Strangely I was thinking the same thing Gearhead. Even if it mean losing my Hero Membership ?
Good idea!

I've thought about it before, with the idea of doubling the required posts for each member group. I was just worried about nerfing a membergroup - that there were people who might be disparaged or upset if they found they had been bumped out of one group into the lower group or that the group they had been trying to reach was suddenly twice as far away.

On the other hand, raising the post requirements for each group would make them more of an achievement to attain...

So... I'll go with the majority on this one. Let's hear some more discussion about it.

FYI: This is what we have at the moment:

MembergroupPostsMembers
Newbie01585
Jr. Member5034
Full Member10031
Sr. Member25025
Hero Member50027



And what I think it would become:

MembergroupPosts
Newbie0
Jr. Member100
Full Member250
Sr. Member500
Hero Member1,000

I have no problem either way . I doudt many people really look at the ratings anyway

My suggested changes:

Full Member 250
Sr Member 1000
Hero 5000

How about using a member's total involvement in the site, such as number of posts, competitions entered, competitions won, voted in competitions, GFSA advertised gear purchased, and so on. I realise that will be more complicated to maintain the ratings, but maybe the site software could calculate this automatically?

racman wrote: Full Member 250
Sr Member 1000
Hero 5000

Then no-one would be a hero member. I'm the only member with over 5K posts, but I'm an Admin, so doesn't count. Look here:
http://www.guitarforum.co.za/mlist/?sort=posts;start=0

My suggestion:
Newbie 0
Jr. Member 20
Full Member 89
Sr. Member 400
Hero Member 1,789

Riaan wrote: How about using a member's total involvement in the site, such as number of posts, competitions entered, competitions won, voted in competitions, GFSA advertised gear purchased, and so on.

Nice idea, but would probably require the forum software to be written from scratch with that in mind. It's not enough of a "going concern" to do that.

Tailon. wrote: I have no problem either way . I doudt many people really look at the ratings anyway

I suspect that newer users use both the post counts/membergroups and karma to figure out how much weight to give an opinion they read. We regulars have the advantage of knowing the individual members, and being able to judge based on past interactions.

Gearhead wrote: My suggestion:

Interesting numbers... How did you get to those? ?

Amsterdam magic I am guessing ? Hehehe

I was rather embarrassed to achieve Senior Member status ... where in reality I was a new entrant, who couldn't play guitar; and was posting a lot in the process of learning.
The Karma rating does exist - and communicates very clearly who has contributed in terms of helping others; and therefore reflects true wisdom and experience.

If everyone knows how to read these metrics (i.e. posts & experience) ... then there maybe isn't an issue

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I've thought about it before, with the idea of doubling the required posts for each member group. I was just worried about nerfing a membergroup - that there were people who might be disparaged or upset if they found they had been bumped out of one group into the lower group or that the group they had been trying to reach was suddenly twice as far away.

Is there not a way that you can set something up so that those who have a certain status already get to keep it, but newbies have to hit the new benchmark?

Or does that pose other problems?

PS: In the round I agree with Gearhead. I would hope that Karma would be taken into account for "hero" status as well. Whatever, it should take some kind of consistent contribution to the forum to get up to certain rungs of the ladder.

Hi Bob,

I'm in the process of setting up a blog for my company. I also experimented with the Membership Badges, unfortunately there is no way to link Karma and Posts.
Unless Norio start hacking some scripts to do that! So in short, in order to archive your idea some customization would be needed!

Regards,
Lean

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:

Gearhead wrote: My suggestion:

Interesting numbers... How did you get to those?

x=Round(20^(n/2)) with n=2, 3, .. more math than magic I'm afraid ?

I actually bugged my math teacher in high school to the very limit. On the topic of number progressions, he challenged us to come up with one he couldn't crack. I submitted 16 33 45 .. which took him two weeks to give up on. When I asked him whether he had old record player he threw me out of the class for quite a while. Didn't miss much.

Go for it. Maybe even set up higher levels to accomodate the needs in another 3 years, eg 5000 = Mage and 10000 = Oracle or something...

I'm still in favour of altering the number of posts for membergroups, purely because the forum has grown and I think the targets for these should grow with it. Membergroups are just an indication of post counts and are not an indication of the quality of posts - they were never intended to be. That's what Karma is for. We all tend to overlook Karma, but it is a potentially valuable resource to the information seeker. If we make a point of awarding points when they are due, the Karma system will become quite valuable - but that's down to us.

Perhaps we can see if something can be done with the template to make the Karma stand out better (and perhaps also depreciate the visual importance of the membergroups). I'm looking into that at the moment.

We could also start something like a "post of the week" competition and award Karma points to the owner of the winning post. This should allow members who don't post often, but make valuable contributions to the forum to gain Karma.

Gearhead wrote: I submitted 16 33 45 .. which took him two weeks to give up on.

Classic! ? No 78? Most people would miss the 16 RPM though - I've only ever seen that on a gramophone once (to quote the old Python sketch: "A gramophone grandad?" ?). Actually shouldn't it be 16-2/3, 33-1/3 and 45? ?

chris77 wrote: Go for it. Maybe even set up higher levels to accomodate the needs in another 3 years, eg 5000 = Mage and 10000 = Oracle or something...

I thought about that too. Quite possibly, as needed...

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:

racman wrote: Full Member 250
Sr Member 1000
Hero 5000

Then no-one would be a hero member. I'm the only member with over 5K posts, but I'm an Admin, so doesn't count. Look here:
http://www.guitarforum.co.za/mlist/?sort=posts;start=0

But that's correct - too many hero wannabes in the world already ? ?

I'm happy with Alan's numbers but will also go with majority, of course.

As for Karma vs member groups - also happy with downplaying the groups and making Karma more prominent. I can make new, simpler buttons for the member groups (but keep the cool pick-thingies ?) and make a large button to show off the karma rating and applaud bits.

All in favour...

racman wrote: But that's correct - too many hero wannabes in the world already ? ?

[Breaks into song] "We don't need another hero..." ?

Norio wrote: All in favour...

Aye-aye cap'n!