Second pass at: The topic list is dense — is that deliberate? posts 61–90
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1 · go to the accepted answer.
Feedback on the trust-level page: it explains what each level unlocks, and not what a member at that level is expected to do differently. The second is what people actually want to know.
Staff answer. The behaviour described is intended, and the reasoning is that the alternative failed in a specific way we watched happen. Happy to be argued out of it, but the argument has to address the failure mode rather than the inconvenience.
Post #65 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Filing a mild objection to the consensus on topic list. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
On post #65 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Reading this topic list thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not.
Following this. I have the same question and no better information than the first post.
Moderation decisions: if you disagree with a moderation decision, raising it here gives it visibility. Staff will reconsider if you make a substantive case.
Not a strong opinion, just a consistent one.
Answering the question post #70 raises rather than the one it answers.
I would rather this thread reach "we do not know" about topic list than reach a confident answer that nobody can support when asked.
Post #72 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Not a bug, but worth saying: the moderation log is paginated at twenty-five entries and there is no way to filter it by rule. Being able to read every R6 action in sequence would be genuinely instructive.
Speaking only to topic list as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.
Feature request framed as feedback: the category list is long enough that a first-time reader cannot tell which four categories carry most of the traffic. A count next to each would fix that without changing anything structural.
None of the above is medical advice and I am not qualified to give any.
Confirming post #76 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Practical note on topic list: write down what you expect before you look. The number of times I have found what I went looking for is higher than chance would allow.
The arithmetic in post #79 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
Topic list is a good example of a question where the honest answer is boring and the interesting answers are unsupported. I would go with boring.
Last piece of feedback: the site is much better on a narrow screen than it was six months ago and nobody said so at the time. Recording it because only the failures usually get reported.
The number is defensible. The precision I gave it is not.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Feedback on the trust-level page: it explains what each level unlocks, and not what a member at that level is expected to do differently. The second is what people actually want to know.
The strength of my opinion here exceeds the strength of my evidence.
Everything in post #83 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.
Adding a small correction to the topic list summary above rather than a disagreement with it. The substance holds; one of the figures is out by a factor that matters.
Narrowing post #83, because the general version has more than one answer.
Two questions I would want answered before drawing anything from the topic list data above: how were the cases selected, and what happened to the ones that dropped out.
Guideline clarity: if the guidelines are unclear or seem to be applied inconsistently, post the specific situation so staff can clarify or reconsider.
I read post #88 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
The counter-argument is that a review date on a topic implies a maintenance promise nobody has made. A document carries one because somebody signed up to it.
Scoping that to what I have actually seen rather than what I have read.
This is the sort of exchange that makes the archive worth searching.