I thought dionysus was, but I could be wrong. yeah, I should have just said the reds

dionysus is green. I guess that makes Rob wrong! I can't believe it, what's next?

How about using different colours instead of titles? Keep the red and green as they are, but add a few new ones. Of course, then you'll get people saying "Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?"

One thing everyone needs to keep in mind about these modifications: If the BBS code gets modified, we need to keep the mods relatively simple. That way, if/when the BBS gets upgraded, we can more easily backport the changes. Commenting out the title display is a fairly small edit. Completely changing what gets displayed in its place is a much larger one.

That said, what about this? I wonder if it's possible to display a small post-count on the lefthand side instead of a named rank. Something that doesn't draw attention to itself, and therefore doesn't incite people to do silly things just to try to reach the next level. If it were possible, would that be a good compromise?

would that be a good compromise?

I like that solution. The named ranks where always kind of silly and I can understand people not wanting to be a newbie or whatever, but the postcounts themselves can be a nice feature.

-Mike

Well, if it does happen that way, I'd like to see it be as small and unobtrusive as possible, so that people don't get encouraged to do silly things trying to increase their post count.

Drakino, do you think this could be done?

Anyone wanna join my coup?

EDIT: added smilely face so this doesn't get taken the wrong way and blown out of proportion.

Anyone agree that this sounds like a threat?

It's a joke, Big Brother.

Personally, I preferred the way things were but I can see how status chasing isn't good for the board.
I've only been here 5-mins so I don't know what it's like for the Old Hands/Pooh-Bah's etc. (pun intended) to experience this time-after-time-after-time, I can guess it gets pretty boring though.

Personally, I think your proposed compromise is more or less acceptable. What would totally satisfy me would be to additionally show the Date registered as well.

Are you watching BB in the UK, I thought you were in the US for some reason?

If it were up to me here's what I'd do:

+display number of posts, date registered, and number of posts per hour since registration date.

+when a new member joins, they would have no title. After 30 days a link below their name would lead to a 48-hour poll that would allow members to vote on a number of different titles that are chosen depending on the user's number of posts, registration date, and post per hour rate. Every 30 days thereafter a new poll link would appear with updated possible titles. Of course this would require a lot of programming and it will never happen, but it is a dream.

What's BB? BBC? I am in the US.

Hell, that sounds like a compromise. I was just hoping to at least see the post counts in our personal profiles, so this is more than I thought would happen.

Also, what about date registered? I think that was also a good suggestion. It's tough to compete for that But it's not essential. I'd still like the personal titles, mainly because even with a tiny post count, it's still gonna be a little boring. Could I make a request that the personal pictures increase in height so we can add a little more in there? Just something like 100 or 120 pixels? I think that's a reasonable request...

Oh, and if you're not going to bring the titles back, I'd recommend that you take them out of the FAQ

There is a US version of the Big Brother show. It is about to enter its 3rd season after the first two seasons getting dismal ratings. But, I guess CBS has nothing better to go against NBC's Survivor.

I was just hoping to at least see the post counts in our personal profiles

My problem with this is that it would probably spawn a thread quite often of "I'm at 1000 posts, how many do you all have?"

It will probably be a bit before this issue is addressed on the code side though. I'm entering a point in time where I am going to go certification crazy. I plan on being at least a Sair Linux LCP and Compaq ASE by the end of the month.

the date register is already in everyone profile.

Or better yet, be able to specify the size you want your avatar displayed, so it won't get distorted.

Perhaps another solution is to have a voter ranking option. I've seen it on other boards, basically, someone has to go to your profile and vote on you (1-5 stars, or some such). That way, It makes a person want to make relavant and informative posts, so as to inspire people to take the time to vote for them. Of course, I have NO idea what is involved in the code side of this, but it would completely eliminate the post-count padding posts, and more than likely reduce the number of idiotic flame posts. It has the added advantage of being able to see quickly how "valuable" a person is to the community. Just an idea.

Later versions of UBB actually have that feature.

I tend to think that rankings are FAR worse than any of the stuff we got rid if. I can't think of a way to hurt more feelings on a BBS than that. No offense, but I just think it does.

Couldn't you just use a time ranking system weighted with post counts. So many months online with a least one post per month equals a certain rank. This assumes that long standing low posters would meet the one post req, but it seems feasible. I have no clue what the coding would require so if its intense I apologize.

If this thread hasn't done anything else - it has brought out a lot of comments from posters that I haven't seen in a while. Sometimes I felt like the turd at the bottom of the bowl and didn't feel like posting, but then I just decided to ignore it and post anyway.

It seems that most people would rather have the post counts and if it came down to it, have the post counts and not the user titles. What about having the user titles, but not the post counts - so you wouldn't know if you were about to become a 'member' or 'some_other_amusing_title'.

Well, it doesn't really matter to me. The titles do seem to have the ability to separate people out and I bet that people might not feel like they are a part of the community, and even worse - upping your post count by posting meaningless messages. Then again, many "new" people have had a lot to contribute, and, the titles provide amusement.

If the user titles are returned - Tony reserves every right to yell at the pile of lard who decides to post irrelevant messages to increase their post count. That should be amusing in itself.

If the user titles are returned - Tony reserves every right to yell at the pile of lard who decides to post irrelevant messages to increase their post count. That should be amusing in itself.

Amen.

I know I'm joining this thread a little late, I'm a not-so-frequent visitor, but if I might interject, I'm a "super moderator" over at Club 3g (http://www.eclipseforums.org/). We have the EXACT same issue with posts, count, titles and custom titles. We seem to have found the proper balance by:

Leaving post counts in place.
Leaving titles in place.
Making posts count in only Eclipse-related forums.
Making custom title available after 1000 posts, otherwise you're relegated to have only the system assigned titles.

This makes it so people have titles only when their counts get high enough, and only get posts for contributing. Anything that is not related or a one word reply gets delete if we stumble on it, and people that post junk (post-whores as we call them) get relegated to off-topic or another forum where their counts don't get tallied. Those forums also get pruned more often.

I'm not saying this si the way you guys should do it, I'm only trying to contribute our solution to what seems to be the same "problem" that you are encountering here. Now the only time people cry foul is when we prune a forum that posts count in.... and if they cry, they get their count re-instated manually. It's not many.

But I do think that counts/ titles help define the people you can trust to give you the real skinny on a problem. Titles? Eh... take 'em or leave them, a join date is just as effective.

Is "post-whore" trademarked? I rather like the recent use of hyphenated-whore terms as of late.

As for titles ... I liked them but if they have to be gone, the registered on ... date is sufficient I suppose. Though I am guilty of "Hey I made Journeyman, dammit!!!"

Greg Combs -- Not a post-whore, but as far as you know, I'm a Grand Poo-Bah!!!

As far as the entire user titles go, I frankly don't care. I've been here for over a year, and I mainly lurk. I've never been much of a status junkie, and honestly to prevent bs posting, and one word replies, I would rather not have them.

That's just my personal opinion, I may be wrong of course.