Beer Trading & Beer Karma

I would hope this should be at least a possibility with a pay-for-play situation. The It Forward forum was a free-for-all in the past and didn't seem to be an issue until the somewhat recent crackdown. Memes/trolling/animated GIFs/poking fun at each other can be done within a reasonable set of rules (no ****/hate speech/violent images/physical threats) while everybody still has fun. I understand how this can detract from a serious discussion in other forums, but I would like to see the camaraderie return to the one area of the site where generosity abounds. Give the "troublemakers" somewhere to fuck around and I'd think we would all behave better in the rest of the forums.

 

Agree 100%

1. People may not contribute with reviews, hads or posts but do with extended site traffic
2. Don't understand how having beer karma correlates with a good trader
3. Trading feedback needs to be implemented (I know it's coming so no need to post a link to whatever announcements are out there)

 

Are we talking about a pay system to use the site in general or just the trade section?

 

I personally would prefer some combination of time and "beer karma" versus one or the other. For example, I believe the site would be vastly improved if new accounts (say, 3 months or newer) had only read-only privileges. This would prevent a lot of useless/vapid thread topics and thread shitting by the more experienced users. I wouldn't unlock trading privileges for any user that hasn't been on here at least a year. Sorry, but that's just the way it needs to be. That way, they have some experience before offering up a Speedway Stout for a Dark Lord Variant.

The problem with just using Beer Karma to unlock privileges is it provides an incentive to accumulate points by posting even more useless crap, thus diluting the value of the site even more.

The value of this site lies in the content and thoughtful information that its users provide. No offense, but my experience has been that the users who have been on here at least 6 months provide the most "useful" information, care the most, and provide the most thought-provoking content. Threads like "one beer for the rest of your life..go" or "Does anyone know what's on tap at Founders?" just make me want to give up.

I'm all for helping the new guys get into craft. Heck, that's part of what Advocacy is all about. They don't let interns jump right in on a heart surgery.....they make them observe for awhile and pay their dues first.

 

If BA needs cash, why not add "Premium Member" accounts that allow more mailbox storage, a signature and a spiffy "premium member" title.

Or, more advertisements?

And to control the rowdy's, make an off topic forum with insta-bans for any political or religious threads.

Fact: BA Kopi Speedway is cheaper and better than BVDL.

 

I think if this turned into a pay-2-play situation it would be best (for BA) if the other site(s) were on the same page.

I understand the need to control growth, but some of these controls I think would go too far. I'm trying to be as objective as possible here and look at this long term. I regularly contribute so I don't think this would affect me, I'm just thinking about how it would affect the evolution of BA.

I wish I could think up a better solution but I'm (admittedly) at a loss. The only I could think of would be to limit the amount of posts newbies could make per week/month or whatever. That limit could expand from week to week over the course of a couple months or whatever the mods deem acceptable.

 

Yeah I hear you. Every business does need revenues. Keeping the lights on isn't cheap. It seems like BA could stand to generate more revenues between increasing advertisements and premium memberships. You can pay me in beer karma to reach out to potential clients.

Question: I'm fairly new here so I don't know the past history of the site, but why doesn't BA have more volunteer Moderators? This is the first forum I've been on that seems to have zero moderator presence.

Also, I have another idea. Is there a way to limit the amount of trade threads a user can make in ISO:FT? Like, you can post 10 trades a month, 1 trade a week/day, etc.

 

Long Lining like a champ. Well played.

 

Gotcha. Maybe you need more since you guys have a lot on your plate in terms of running events, the magazine and the business side? I can see how modding ISO:FT could be very annoying...

 

Dedicated set of moderators for the beer trading forum?
I'm sure there are lots of BAs who wouldn't necessarily have clean enough records to be full-time mods, but I'd bet you would have willing participants for mods to the trading forum.

 

Finding forum members who are active but objective and minimally biased, as well as willing to be moderators is not necessarily a simple matter.

Limiting the number of ISO:FT threads a user can make per unit of time may be a solution to those who delete and remake their threads once they get pushed off the front page.

Still not quite sure what beer karma is good for; when I saw it, the first thing I thought of was "great, another trivial metric". At the moment it appears to be based on forum post quantity, which is quite open to manipulation by users making posts that are brief one-liners, devoid of any useful information, or simply reiterates another post. Also, duplicate threads may be made because the someone wants to boost their beer karma by starting their own thread to post multiple times in.

 

Because nobody has abused alcohol that they spent good money on.

 

On the subject of paying to play in ISO:FT, it doesn't seem like the best option. There's plenty of other places to trade beer and not have to pay for it. That would just bring less traffic to that section. (Unless, that's what you're going for) if a major change was implemented with it, like some kind of rating/tracking system, then it would become worthwhile.