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#1 2006-12-27 16:49:50

Basu
Member
From: Cornell University
Registered: 2006-12-15
Posts: 296
Website

Forum Rank Names

The current rank names given to posters are rather mundane. (New Board, Frequent Poster etc.) I would like to propose a new set of names based on puns on the word "arch". I've got two themes in mind:
1. Arch as in architecture. Rank names are based on building types or important structural features. (arches, pillars etc)
2. Based on Archer: names are different types of archers like longbowmen, crossbowmen etc.

I personally prefer the second one. If I get the go-ahead I'd be happy to make up a list of names.
Tell me what you think.
Basu


The Bytebaker -- Computer science is not a science and it's not about computers
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#2 2006-12-27 19:11:20

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

We deliberately made the ranks mundane to prevent people from going all out to improve their ranks (postcount++ threads). However, a mild theme as you suggest wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. No matter what the ranks are, I would suggest that they should emphasize that it is number of posts being measured, and not the quality of the poster. :-)

Dusty

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#3 2006-12-27 21:50:15

tlaloc
Member
From: Lower Saxony
Registered: 2006-05-12
Posts: 359

Re: Forum Rank Names

I agree that the total number of posts is not relevant (I think that Judd has relatively few   wink ). But the second suggestion sounds funny - if you can come up with a good list, go on.

Damn - another arrow in my left foot ...

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#4 2006-12-27 21:55:48

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: Forum Rank Names

excepting custom titles which point out a TU, Dev or FA they're entirely pointless and only exist for people who want to increase their postcount.

They don't show anything -- i've seen newbies with high postcounts, simply because they ask a lot of questions. On the other hand, I've seen knowledgable users who don't post often -- The titles show nothing of how much people know.

James

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#5 2006-12-28 00:59:21

chrismortimore
Member
From: Edinburgh, UK
Registered: 2006-07-15
Posts: 655

Re: Forum Rank Names

There was a forum I used to inhabit (forget which), which sets you "title" by your "reputation".  You gain reputation by people scoring your posts as either good or bad, get +1 for good, -1 for bad.  That way, your title represents the quality of your posts, rather than the volume.  I thought that was a good system, perhaps something similar would be possible?


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#6 2006-12-28 02:19:33

chaosgeisterchen
Member
From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria
Registered: 2006-11-20
Posts: 550

Re: Forum Rank Names

I would like to suggest...

as we are all (more or less - I can't judge that) mature, we should be capable of not doing anything wrong or creating a mess in case we are provided with the opportunity to choose our titles all by ourselves.

I have seen this system on relatively many boards and it's mostly working very good. It offers an alternative way of describing a user with one or a little amount of words.

What do you guys think about this idea?


celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
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#7 2006-12-28 02:53:42

elasticdog
Member
From: Washington, USA
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 995
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

chrismortimore wrote:

There was a forum I used to inhabit (forget which), which sets you "title" by your "reputation".  You gain reputation by people scoring your posts as either good or bad, get +1 for good, -1 for bad.  That way, your title represents the quality of your posts, rather than the volume.  I thought that was a good system, perhaps something similar would be possible?

I know that Beast does this, and I like it, but don't think it's a big deal either way.

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#8 2006-12-28 03:11:08

T-Dawg
Forum Fellow
From: Charlotte, NC
Registered: 2005-01-29
Posts: 2,736

Re: Forum Rank Names

I agree with chrismortimore. I don't think those titles serve any pratical purpose whatsoever the way they are now. A rank system would be very helpful to other users, especially the newer members. Correlate the rank in terms of trust not status. After all this is a user support forum.
It may even help the overall quality of help on the forums and post count++.
The only potential problem I see with it is jealousy but honestly someone that immature probably isn't going to hang aournd here that long anyway.

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#9 2006-12-28 04:16:28

chaosgeisterchen
Member
From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria
Registered: 2006-11-20
Posts: 550

Re: Forum Rank Names

chrismortimore wrote:

There was a forum I used to inhabit (forget which), which sets you "title" by your "reputation".  You gain reputation by people scoring your posts as either good or bad, get +1 for good, -1 for bad.  That way, your title represents the quality of your posts, rather than the volume.  I thought that was a good system, perhaps something similar would be possible?

I also know that system. Measured by how many reputation points you got your reputation towards an user will have more or less effect on his reputation points account. There is a limitation in how often you can rate a posting by a user - you have to rate a number of different users (either good or bad) before you can rate the same user again.

It was a quite sophisticated system although there was much criticism about it, as this system created an elite although the posting counter was turned off in the message board I am referring to at the moment.


celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
kernel26
KDEmod current repository

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#10 2006-12-28 08:56:48

chrismortimore
Member
From: Edinburgh, UK
Registered: 2006-07-15
Posts: 655

Re: Forum Rank Names

chaosgeisterchen wrote:

There is a limitation in how often you can rate a posting by a user - you have to rate a number of different users (either good or bad) before you can rate the same user again.

The one I used, you couldn't rate the same person again until you'd rated a number of others.  Started at 10, and reduced as you got more "senior".  And mods and such like could award +5 and -5 as well.


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#11 2006-12-28 10:30:29

dtw
Forum Fellow
From: UK
Registered: 2004-08-03
Posts: 4,439
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

T-Dawg wrote:

I agree with chrismortimore. I don't think those titles serve any pratical purpose whatsoever the way they are now. A rank system would be very helpful to other users, especially the newer members. Correlate the rank in terms of trust not status. After all this is a user support forum.

You'll need something other than punbb for that wink

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#12 2006-12-28 15:20:48

tlaloc
Member
From: Lower Saxony
Registered: 2006-05-12
Posts: 359

Re: Forum Rank Names

May I point out that Basu was only concerend with the way that ranks are named? It shouldn't turn at all into a (rather superfluous) discussion on how rank is determined or measured.

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#13 2006-12-28 16:36:24

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

The system being proposed is too complicated. This stuff has to be maintained by someone and we're having trouble getting access to the server to permit maintenance, as well as people willing to take on the task. Simple is better. If not, there's always Ubuntu. ;-)

Dusty

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#14 2006-12-28 21:28:18

chaosgeisterchen
Member
From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria
Registered: 2006-11-20
Posts: 550

Re: Forum Rank Names

chrismortimore wrote:
chaosgeisterchen wrote:

There is a limitation in how often you can rate a posting by a user - you have to rate a number of different users (either good or bad) before you can rate the same user again.

The one I used, you couldn't rate the same person again until you'd rated a number of others.  Started at 10, and reduced as you got more "senior".  And mods and such like could award +5 and -5 as well.

Sounds familiar to my ears.

The sytem I am talking about will be quite the same as yours, we also started at 10 points and then it went on. I reached a rather high value of reputation in this board (about 5500 reputation points) and in the end the users with the highest reputation were able to donate up to 130+ points by rating one post. It was all a matter of quality and quantity.


celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
kernel26
KDEmod current repository

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#15 2006-12-28 21:38:15

elasticdog
Member
From: Washington, USA
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 995
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

Dusty wrote:

The system being proposed is too complicated. This stuff has to be maintained by someone and we're having trouble getting access to the server to permit maintenance, as well as people willing to take on the task. Simple is better. If not, there's always Ubuntu. ;-)

Dusty

I agree, there's really no reason to make it more complicated, especially considering we are invested in the tools we currently use and most of the suggestions are not feasable...beyond just changing the names themselves, but I don't see much point in doing so.

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#16 2006-12-28 21:43:16

chrismortimore
Member
From: Edinburgh, UK
Registered: 2006-07-15
Posts: 655

Re: Forum Rank Names

I was on "It would be nice if" mode, and perhaps even thoughts for the future may have been thrown on the table, but (just to set the record straight) I didn't expect anything to change, purely because it isn't really worth it.

People seem to very quickly figure out who knows what they are talking about anyway, so the titles are pretty redundant in that department anyway.  It's just one of those things thats like "Ooo, my title has changed to something new...." every once in a while.


Desktop: AMD Athlon64 3800+ Venice Core, 2GB PC3200, 2x160GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10, 2x320GB WD Caviar RE, Nvidia 6600GT 256MB
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#17 2006-12-28 21:52:30

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

Also, post counts of 6000+ should have the title "Approaching phrakture"

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#18 2006-12-29 06:46:32

Basu
Member
From: Cornell University
Registered: 2006-12-15
Posts: 296
Website

Re: Forum Rank Names

Well I don't know if this is going to be implemented, but here's a rough list of ranks in case the Admins are interested:

Slingshot
Horn Bow
Composite Bow
Parthian Shot
Longbow
crossbow
Arbalest
Ballista


The Bytebaker -- Computer science is not a science and it's not about computers
Check out my open source software at Github

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