I think the norm is not that people stay years in nursery, that is a few unlucky people that didn't get noticed or something of the sort. Many more people are noticed and voted and become full members within a month or so of joining.

Also I'm not sure in practice what is the difference between voting for a person or voting for the essay ? It would still require people voting, so its the same, no?

As for more active mods, in that sense I think I agree with you, I'd like to see another new mod or two to help out.

Anyways gotta run, thanks for the suggestions and thinking about how to improve the forum, everybody?

my first ten posts to this forum were all tongue in cheek and I never had any expectation of being promoted. I figured there was enough people trying to make themselves heard as it was and I'd already reaped the benefits of this marvelous place before I'd gone to sign up and, well, essentially troll the new members forums.. heheheh. and then I was promoted.. woops!

my rubric, in terms of publicly approving new members, are in all likelihood 9 times out of 10, the same as anybody else. as when there is an amiability in the writing of a prospective member everyone will recognize it in some fashion. or at least everyone from a certain, basic reading comprehension upwards. I don't see any need to elaborate beyond that.

honestly, I think it's very clear that the system we have now has withstood the test of time and the collective efforts from it's core member-base, enough to say that it probably does not need any further tweaking. and, by the way since it was mentioned above, I'm very glad for the absence of a post rating system here. We are about knowledge which is not quantifiable, and the things said in themselves should never officially amount to anything more than nothing.

No offence taken, I appreciate a straight talker.

Very unfortunate indeed. I agree with you that a lot of these people are shy, but I also believe that a lot of these individuals don't feel like posting unless they have something they absolutely feel they can contribute too. Your suggestion would certainly help the situation.

I look forward to reading about these new areas of research when the time comes!

A statistic may shed some more light on this situation, I wonder what % of registered members make it to full member status. Being a moderator you may have access to find this behind the scenes. tbh I don't have a whole lot of faith in the democratic process once an organization becomes big enough. My suggestion about the essay was put in place to give individuals such as myself a shot at being a full member without having to jump through a bunch of hoops and otherwise act in a way that goes against how we approach living. Some of us aren't social butterflies and I feel that a lot of people make it to full member status by just being extremely active posters that have little substance in their posts. Just my 2 cents

I've gone through the initiation twice now. Once a few years ago before the voting system, then again this past fall with the voting system. I haven't voted on anyone else yet so I guess I don't know what my base motivation for voting would be. I can give my perspective from the new user though.

When I first joined, I knew pretty much nothing about DMT and I think most of my posts were questions and trying to help the many other newbies understand what we were trying to accomplish. Also, everything seemed undefined, 12/21/12 was around the corner, all kinds of interesting discussions to take part in. I think it was only 2-3 months and around 80 posts when I got my PM promotion from a1pha. It felt like it came at a very appropriate time, and it further encouraged me to stay part of the community.

Like a year later, I can't remember what forum it was in at the time, but there was one discussion that was quite controversial. Everyone was still respectful and intelligently weighing each other's thoughts, I remember it being a really interesting thread. I contributed a quote from Alan Watts suggesting that rocks were actually alive, just living out cycles that are too long to be appreciated. I don't remember the discussion getting aggressive and no one was asserting themselves factually, just entertaining ideas. But within a couple days of making that reply I had a PM from a1pha about my membership removed for not making the post in the "looking glass" forum.

I was very offended that whoever made that decision didn't just move the post, delete it, reply with a correction or warning, or anything. Wasn't even my thread and no one else replying was demoted. Was not warned or punished for any bad behavior previously. Not sure if a1pha personally made the decision or if he just sends the pm's, but it totally changed my impression of the nexus. I stopped visiting or contributing for over a year, mainly because I couldn't even post in relevant forums. Nexus seemed like it was too good for me.

There's a lot less discussions to take part in these days, and less to be debated upon, so I think there's more pressure to make higher quality, knowledgeable posts. I've since come back to the new voting system knowing that sustainable harvesting is one of the nexus' strongest new morals. I was pretty sure if I put in the effort on my plants and shared the process that it would earn my membership back. And it worked. So I guess that would be my base for promoting others - when they show that they're making personal effort to contribute and support the community, not just consume information here.

While trying to earn membership the 2nd time I noticed that it really sucks to not have it these days because you can't post in any of the good forums. Many times I had the exact answer to someone's question, just to realize I wasn't allowed to reply to them. Was frustrating at times because I could have much more quickly proven myself as a good member if I could have contributed to the threads that are blocked to seedlings. I personally wanted to get feedback on my plants but couldn't post in ethnobotanical garden. I still got attention and answers in the welcome discussion; but now that I've finally graduated and reposted my threads to the ethnobotanical forum, I feel like I'm getting even less feedback because the world is excluded from posting there. How many other people had the perfect answer to my questions just to realize they're excluded, y'know?

In retrospect, it took longer to get promoted through the voting system, but I feel like I deserve it this time and know that I've earned at least a few people's approval. One suggestion; allow the seedlings to see which of their posts have been voted on. Then they may learn as they go which posts are being acknowledged and how to continue posting. Maybe there should even be a down-voting system. That may make it even more clique-y and elitist, but feedback can be nice, and at least no one person can decide whether you do or don't belong.

I feel like a more thorough explanation of the layout is in order here.

We are currently pulsing the gates such that new members can only join on weekends. This makes it easier to fully orient the incoming members to the forum attitude and expectations.

Once a member joins they are sent an automatic welcome message that directs them to familiarize themselves with the attitude, faq, wiki, and general forum layout, explains where they can post, and encourages them to post an introduction. (IIRC, I haven't read it for a while).

Once a new member makes a post on the forum all full members, senior members, and mods can then vote at the top of that (or any) post for or against promotion to full membership. Full member votes are worth +/-10 points, senior member votes are worth +/-30 points, and mod votes are worth +/-1000 points, +100 points are necessary for promotion to full membership. An up vote from a mod is instantaneous promotion, a down vote is -1000 and generally means the only way a member will be promoted is by a mod.

Mods can override the voting system and promote and demote members at their discretion. This is pretty rare however and generally only done when someone makes an exceptional contribution or repeatedly demonstrates they are unable to meet the expectations for full membership in which case they will be put back in the welcome area till they can demonstrate they understand and can adhere to the expectations for full membership.

Our forum is constantly growing and we have a lot of new members joining all the time. Some jump right in and make their presence well known, others will join and never post (thus never be eligible for voting) or only make a handful of posts, and the majority will fall somewhere in between these two ends of the spectrum. Utilizing the old system in which mods were responsible for all promotions, a huge amount of good members were slipping through the cracks because the mods just couldn't keep up with every new member. This is why the voting system was implemented, so that every full member of the forum could assist with making sure good people don't fall through the cracks and that trolls and people that just aren't ready/willing to adhere to the membership expectations are restricted to a small portion of the forum where the mods can easily remove spam and keep tabs on their posting activities while still maintaining the integrity of the overall forum.

Generally, in my experience when someone ends up spending years in the welcome area it's because they initially make a bad impression and are down voted. Often times they will have a series of down votes from full/senior members and just haven't yet earned enough up votes to offset the initial down votes. Other times they will initially make a bad impression on a mod and get a mod down vote because the mod feels they are not yet ready for promotion. Generally the mod will attempt to go back and review and reverse the vote after a while, particularly if the member gets a lot of up votes from the community. Sometimes we forget however and this is one way that people fall through the cracks. If any new member has been in the welcome area for a considerable amount of time and is wondering what is up, feel free to pm myself or any of the mod team to review your status. Likewise, if any full/senior member sees someone they think should have been promoted long ago and may have fallen through the cracks, please bring it to our attention.

Which brings me to main point of this big long shpeal. That is, this whole system relies on community participation. It's up to YOU to read posts in the welcome area and stop in the welcome chat and meet and greet the new members. It's up to YOU to decide whether you feel a particular member is a good fit for this community or not. If you get promoted to full membership and then neglect to vote for others, you are doing a disservice to the whole community. Someone voted for you, now is your chance to pay it forward and be directly involved with how this community grows. Please feel free to PM myself or any of the mod team if you have any questions, ideas, complaints, thoughts, rants, death threats, or anything else you feel should be brought to our attention. Remember though the most important thing you can do to help shape the future of our community is to take the time to vote when you are reading new member posts or interacting with them in chat.

There has occasionally been some talk about a system to vote for demotion from full membership. This isn't really necessary at this time because the welcome area voting system does a pretty good job of making sure only people that are democratically approved by the community become full members. That said, sometimes mods are hasty to promote or people that joined before the welcome area was put in place come in and are not familiar with or willing to adhere to the expectations. For now, if you have an issue with a full member, senior member, or mod, just pm a moderator and let them know and they will follow up on it.

So moral of the story, VOTE VOTE VOTE! and contact a moderator if you happen across any instances where it looks like there may have been a flaw in the voting system. I hope that makes things a bit more clear. Comments, critiques, and criticisms are welcome.

Oops I forgot to answer the initial question.

Generally when I'm interacting with or reviewing posts by a new member, I'll go look at their profile check out the quality of their posts, review their mod history (if any), and see how many vote points they have.

If they have a negative vote count I generally take no action and just wait to see how they will fair by the community over time.

If they have at least +30 or more and I have or see positive interaction with them I generally up vote and insta-promote.

If they have under +30 and I have or see positive or negative interaction I'll log in with a dummy full member account and vote + or - 10 accordingly.

If I have or see negative interaction and they have less than +50 I generally don't take any action and leave it to the community.

If I have or see negative interaction and they have +50 or more, I will use a mod down vote to prevent auto-promotion and make a note to review their status later. If in the meantime they are able to integrate to the community and it's expectations and they reach enough votes for the auto-promotion, I reverse my vote and promote them. If they still haven't integrated properly I just hold off till they do.

And of course if someone really impresses me off the bat, I just promote them right away.

I can't speak to the process of other mods, but that's how I roll.

Relative to most other posters on this thread, I am a newer member, so the importance of being up-voted is fresh in my mind.

With that said, I generally look for people who follow the Attitude page completely and seem to actually care about the things on which they are writing. It's pretty easy for me to tell if someone genuinely cares about their experience, question, tek, etc. Good grammar and word choice goes a very long way as well.

I also love threads like this as all great organizations take time every once in a while to reevaluate the standard processes. However, I feel that the system is fine the way it is.

Looking at the process you go through, no one could ever fault you for not taking your position seriously. As a consequence though I will always see robots in my minds eye when I read your posts. I'll keep your advice in mind, even though I fundamentally disagree. I'll make sure to point out individuals I feel are left behind.

Do keep in mind this is just kind of the general guideline I work off of, not any kind of hard and fast rule and I consider each case on an individual basis. I'm curious which parts you don't agree with and if you have any suggestions for how I can improve my process?

I was just pulling your leg . Your cognitive processes are far different from my own, I don't think I could make any suggestions. The philosophy behind the process which you were explaining earlier is what I disagree with but I'm not a person to beat a dead horse. Maybe next year I'll be able to garnish more support to make a change.

It wasn't my intention to kick off such a discussion. But hey, maybe it was necessary.

Nevertheless...Thank you guys. This gave quite some insight. Especially on how the voting system works internally.
One reason I always hesitated to vote was, that I didn't know the weight of my vote and how many votes it needs to be promoted etc.

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain this, dreamer.

This thread was a great help for me.

I also took from it, that we generally should vote a bit more?