For all Senior members

[kedaman]

I have been senior member for a while. But it would be nice to have more titles to look forward to :) This wasn't my ideá, have seen it around at least 2 times, but putting it in this forum could give results

[Nitro]

Hello Kedaman!

Did you ever find that autoredraw DC thing you are looking for.

Anyway, I think that is a good idea! More titles!

I think points should be given rather than number of posting. Points would depend on how much you helped someone else. It should not reflect if you are asking a question. Otherwise, anyone can sit on this board and post a bunch of silly questions and become a Senior.

[Edited by Nitro on 04-24-2000 at 11:27 AM]

I think that the rates for the senior members should be higher. A person should stay a junior member until he reaches 100 and then they should stay a member until they reach 1000. If you think that 1000 is impossible, look at people like Aaron Young, Yonatan and Serge. They've all got over 1000.

[kedaman]

Well, Nitro That was a really good one, IE:
Q: 40
A: 240
Would be better than ie:
Q: 1000
A: 2

I didn't find out anything out how to do the autoredraw in other apps. But I have thoughts about to change the bitmaps instead, but that's not an easy way.

Also, can anyone beat this: 433 posts in 5 weeks!!! I shoud recieve a special Title for this.

[John]

That is a good idea, and one that I thought of a while ago, but never got round to doing anything about.

This is what my initial 30 seconds of thought amounted to:

<10 newbie
10-30 script kiddie
30-100 junior programmer
100-150 wannabe geek
150-250 api guru
250-650 geek
650+ king geek

Any suggestions / additions to the titles?

Re: Points - great idea, but it means reading every post and scoring it - I certainly don't have that sort of time.

John

[pardede]

John,

I'm affraid i have to disagree with the titles you mention to replace the 'junior/senior member' titles we have now. Sounds too much like a joke while I think a lot of the people here are being serious :)

I think we should stick to the style we have now. Just expand the titles with things like:
- junior member
- active junior member
- member
- active member
- young senior member
- senior member
- active senior member
- etc...
Specially the 'active' title rewards those members who regularly posts topics.

About points: i have a simpler idea: opening a thread (mostly meaning: putting a question) scores less than posting a reply (sometimes meaning: providing answers). The content of the reply will not be considered but at least no one gets to be senior just by posting whole bunches of questions.

I hope this is a useful idea

I like your idea about exapanding the levels but I don't like the word active there. Maybe a new title....

1-100: Junior Member
100-500: Memeber
500-1000: Senior Member
1000+: Guru

[pardede]

When you'll be changing the ratings for the member titles, i think you need to consider the emotional impact of the changes the members. It is not the biggest deal but I think no one likes rank-degradation. I could second Batman's suggestion on using alpha-beta etc..

By the way, personally I don't like the word 'guru'...

Say if the line between active member and member is 100.
What is someone reaches 101 then they only post about 2-3 times a month. They would still be called an active member then...

why don't you like the word guru. If i'm not mistaken, I think it's a word in the east indian for someone really wise.

[Paul282]

5000+ and you're a "JOHN"

:D

I want more titles too! (Any excuse to pat myself on the pack!)

[Paul282]

You could have a system where everyone looses 1 pt per day. That way people who don't post regularly for a while will be demoted.

You wouldn't need to update the DB with this script, just put the algorithm inthe script itself

eg Paul282 Posts = 100
Days since 2000/4/1 = 25
Active Posts = 75

(or 74 tomorrow)

You get my point anyway

[Mark Sreeves]

I think it ought to stay as it is – or proceed with extreme caution

The Member status only reflects the number of posts not the quality XxEvilxX is a Senior member after all.

If we are not careful we'll end up with the ridiculous situation I saw on another VB forum (I can’t remember which as I never went back there!) where each question is rated on the programming ability required to solve it and the users replying earn points.

That outcome is that the forum was so slow to get replies that it was worse than useless!

The beauty of this forum is that someone will probably post a reply within an hour or so.

I am a full time professional (that means I get paid for it ;) ) programmer and if I stumble across a problem I need help instantly!

[Paul282]

You're a Pro?

You're taking it all a little seriously aren't you?? it's just a title meant as a bit of fun.

I like John's idea of using 'geek', 'Script Kiddie' and 'guru' as it (being amusing) implies that no skill level is tied to the title, It's just something to for the younger to have fun with and it gives them something to strive for.

After all, someone with a lot of posts may just be asking a lot of questions because they're a beginner.

If people are enjoying it then why not add a bit of fun, I can't see how it will effect the quality or response time of the replies

[kedaman]

Megatron had a good point! Don't remove the previous titles, just add new ones like "Junior Guru 500-999", "Guru 1000-2000", "Senior Guru 2000+"

[Mark Sreeves]

Paul282
Correct me if I'm wrong but suggested titles such as:

30-100 junior programmer
150-250 api guru

do suggest skill level

[Fox]

I dont think that it's a good idea to suggest skills ;) The number of posts doens't say anything about your skill, it only tells about your wish to help / ask ;). I think we should let the titles based upon this, like Newbie, Junior member, Member, Senior member...

Uh, and I'd also prefer to take the post frequency to get titles coz after some time we'll all have more than 1000 posts ;)

[pardede]

Reading your posts gives me another insight. Since in this forum in general only the number of posts is considered, why not give titles that reflects this. We can use titles like:
- new member
- junior member
- member
- active member
- hyperactive member
- fanatic member

[Mark Sreeves]

If the titles are just for fun how about using alliteration such as


vb Virgin
vb Volunteer
vb Villain
vb Vagrant
vb Veteran

or...

vb Vagabond
vb Vicar
vb Vixen
vb Victim
vb Victor
vb Vegetable

[Fox]

*lol*

I'm a vegetable when I get my 1000st post ;)

[Stevie]

Just wanted to add my thoughts even though I am not yet a senior member ;)

I think the levels are good the way they are, but for the technically gifted among us, it would be nice to have more levels to aim for after senior member status.

Someone mentioned that anybody can get to senior member by just posting loads of questions. Well I like to think I have answered more than I have actually asked, but for those who only ask more questions I personally think so what! Just because someone is a senior member doesn't mean they are automatically a genius or something. I have only been on the forum for a couple of months but I could easily tell you the senior members who give good advice, and the ones who only post questions quite easily. The same can be said the other way as well, as I have seen some quite excellent advice given out by juniors.

[Fox]

Uh, forgot to post my text ;)

well, I think pardede's names are fine. But then we should really give them for the post frequency! You can't be an active member just coz you posted 200 posts years ago, understand?

[pardede]

Well Fox, my point with the word 'active' is that it's an additional status to the title, it is to be set on/off depending on how active a member is. So actually we are on the same line of thought.. being passive for too long will result in having the 'active' title to be gone...

by the way... are you reading all this John? :)

[Fox]

Yeah, what about two parts of the title? One says how often you're posting (ie. Active or Sleepy) and the second is how much you're posting or whatever... :)


Active Junior Member
Interested Member
Sleeping Guru ;)
...

[Fox]

Just an idea:

What about counting the smileys you make? That would make titles like 'Funny member' or 'Asking newbie'? I think that would also be a good idea ;)

[HarryW]

We can all aim for 'Senior grinning maniac vb vegetable guru' :)

[John]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm going to start a new thread so that you can all vote on it.

John

[scottr]

I would like to add my 2 cents. As an old gf of mine used to say being a geek is bad, but being a nerd is cool. So replace the word geek with nerd, then we are all cool by default. Oh yeah. Cool programers haha, sorry lost it there for a moment

Scott

[Stevie]

It's nice to have a rating that can be improved all the time as it adds a bit of fun into the whole thing.

Only thing is, it was bound to bleeding change when I got on the verge of being a senior member. ;)

I totally agree with you Paul282. Some people are taking this member stuff way to seriously. I'm mean, come on people, this is a VB fourm, not some sort of competition. Anyway, as you mentioned, it gives you something to strive for, but in the end, if mainly just for fun.

[Fox]

*thinks*
"I'd like to be the grinning Guru vegetable" ;)

*laughs*

[Sam Finch]

Can we have somethig like this,

The First word represents the number of posts you have made

ie 0 - 30 Newbie
31 - 50 Junior ...
51 - 100 Active
101 - 150 Hyperactive
etc (probably not as close together as this

and the second word represents the ration of questions to answers

so if you have mainly questions it's Learner
a few more questions than answers Beginner
about half and half Programmer
more answers than questions Pro
and nearly all answers Guru

a few notes to make this work

1 if you're a newbie don't have the second word as you'll get someone be a newbie guru if they register and then answer, then 2 questions later they're down to beginner, for the 1st 30 posts just have them as newbies

an answer only goes to you're ratio if it's you're first reply to that post otherwise if you look at how many replies fox has made on this post it's not really a test of how much you know
(No offence fox but you see the point I'm making)

[Stevie]

That sounds good except for one point.

Quite often the first answer you get is incorrect, or more to the point, following answers are actually better.

Also people chip in with comments on stuff which would not be deemed an answer but are usually helpful.

[Sam Finch]

I meant that you only get one point for answering a post no matter how many times you answer it, not just the first person getting there gets credit, that kinda favors people giving short answers, So say you answer a post you get credit for that but if you answer it a second time you don't get any more points. This would keep the Q/A ratio about equal as I don't think many people wuld have more questions than answers if you got credit for every reply and it wouldn't relly work.

[Fox]

Well...

I think it's impossible to come to a point. There are too many exceptions and no really rules about posting...
It maybe boring but just making more titles will be the best huh? ;)

[kedaman]

I think the credit thing is going to be hard to implement, because users will try to post stupid comments after every thread, even if they have been given sufficient answers. Making the rules more and more complicated will only add seriousness to getting these points. I think we only should add some new titles, for the moment, because soonly we'll have about 95% senior members.

But we best not to get to carried away. If we have a lot of titles, if one person asks a simple question, he will be bombarded with answers that don't make sense.

Maybe whoever ASKED the question should have an option to rate how good the answer is.

But then again, it's just a though. It really doesn't matter to me. Just as long as we have all titles evenly spaced out.

[kedaman]

Megatron, I think that's a good solution, if any. The one that asked the question could give a point to the answerer, or a half point to two correct ones. Then if someone posts something irrelevant after it, he won't get any points.

[Sam Finch]

Yeah but nobody will do it

yes they will, we just rate them by seleting an option (Good, Excellent, bad etc.) and press the rate button.

[Sam Finch]

Your also supposed to lock a thread after it's been properly answered.

Really? I've been here since March 1999 and I never knew that...Is the person who started the topic suppose to lock it? Or can anyone do it?

[Sam Finch]

That's te point I'm making, I think int's the guy who posted who has to close the thread.

[Sam Finch]

just looking at that post again can we have a spellcheck in the forum.

[Stevie]

I agree with Sam that nobody (mostly) will bother doing it.
As previously said most people don't lock their threads, and just think of all the times you have given out help to people and they don't even reply with a thanks.
You will get people who will do it but I think the vast majority won't.

[Iain17]

I quite liked Sam Finch's idea of questions versus answers. The problem with that is that rooms like this one are not really for posting proper questions, and should not be counted in the questions asked. It all gets far to complicated, but a spell checker is defiantly in order.

The people with 2-10 posts wont mind. The real helpers with 1000 posts will really mind.