AFF Posting Levels.

[straitman]

From its humble beginnings in June 2002 the Australian Frequent Flyer Forum has come a long way and is in deed the leading Frequent Flyer resource we have available in Australia. In the ‘Seasons Greetings’ topic admin stated ‘thanks for your ongoing contribution to our community in making it the VERY BEST travel resource in Australia.’

A small issue that has nagged at me for a long time is the definitions used for posting levels. Currently the levels are as follows:
1 post Newbie
2 – 9 posts Junior Member
10 – 19 posts Member
20 – 99 post Senior Member
100 + posts Posting Freak and
God (oops sorry) Moderator

I am suggesting that it is time that we updated these levels to be more realistic and appropriate for a forum of the stature of AFF.

I suggest that the levels should be changed to something like the following:
0 - 25 posts New Member
26 - 100 posts Junior Member
101 - 1000 posts Member
1001 - 3000 posts Senior Member
3001 - 10000 posts Posting Freak
10001 + posts Get A Life

I’d like to run a poll for all members over a one month period and if the response is positive then work with admin to effect the change along the lines of what I’ve suggested above. If you have an alternative suggestion for the actual wording of each level, please post your idea.

 

[Keith009]

Ah....enhancements...:shock:

 

[Hawkeye]

Agree - I've never considered myself a freak!!!

With respect to your proposal, Straitman, maybe the requirement for Senior Member could be lowered somewhat - to say 500 posts.

 

[straitman]

Agree - I've never considered myself a freak!!!

With respect to your proposal, Straitman, maybe the requirement for Senior Member could be lowered somewhat - to say 500 posts.

Hawkeye,

Thanks for the comment. The suggested numbers are my suggestions only and may be totally inappropriate.

The final levels (if changes are made) would be entirely up to admin as it is his forum.

 

[Febs]

Agree that a "revision" of membership levels is in order. Not sure I agree with those exact figures, but I realise they're merely examples/suggestions.

Throwing it out there, but what about membership levels which follow QFF or AA? ie: Junior member = Silver, Senior Member = Gold, Posting Freak = Platinum etc...

Not sure if the general consensus on those sort of levels is "tacky" or not?
Just a thought.

Cheers,
- Febs.

 

[Hvr]

I agree, as a form matures and the number of posters and posts increases then these matters need to be reviewed.

Febs has an interesting thought, and to carry it further what about lowering a members' level if they do not post a certain amount of posts during the year?

Maybe even a lifetime silver and gold level with the opportunity to reach platinum?

 

[BlacKnox]

Hi Bill,

Interesting subject matter. I voted for the possibility of change but do not agree with your proposal. Anything which rewards the number of posts I feel cheapens the forum. I joined a couple of years ago and have seen the number of rubbish posts flourish. For me there is less incentive to check the forum for this reason. There is free technology available today (e.g. DIGG etc.) so maybe people voting on the usefullness of posts e.g. is a better indicator of someone's level???

 

[straitman]

Hi Bill,

Interesting subject matter. I voted for the possibility of change but do not agree with your proposal. Anything which rewards the number of posts I feel cheapens the forum. I joined a couple of years ago and have seen the number of rubbish posts flourish. For me there is less incentive to check the forum for this reason. There is free technology available today (e.g. DIGG etc.) so maybe people voting on the usefullness of posts e.g. is a better indicator of someone's level???

BlacKnox,

I'm not sure of the right direction here either. I don't really understand what you aree saying with 'There is free technology available today (e.g. DIGG etc.) so maybe people voting on the usefullness of posts e.g. is a better indicator of someone's level???'
... or how to make it useful.

I agree about the rubbish posts and admit to being as guilty as the next guy and am just attempting to come up with some better options.

Any and all help gladly accepted.

 

[dot]

I for one agree with Straitman, it is time to up the levels and catagories. I've finally broken the 100 post barrier to become a posting freak, but that hardly compares with the 2000+ postings thats some of the well established posting freaks have written...

It's time to re-gig the levels. I like the idea of using FF Levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Plat etc). I think Straitman's numbers are a little high (I am a believer in setting achievable targets), but better than the current levels.

How about these levels?...

0 - 25 posts Bronze
26 - 100 posts Silver
101 - 500 posts Gold
501 - 1500 posts Platinum
1501 - 5000 posts Platinum (Lifetime Gold)
5001 + posts Lifetime Platinum

 

[BlacKnox]

BlacKnox,

I'm not sure of the right direction here either. I don't really understand what you aree saying with 'There is free technology available today (e.g. DIGG etc.) so maybe people voting on the usefullness of posts e.g. is a better indicator of someone's level???'
... or how to make it useful.

I agree about the rubbish posts and admit to being as guilty as the next guy and am just attempting to come up with some better options.

Any and all help gladly accepted.

Hi Bill,

DIGG.com perhaps is a bad example. I was suggesting a mechanism whereby others vote/ determine the level of participants' value/ contribution. I don't know either; my previous post simply referred to my experience. Cheers!

 

[Dave Noble]

Hi Bill,

Interesting subject matter. I voted for the possibility of change but do not agree with your proposal. Anything which rewards the number of posts I feel cheapens the forum. I joined a couple of years ago and have seen the number of rubbish posts flourish. For me there is less incentive to check the forum for this reason. There is free technology available today (e.g. DIGG etc.) so maybe people voting on the usefullness of posts e.g. is a better indicator of someone's level???

I fully agree; suggesting post counts as a measure of usefulness is insane; a poster with 200 useful posts would be more useful than a poster with several thousand posts of rubbish, so why imply that they are better. If there was a proposal to have a rating that measure quality rather than quantity, I would support that

Dave

 

[JohnK]

I am suggesting that it is time that we updated these levels to be more realistic and appropriate for a forum of the stature of AFF.

I totally agree.

I do not believe in a system where your peers vote for membership or importance levels. This then creates a type clique situation where some people would vote for their friends.

Just because someone has a high post count does not make them an expert but they have contributed to the forum and they have also contributed to the growth of the forum. Some of these so called rubbish posts are just as important as is the question of what are my chances of an operational upgrade is posted for the 1001st time or how to start the AA Platinum Challenge is asked for the 301st time, or the 164th time the AA India call centre phone number is posted.

In my opinion someone who has 3000+ posts that includes rubbish is way more important than a member with only 200 useful posts. I would not want to see the member with 200 posts given a status as high as someone with 3000 posts. The member with 200 posts deserves a status as any other member with 200 posts. Who determines what is rubbish anyway? It is all relative.

The success of this forum is based on logging on and posting on a regular basis. Not just logging on and lurking or posting once in a blue moon.

I’d like to run a poll for all members over a one month period and if the response is positive then work with admin to effect the change along the lines of what I’ve suggested above. If you have an alternative suggestion for the actual wording of each level, please post your idea.

I don't see anything wrong with the names you have suggested or even the number of posts required to reach a new level. I have seen something similar on another forum where they had 6 levels but with different names for each level.

The idea of silver, gold or platinum does not appeal to me.

 

[straitman]

I fully agree; suggesting post counts as a measure of usefulness is insane; a poster with 200 useful posts would be more useful than a poster with several thousand posts of rubbish, so why imply that they are better. If there was a proposal to have a rating that measure quality rather than quantity, I would support that

Dave

Dave,

I'm not necessarily pushing for post counts or anything else in particular as the measure. It is merely a suggestion.

If you don't like it that's fine, however directly, or indirectly this is the only idea on the table at the moment.

Feel free to suggest a positive alternative.

 

[Yada Yada]

To be honest, forum member posting levels are just window dressing to me. I can't see the point of having them at all.

In any case, AFF is owned by admin so its not a democracy. So holding a poll is about as meaningful as the polls on Sky News... "Press Red if you think Brittany Spears is a good mother" etc etc. It's just not up to us.

Sorry, not meaning to be critical Bill. It's just how it is.

 

[dot]

Dave,

I'm not necessarily pushing for post counts or anything else in particular as the measure. It is merely a suggestion.

If you don't like it that's fine, however directly, or indirectly this is the only idea on the table at the moment.

Feel free to suggest a positive alternative.

Lets take one step at a time - we know that the levels based on post count can be modified easily within the scope of the software already in use.

Having the 'value' of a post (or a member for that matter) be judged by peers or some other method may not be able to be done within the software and may require modification to add functionality such as this. I presume that the forum is actually hosted with an ASP that hosts many other forums - this may make it more difficult to make such changes to the forum software. If other hosted forums are not requesting similar modifications to the rating system - that hosting company would probably not be inclined to modify their software because just one forum requests it.

Would Admin or the Moderators be able to explain what is possible within the current software?

 

[straitman]

To be honest, forum member posting levels are just window dressing to me. I can't see the point of having them at all.

In any case, AFF is owned by admin so its not a democracy. So holding a poll is about as meaningful as the polls on Sky News... "Press Red if you think Brittany Spears is a good mother" etc etc. It's just not up to us.

Sorry, not meaning to be critical Bill. It's just how it is.

Yada Yada,

You are as entitled to say this as much as the next guy and as I've said previously 'The final levels (if changes are made) would be entirely up to admin as it is his forum.'

 

[Ric]

And here I thought that my elevated status to "Senior Member" was due to my age!! Serious!

Straitman, agreed with you that that the levels and categories needs to be changed. My postings levels certainly does not make me "senior"!!

 

[oz_mark]

While I have long though the current levels are too low, the fact that they don't have any bearing on anything meant it was an itch I never felt the need to scratch. While basing it on a raw post count is not always a good indicator, it does have the advantage of being simple to implement.

Assigning value to a post is more difficult and the use of a voting system would make it somewhat subjective and arbitrary. Very few threads get ranked around here, I am not sure that many would take the time to rank the worthiness of posts and posters. Maybe we need Google to invent a post ranking system

One thing that may be worth thinking about, is to exclude playgorund posts from the ranking count..

 

[Keith009]

One thing that may be worth thinking about, is to exclude playgorund posts from the ranking count..

I disagree. This is a community - and I reckon the playground is an important part of that concept as a social lubricant.

 

[JohnK]

Assigning value to a post is more difficult and the use of a voting system would make it somewhat subjective and arbitrary. Very few threads get ranked around here, I am not sure that many would take the time to rank the worthiness of posts and posters.

I agree that a reputation meter does not really achieve anything.

One thing that may be worth thinking about, is to exclude playgorund posts from the ranking count..

As QF009 mentioned this is a community and all posts should count. Just because some people choose to stick to particular discussions only does not lessen the value of the playground.