(Hello to those who remember me!)

I left the site a while ago when it was in a lull. I check back every so often to see if it's been remedied or not, and this thread was on the front page... here's my 2c

To answer the OP: I want AO to re-become a community of infosec folks who pro-actively share skillsets, experiences, and intelligence about information security.

This used to be the case, especially around 2003-5. Recently, the interface changed, which changed the priorities of the site. Example:

The old front page used to have:
* default filters on front page content (no GCC, no cosmos, no tech humor)
* top security tutorial writers listed
* top other tutorial writers listed
* top AO earners listed
* Bad users listed
* And on each post, an antipoint status.
http://web.archive.org/web/200304082....com/index.php

New front page:
* How many posts.
* Top poster.

Claim: The only visible metric of contribution to AO is post count.

There used to be indicators to users about how to behave. The examples above made it clear that tutorials were valued more than posts, some users were valued for their contributions more than others, and the bad users list indicated that you should probably watch your mouth.

Right now contribution is pretty specific to comparing against your post count.

Examples:

* Only 1 security tutorial has been published in the past 100 days
* Quote FoxyLoxy :
we ARE the forum
we are all in the multi THOUSANDS of posts
without us, there IS no AO
* AO is now resorting to PAY people for good content.
* The front page is usually covered with general chit chat, site suggestions, tech humor... The most active front page thread is this one.

Point: Making the frontpage content relevant to the goals of the site will increase relevant contribution. Again, post count is all that matters to be a contributor by the current software, with no regard to relevancy (a positive karma thread in security tutorials is about as relevant as it can get, but it receives no priority or provide any incentive to the user to write one instead of a "LOL HALO RULEZ" thread in GCC)

I think having visible AntiPoint status on posts had its downsides, but the major upside of "think before you speak". That is gone now so post count is now the metric that makes users stand out, and users can't learn the norms from the mistakes of others (red flashing bars)

So i guess my point is... potential high value users will get to AO and have no idea how to contribute. The purpose of AO was clear in the past, now it's muffled by how users actually treat the forum. Unorganized chaos can work in a place like 4chan, but not here where there's a topic. There's confusion with this.

Here's example improvements:
* Make the default front page hide the non-tech threads, and prioritize the infosec threads followed by tech related threads for the best real estate. (allow for customization for users)
* Bring back the flashing AP thing on posts (AP abuse was/can be dealt with)
* Incentivize users with front page real estate ("So_and_so wrote a tutorial"... paying for tutorials is about as uncreative as it gets)
* ETC ETC Other soft forms of incentive... doesn't have to be AP's but you get the point

Point in shortest:
AO can't have goals or priorities unless the site itself provides incentive to it's contributors. Perhaps I'm alone in thinking this, but there hasn't been much of anything useful here since the software changed the AntiOnline formula last year. AO multi-dimensional incentives to encourage good, relevant content. Site irrelenvancy is near...

I can't believe "let's pay for tutorials" was actually considered to improve this place. That's totally primitive. For myself, the feedback (APs) and "nice tut"'s and postings on EITPlanet and the writing/teaching/learning experience are why I contributed so heavily in the past... and it's the same reason you'll find the same type of action on sites like GameFAQs.com. (they don't pay jack, IIRC)

Look at users like 'catch' and you'll wonder why he'd even bother spending time on this place at all. He probably contributed for the same reasons I did.

I haven't been active in a while, so perhaps things have changed more than I've been able to see.