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4) certain basic features build in that are essential for me (infraction system, paid memberships...)
See, I think the infraction system and paid memberships to be included add-ons, built to the level of quality as the rest of XenForo, but I will not personally use them.
 
I believe it's Mike who confirmed that there is a paid memberships system in XF but I know from the mods that there's no infraction system yet. It's quite important, not just for importing old infraction points, but of course because we need to be able to keep giving them.
 
I hated that infraction system.
Why? And how are you going to keep track of members misbehaving, how are you going to sanction them without immediately giving out (perm) bans. It's all nice and cozy ATM here at XF forums but we all know that's not always the case.
 
My biggest problem with the Infraction system was that it was so impersonal. It was "2 demerits and a trip to the principal's office!" It was extremely insulting to me. It just felt like "You are a subversive individual." It says "We have no interest in working with you, we're just going to give you some black marks (which will never go away) because you broke these rules". That may sound ridiculous, but Infractions were such a blunt instrument that I never used them and encouraged every site admin NOT to use them.

There are so many better, subtle ways to handle these issues.

Just like we have a Likes system, how about a Flagging system for mods and admins?

I'm reading the forums and find one of my post has a flag icon on the right side and when I roll over it, I see a moderator/admin-set flag like "You've really pointed out another member and put them in the spotlight. Perhaps there was another way to resolve the matter?" or "This was really negative."

I'd love to be able to flag user posts with a comment and they show up in the user's control panel. It doesn't have to be negative. It can be positive too. "That was a great way of dealing with the situation".

A demerits system (which is what Infractions really are) is an elementary school grade solution. I think most of us are past high school so let's look at something a bit more educated and flexible shall we?
 
Infraction points given on our forum would expire after one year. Also we always send a personal message to the member receiving the infraction (either yellow=no point or red card=point when they have been warned before or when it's a severe infringement). Infractions are given for breaking the rules. We did it first without such a system, unfortunately some would just not change their behavior. An infraction system makes it possible to treat everyone the same, keep track of behavior, and give sanctions to people who repeatedly spoil the atmosphere for others. This actually works, believe it or not.

It has nothing to do with elementary school grade solution. IRL you have fines/penalties for not following certain rules just as well.

That's not to say that an improved system can not be made of course.
 
I hated that infraction system.

And me too. For several reasons. I decided to never ever use it on my vB3.8 system:

My biggest problem with the Infraction system was that it was so impersonal. It was "2 demerits and a trip to the principal's office!" It was extremely insulting to me. It just felt like "You are a subversive individual." It says "We have no interest in working with you, we're just going to give you some black marks (which will never go away) because you broke these rules". That may sound ridiculous, but Infractions were such a blunt instrument that I never used them and encouraged every site admin NOT to use them.

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A demerits system (which is what Infractions really are) is an elementary school grade solution. I think most of us are past high school so let's look at something a bit more educated and flexible shall we?

Exactly. See also: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...-please-make-it-friendly-to-the-enduser.2194/
 
So if I understand you correctly you aren't completely against such a system but you just think the one in vB was badly executed?

Indeed. I think (especially for large boards) some kind of user control system is essential. But by all means don't give us something like the vB Infraction System... that was one of the 'newly added' functionality in the last years that I had problems with understanding why it was executed/provided like that (showing a permanent [tab] in the user's profile of their infractions! :confused: Doesn't do much good for your member-relations does it?). Most people will not agree I guess, but I also found the system somehow a bit complicated to understand and I never got around getting more experience with it, because I disliked it from the beginning (although I certainly saw the potential and usefulness of it).
 
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