More levels of membership???

Thread Starter

scubasteve_911

Joined Dec 27, 2007
1,203
Loosewire,

You never cease to amaze me! I don't really know how to take your posts..

You would like to think Dave has been knighted? Thingmaker needs a harley?

Steve
 

SgtWookie

Joined Jul 17, 2007
22,230
Titles? We don't need no steenking titles! :D

Seriously though, I'm in favor of just leaving things as they are. I don't see that there's anything to be gained by adding more titles; it would more likely distract from the purpose of the forums than add any tangible or intangible benefit.

It's not how many posts you've made, it's how many you've helped with your posts.
 

loosewire

Joined Apr 25, 2008
1,686
Bill and SGT. are respected learnen men that publish great work.
They don't talk alot about there work,but you see the published
work that they create with a lot of interest,there other great
members that jump when needed or when they want get involved
in post. The powers to be let us debate and vote,because they are
proven leaders and respect us in return.So we must respect
oursleves in return and think our decisions throught,with the
best interest to all members and guest. You can see that good
members are being by past in a hasty voting post. Any one in a
hurry can change (there ICON) to KING.
Loosewire
 

Thread Starter

scubasteve_911

Joined Dec 27, 2007
1,203
You can see that good members are being by past in a hasty voting post.
How are good members being bypassed? The right for people to vote and have their votes counted equally is one of the foundations of society. In the end, any site decisions fall upon the administration anyways!

I started the 'hasty' poll to gather statistical information by everyone. It is a very useful tool to see what people think about the subject. So far, it turns out most people don't care either way. Was this reflected in the original topic thread?, No. This is because only the people with strong opinions took the time to respond.

From my stand-point, I saw a bit of room for improvement and made a suggestion. I was wrong to suggest 'titles' that reflected expertise, and I agreed with the concerns about that. I do feel that it would be an improvement to deepen the current system because of mentioned reasons.

Steve
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
For the sake of full disclosure, so far only 11 members have responded of a total of 94,207 members. The distribution of responses is apparently random (s.d. = 3.3) with perhaps a slight bias toward "don't care." (If one assumes a margin of error of ±2s.d., Gallup might report that 55% of the members didn't care with a margin of error of ±55%. :D)

We currently have 4 levels of membership. Post #13 also proposes 4 levels, but with different names and breakpoints. What isn't clear to me is the rationale for changing the breakpoints. On that point, it might be informative to see a frequency distribution of responses by members -- maybe there is cluster between, say 100 and 2000, that needs to be recognized.

As for the names, I believe it is more important to have names that are are descriptive and not offensive, rather than hunt for something deemed to be generally better or funnier. On that point, for example, the question is whether a name like "addict" would be more offensive or a better descriptor than "junior member" needs to be considered.

John
 

Thread Starter

scubasteve_911

Joined Dec 27, 2007
1,203
John,

I didn't make this into a big deal! I posed a suggestion for the board to consider, then the big deal was made by people in opposition. If nobody cares then why are people responding? If you really think we have ~94000 active members that saw the poll and didn't have their say, you're out to lunch. Don't use that as a way to grand-stand that nobody cares, it's a pathetic argument.

Also, I said 'extension', and i said that it would be 'like' a certain example, not that those would be final titles.

Personally, I don't care anymore. I'm tired of defending my case. Label me gone

Steve
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
As far as I am concerned, this hits pretty much the crux of what Steve was saying: the existing classifications deem the status of someone with 100 posts the same as someone with 100,000 posts - and its is this discrepancy that Steve has noted. In years gone by, 100 posts would have constituted a "Senior" member of the community with respect to activity and relative to their fellow members, however nowdays some members can post 100 posts in a week because the level of discussion is much greater than in the past.

This isn't about whether this is relevant, which we can argue it isn't, it is more a question of keeping the AAC community up to date and a reflection of the community status as a whole. I think there are distinct counter arguments against offering abstract status', i.e. citing someone as an "expert", but that is not what this membership status' are about. John is right, the status' should be "descriptive and not offensive" as they currently are. If we want to differentiate the help that individual members contribute then we can look at implementing a "Thanks" system which could run parallel to the status'.

Lets remember when discussing these things, what works for one does not necessarily work for another. I believe that AAC should offer as much as possible to all members, and you are free to use or not use whatever suits you.

Dave
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Dave said:
In years gone by, 100 posts would have constituted a "Senior" member of the community with respect to activity and relative to their fellow members, however nowdays some members can post 100 posts in a week because the level of discussion is much greater than in the past.
Is there some way to get data to help address that question, such as a chart of the number of posts by member? Y axis would be number or percentage of members; X axis would be categories of post numbers (e.g., 1-10, 11-20, etc.).

Without such data, we are just comparing gut feelings. My gut feeling is that the vast majority of our membership has less than 10 posts. There is probably a group between 50 and some number like 100 or 200, and above 200 I suspect there are no clusters until one gets to the moderators/administrators. To make the data a bit more manageable, one could perhaps look only at those who have posted in the past 6 months or year.

John
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
Is there some way to get data to help address that question, such as a chart of the number of posts by member? Y axis would be number or percentage of members; X axis would be categories of post numbers (e.g., 1-10, 11-20, etc.).

Without such data, we are just comparing gut feelings. My gut feeling is that the vast majority of our membership has less than 10 posts. There is probably a group between 50 and some number like 100 or 200, and above 200 I suspect there are no clusters until one gets to the moderators/administrators. To make the data a bit more manageable, one could perhaps look only at those who have posted in the past 6 months or year.

John
List of members in # of posts order who have been active in the last 12 months: http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/m...tafter=2007-12-01&order=DESC&sort=posts&pp=30

A point to note is that the forums have statistically doubled in size and activity in each of the last 3 years. This fact needs to be considered in any future projections.

Dave
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
If my pre-prandial counting is accurate:
4417 have 50 or less
68 have 51 to 100
82 have >100

Of those 82, 15 are more than 1000 and 5 are more than 4000. Those 5 include SgtWookie and the 4 moderators. Sgt Wookie doesn't want another distinction and the 4 moderators already have one.

So, maybe the question can be refined simply to whether we should have a new category for members (11 of them) with more than 1000 posts who are not moderators.

John
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
If my pre-prandial counting is accurate:
4417 have 50 or less
68 have 51 to 100
82 have >100

Of those 82, 15 are more than 1000 and 5 are more than 4000. Those 5 include SgtWookie and the 4 moderators. Sgt Wookie doesn't want another distinction and the 4 moderators already have one.

So, maybe the question can be refined simply to whether we should have a new category for members (11 of them) with more than 1000 posts who are not moderators.

John
Certainly a fair way of looking at it - and given that we expect the activity double once more in the coming 12 months (based on current projections of activity).

Dave
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Assuming our honorific titles are somewhat like donor titles, I searched on "community arts donation levels" to see whether some new words popped up.

Here are some (changed form to be modifiers for "member"):
Guiding
Producing
Iconic
Sponsoring
Fellow (no member)
Supporting
Sustaining
Assistant
Patron (not patronizing)

Of that group, I kind of like "Sustaining" as it has a close association with number.

Edit: Assistent Gofer is not bad either.

Edit#2: One site had in interesting twist (http://www.foundmyself.com/help/donate.php)
The honorific could change depending on the rate of posts, i.e., decrease for inactive members. One post per week maintains a level. No posts in 4 weeks means the member loses 3% of his post counts, etc. I would not favor that approach, but thought it might be of interest anyway.

John
 
Last edited:

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello,

Sorry to dig this up, but you can also exaturate the numbers of levels, like over here:

User Title - Minimum Posts
New Member - 0
Diode - 1
Triode - 10
Tetrode - 50
Pentode - 100
Hexode - 250
Heptode - 500
Octode - 1000
Nonode - 2000
Dekatron - 3000

This is the member ranking from the UK Vintage repair forum

Bertus
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Cute, but maybe each term should be checked for close matches to other words. One can simply search on the terms and spellcheck will present alternatives.

For example:

nonode == nonude (child porn site)
dekatron/decatron == decadron (dexamethasone)

If this is a serious proposal, why fix what isn't broke?

John
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
I like wookie's idea, since the thanks have been added, maybe add that as an aspect of title?

I could see that going ugly by people "hunting for thank yous" though.

I guess any system will be abused if somebody wants to "look good".

The one thing I'd like is a "Senior's forum" where any disagreements can be worked out in private, rather than looking like fools that the other forums I've looked at seem to have (ego fights).
 
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