Dear All,
Simon requested some input / thoughts so here it is. I should mention that I do quite a lot of (mostly silent) forum surfing so I hv observed many forum “personalities”. This one is, IMO, undoubtedly one of the most friendly I hv ever encountered thks to the overall management and the users. I think this scheme to “reward” participants is very worthwhile, paricularly as, globally speaking, many people who come here may not hv any access to methods of self-certification. As usual, the qualitative aspirations are easier to put on paper than the quantitative.
1. Re-rank levels. I agree with Abdul / FSSM’s comments that it is currently too difficult to “elevate”. Hv a look at the historical/cumulative posting statistics on main page to see the current implications of the discussed numbers. A first reaction might be that the current proposals will not cause any significant changes in the overall situation. If this plan activates people to massive posting activity, that’s wonderful of course, but I know how much effort can be required simply to attain 100 posts when one is doing a full time “job”. Posting can be addictive but it takes time and effort. I can also appreciate the desire to maintain the status of Senior but I feel 350 may still be too high as a specific incentive tool. Member =50 seems OK to me so maybe either another intermediate level required (250=Advanced Member?) (+ maybe hold Senior at 450-500) or else maybe hv to accept that the concept of Senior be slightly downgraded. Adding maybe now creates too many levels ? It also maybe has implications with respect to the Certificate text ??(see comment below) which is perhaps a(>=) incentive for some people, even the (very few?) well-paid ones.
2. Re-Assessment – I do not think that any posts should be readily excluded. The effort in doing anything is noteworthy IMO, other than spamming etc of course. I’m not too enthusiastic about quality “evaluations” due the complexity, time, and maybe wrangling involved. If someone can suggest a simple/fair/quick method then I might change my mind.
3. Re-Certificate. Do hv a look at the current text. At the moment it’s fine IMO but I’m not quite sure if the same words work if used at all grades. Then again, no certificates IMEX are intended to express absolute truth, more of an appreciation / useable tool. Nonetheless, this (desirable?) uniformity factor is perhaps another argument in favour of an additional (displayed) ranking ? Or do people prefer a standardised appearance to avoid comparisons being made by third parties (if this scheme ever became that famous). Or, repeating the text of point 1, does the whole system become too clumsy / overloaded with ranks/certificates, perhaps a further argument against an additional ranking.
4. My summary of above is that ultimately a compromise is necessary based on what you want to get out of the process – appreciation / useability / meaningfulness / fairness / ease of implementation / flexibility. It is obviously easier to start off with a minimum number of levels and add rather than hv to remove later but I presume part of the current discussion (in addition to the certificate aspect) is a sort of acceptance that the current ranking scheme is felt to be too restrictive (somehow).
Rgds / Charles.C
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I accept 350 if we can remove General Discussion posts. What do others think? If I run the tool then your number of posts will go down by X amount.
