member status

[Andre van der Salm]

Funny,

After the new forum has become active my status has been set back to newbie!!?? I hope I am not LOL, or it must be my age that is counting (already)

regards
André

[Willeke]

André,
We had a rather low newbie post number, I think it was just 10, after that you became regular.
Now we are using the standard levels of posts of this forum, except that we do not have any special status for people with many posts. (There used to be a hero status but I have asked Mel not to have that.)
I would appreciate us going back to our 'old' system, with only new and regular, and with about 10 or 15 posts to change from the one into the other.

How do our other members think about this?

Willeke

[squarerigger]

Hi Willeke,

I like the system we have now.

Lindsey

[Willeke]

Lindsey,
Can you explain what you like?
We now have 3 levels, with unknown numbers of needed posts to go to the next level.

How many posts should someone have before changing from newbie to Jr. Member
And how many to get Full Member?

I feel that as soon as we know that someone is serious in posting, 10 or 15 posts, it does not matter at all how many posts he/she has. One of our top 10 posters did not show much sense in what knottying advise he gave, (my opinion) but the status makes people think he is one of the best.

Willeke

[WebAdmin]

I have written to Mel to see if the stages of status can be changed.   I'll keep y'all informed.

Lesley
Webadmin

[aknotter]

Well, at my age, I kinda like being referred to as a "newbie"!

[squarerigger]

Hi Willeke,

What I like is that someone who has just joined is identified and someone who has been around a long time gets regular or senior status, but you make a good point that quantity is not necessarily an indicator of quality.  Therefore it would make sense not to have any number difference between senior member and regular member.  Also, if a number of posts does not indicate someone's abilities, there would be no sense in having any kind of designation, nor any indication of the number of posts they make.  Should we do away with numbers altogether and the designation also?  Got me thinking now...  Perhaps some indication of guest status, but after that, the only measure would be what a person says and how clearly they make their point - no number needed and no designation other than Member or Guest!  What are your thoughts about that?

Lindsey

[DerekSmith]

It is common practice for a forum to rank its posters on activity, i.e. their contribution.  Quality is a matter for readers to judge and what Willeke may find to be poor, others may find to be of great value.

If no-one posted on this forum, there would be nothing for others to read, consequently, the only thing which can be used to indicate the impact a member has is by assessing in some way their contribution.  You cannot assess quality, so all that is left is quantity.

This means that for me, top Daddy Poster should be Nautile.  He might not have made the largest number of posts, but his content has had me reading and thinking for hours.

Having a ranking system can be negative if the terminology used is in some way denegratory of those who post infrequently - calling someone who has posted steadily since the inception of this forum a "Newbie" is almost designed to cause offence.  If you are going to keep a ranking indicator, could you not reconsider your terms?  Something like "Infrequent Poster" through to "Chatterbox" would indicate content providers, yet would still mean that the forum values the contributions of those who only feel the need to post occasionally.

Derek

[PatDucey]

In the identifier area of the person who is making the post, it already identifies how many posts the person has made.  That is the best indicator of how active they are on the website.  Perhaps if the "Member Status" line could default to how long a person has been a registered user, that would give a little more useful information.  If the line stated "member since" and a year and month, (that  would be easy enough to get out of the database) then you would see that you are having a discussion with someone who has been here a while, knows what's going on, and should be able to help.  I have been a registered member for a few years, but most of my contributions in this forum are only when the discussion turns to my limited area of expertise, Turks Heads.  If I have to make additional posts to change my status, should I post comments in subjects that I don't know anything about just to upgrade my status?

As Dekek said, quality is a matter for readers to judge.  The "Member Status" line gives no useful information, other than to inflate someones' ego.

Also, what do those little knot things between the "member Status" line and the "number of posts" line mean?  How do I rate more of them?

Pat

[aknotter]

I like Pat Ducey's idea - term of membership.  And would it be possible to indicate the number of "responses to" other
posts. That should be an indication of participation also (might be difficult to obtain from the database though?).

Another thought, should there be an indication of IGKT membership (and term of that membership)?

[Willeke]

If I see your reactions I would like to ask Mel to get back to the system we had at the old forum.
'New' for members with just a few post, 'Regular' for the rest and the amount of 'stars' in our case the little knots under the name, indicate how many posts one has made.

Willeke

[Andre van der Salm]

hmmm, I really stirre up something here.....didn't I??   

[PatDucey]

Yes Andre, you did stir something up.  It reminds me of a Dilbert comic.  For those who do not know who Dilbert is, he is a computer engineer who works in a cubicle and has a number of associates who represent the typical idiots one finds in any non-functional office.  The comic this discussion reminds me of is the Feature Creep, who wants the software to do more and more, including brush his teeth, and comb his hair.  Now that we have a new forum, it is time to see what features it has and how much stuff we can make the WebAdmin do.  I am sure Mel and Lesley cringes everytime we ask for more (and more).

If getting the website database to identify a term of registered membership is not too difficult, I think that would be a better piece of information than than Member Status.  The stars (or knots) can still be there to identify Status, or removed from the identifyer.  But we must remember that the website database is very different from the IGKT membership database.

To place the date of membership into the IGKT on this website would be merging two different, and perhaps incompatible, databases.  This would be a data entry nightmare, and difficult to maintain.  I have been a member of IGKT much longer than IGKT-PAB, which one counts, etc?  There is a line in the identifyer that members can customize in their own profile.  On my identifyer, it states IGKT Pacific Americas Branch.  If someone wants to identify their own IGKT membership status, this is probably the best way to do it.

Pat

[admin]

I have written to Mel to see if the stages of status can be changed.   I'll keep y'all informed.

The Member Status levels have been reset today as follows:

• Newbie:0 posts
• Junior Member: 15 posts
• Full Member: 25 posts
• Experienced Member: 100 posts
• Senior Member: 250 posts

[admin]

It is common practice for a forum to rank its posters on activity, i.e. their contribution.  Quality is a matter for readers to judge and what Willeke may find to be poor, others may find to be of great value.

Simple Machine incorporates a feature common to many newer forums called 'karma'. Karma is a method by which registered members can indicate that a particular poster tends to post high, or poor, quality posts. The higher your personal positive 'karma', the higher the esteem (in theory) your fellow posters hold you in.

I have today enabled the option which allows members to award, or take-away, karma. For this forum, I have renamed 'karma' to 'Quality'. If people feel there is a more appropriate, possibly knot-related, term that they would prefer to see used, please let me know.

For the time being, every poster has a 'Quality' rating attached to them. Every time you read another's post you can 'applaud' them (ie increase their Quality rating) or give them a 'thumbs down' (ie add to their negative Quality rating). Any registered poster may currently award either postive or negative Quality. However, I can restrict the awarding of 'Quality ratings' to posters who have achieved a certain number of posts (eg 100 posts) if this is required.

Does that help?