Senior Member Status

Is there even any additional advantage to being a senior member than the word senior appearing below your handle?

sorry guy's but i believe it isn't really important the status of a member.important is for me : somebody writes a good posts, hints,links or comments or start a interesting thread.
it' doesn't matter which status he/she has...(junior member,member,senior.. or jp :) )
i'm a junior member and i try to give good comments,hints,links if i'm interested in that topic.respect for all the guys(sonic,remote_access...and all the other)they are post a lot but i haven't the time .
in my opionon: i joined the ao to learn sth about security,networking and privacy..
the member part is nice ..but not really important!!!

have a good weekend,
cheers


ps:that was number 15 and need only 15 more :rolleyes: to become a member

Then why did you give me negative antipoints?

My thoughts:

Option 1: psychosquee's post, an a damn good idea, too.

Option 2: keep it how it is

Option 3: Have more then three statuses and have it so that time at AO and number of AntiPoints recieved play a part. For example, a person with over 200 posts and 200 AntiPoints might qualify for "Valued Member" or something like that. Someone with -400 might qualify as intensely disliked. The variety of names you could have is endless and could be very descriptive.

Well, personally, I'm against antipoints having much bearing in the matter. I still feel that APs are just a rule-of-thumb for people to use guaging reputations/seniority, and that over-reliance on them will lead to popularity contests, rather than sincere discussion.

The main problem with the approval-board idea would be that it would invite a sort of clique to form... It is difficult to make sure that the person is judged on their contributions to the community, rather than possible personal frictions or ideological disagreements.

While there seem to be quite a few people that contribute to the whole of the site for security posts, answer questions, etc.. (I like to think I fit in that category), the AP system and the IRC really is based on who you know, who values your opinion, and whether or not you get "op" status on IRC. Example: I like to think I've contributed to AO quite a bit for various things yet I barely get a handful of sentences out of the "more senior" members that have op status on the IRC room. Do I care if I'm an op? No. Do I care that some people think that having such status is some sort of "I'm better than thou"? Yes...it's high-schoolish and doesn't do anything for the community. There *are* cliques on here, whether admitted or not, and all I can do, as well as others no doubt, is continue to contribute to the masses for computer security, answer questions, and other things...

Disclaimer: I'll probably get negative points for this but hey, it's my opinion and it's how I've seen things since I've gotten here. Some things never change.

I think it should be a combination of factors (bare in mind, my forte is building mountains out of mole hills ..... take a big breath before diving in and double check there is air in the tank!)

1)# of posts: I think number of posts is important to show active participation....how will anyone know you are looking through the view-finder????? Just being logged in doesn't mean you aren't squatting. I also think that numbe should be high to discourage the fledgling doofus. (Perhaps also a requirement of a minimum of 1 tutorial + 1 security related post or somthing????)

2) I think "time in" should be a factor. Easily measured by the database from time joined to current post. I think a minimum 2 months of active participation should be required for "membership" and 4 months of active participation should be required for senior membership. That'll get people sticking around.....uhhh....(thinking on that one)....maybe.
This will discourage posts of "Okay" made for the sake of stacking the deck.

3) The "application" idea is a good one but that would just make work for people and the folks applying would be all impatient and some insecure people wouldn't apply and ..... but!.... there could be an online quiz about AO that someone who'd been cruising the site would know...questions about navigation, services, changes, members. That way it could be automated and not have to be babysat. When a person reached the rq'd number of posts and had been a member the rq'd amt of time then the system would drop them a PM with a link to the quiz. The quiz would have to be dynamic drawing from it's own indexing database as changes to the site occur. I would also have it sitting on a virtual link with a script that moved that link around so that it couldn't be accessed from the same URL more than once.

These things together would give meaning to "Senior Member" and yet be measurable and attainable by everyone. :hippy:




:D Not that I really have any complaints about the current system....

To tell you the truth i care nothing about number of posts:
"junoir member, member, senior" I don't care what you are; I will just give respect based off pure SMARTS. Title's mean nothing. For those of you who are so in to this "Title thing" more power to you i guess.

Hell i never look at someones member status anyways;
All i look at is the great wealth of knowlege put in to the posts.

In short "should we bump up the number of post for status?"

I think we should just do away with the member status and only show time in AO

i have heard alot of great ideas so far .. some that i personally agree with are ..
1) make the # of posts be 400
2) require a tutorial be written by the person..(one isnt that hard really)

i also think maybe posts that are in general chitchat not really involving computers maybe shouldnt count..
im not trying to discriminate against anyone ,but i just think senior membership should be based on how helpfull people are, and not just how many times they throw out pointless comments..of course i also realize its hard to judge a persons usefullness with an automated system.

i just thought of something...maybe we could have add a system where you could vote for people you think deserve senior membership..something like anti-points..but a seperate pool and if a person has helpfull advice or whatever you can make a "recomendation " and with a certain amount of recomendations and with the other criteria talked about already, (# of posts etc) you can become a senior member..and just to avoid abuse of the system maybe a person can only make a certain amount of recomendations a week or whatever.. i dont know .. it was just a thought..im curious though what other people think about this