Aw, come Mike - it's only so Tony can show off his new "FAQ Master" moniker...

That's actually old. From before he removed the ratings. And I didn't put it there anyway, either Paul or Tom did.

Paul did that I believe. Probably due to the fact that you have so many posts, you are way above the titles implemented.

And I am looking for ideas on the higher ranks, and possibly a few more inbetween the existing ones.

I'll volunteer to be a ``gadfly''.

It seems there should only be one pooh-bah, obviously that should go to Tom since Tony already has a unique title.

I think that once someone hits 1000 posts it would be good to let them choose their own title. Just as small acknowlegement to their contribution. Currently that only applies to 20 members.

Conversely, I think that if someone is trolling on the board, they should have their title and avatar chosen for them, kinda like this guy over at rtcwcentral.

I think that once someone hits 1000 posts it would be good to let them choose their own title.

I'm not creative enough to choose my own title.

I think the custom titles are a good idea. When you get above 1,000 posts or so, you're not really looking to climb any more ladders with your post count or anything, so it'd be nice just to have a vanity title there and be done with it. Setting more titles above 1,000 seems frivolous.

Yeah, but that's probably 'cos you don't have enough posts

Huh? I don't get it. I have 1306 posts as of this one.

I think the custom titles are a good idea.

Fine, then YOU write the PHP code to do it and remember to update that code every time the BBS software is upgraded.

(Sorry, I just spend my work days trying to beat down frivolous feature requests from upper management who have no idea what it takes to implement the features...)

That's irony for you. It's true - you are "creatively challenged" if you missed that one.

Maybe that would be your custom title, although as Tony states - it's unlikely to happen.

I'd prefer that custom titles were conferred by *other* members on the board, to reflect the persona that had been projected by the user.... so Bitt would become "Keeper of the Dictionary", or something similar in nature to reflect upon his expertise in the use of English grammar.

I still don't get it.

Fine, then YOU write the PHP code to do it and remember to update that code every time the BBS software is upgraded.

(Sorry, I just spend my work days trying to beat down frivolous feature requests from upper management who have no idea what it takes to implement the features...)

Ummm.. Lay off the coffee, will ya? I thought it might be doable out-of-the-box with UBBthreads... If it's not, I'm certainly capable of implementing it... In any event I was just agreeing that it was a cool idea.

I've seen many other forums do it also...I'm pretty sure it's not that big of a deal. I wouldn't have suggested it if I thought it would be a major burden. And like I said...only 20 members qualify, and a couple of them already have custom titles.

Anyway...I'm sure Drakino will jump in here eventually and let us know the plausiblity of such a suggestion.

Fine, then YOU write the PHP code to do it and remember to update that code every time the BBS software is upgraded.

(Sorry, I just spend my work days trying to beat down frivolous feature requests from upper management who have no idea what it takes to implement the features...)

On the other side of this coin is "asking management for features" and having them tell you "every time someone complains, it will be your problem". Well, that's fine, but if you want to delegate management responsibility to me, I get to decide when to fix it and when to tell them what they're doing is broken and we're sorry. Like, if you tell me that "DNS names are case insensitive and we'll keep doing them in uppercase and it's up to you to deal with this Java problem which we can't fix because we don't have source for it by breaking your software in ways which are not codified into the standards" then why should I take you seriously when you say "well, they're case insensitive, but changing it might screw someone else and we can't do that". Pick one stance, and stick with it.

Of course, instead the stuff simply never gets done, and I just hate more and more of the people who work at a level above me and are not my superior but lead other groups.

One once commented in the bathroom, and I overheard... "Can't get any two people to work together on anything."

I went to his office a bit later and told him that the people at my level were mostly fine to work with; Sometimes I disagree with their ideas, and sometimes they mine, but we put it all together and make it work. It's only when dealing with the people at his level, the people who are interested in playging politics, when things break down.

I want to do X. X is doable. X can be made doable by me but that isn't my job. I would get in trouble for fixing things so I can do X, and due to turf wars getting someone else to do it is hard. Where of course by hard I mean "not bloody likely".

I understand management is necessary, useful, all that. Stop playing games, and let's get stuff done, if you don't want to get stuff done, fine, stay out of the way of the people who are doing the stuff and play politics with each other, not us.

I can outbitter you any day. Bring it on.

I can outbitter you any day. Bring it on.

You really didn't wanna say that, actually....

We've got a major deliverable due a week on Friday, but still the project lead keeps saying to the developers "Wouldn't it be neat if.." and "I'd really like to see it doing this:...". He seems to regard it as odd that I keep suggesting that the better idea is to finish what we need to get it out of the damn door and add the nifty stuff later, rather than re-coding perfectly functional stuff in the rapidly dimishing time we have left.

Of course, being subcontacted at this job, I'm just a code-monkey who does what he's told (which also keeps me out of the politics), and also (thankfully) I'm only responsible for the back-end, with the contantly redesigned stuff done by others, but it's driving me up the wall at the moment! (And I'm not even going to mention the problems of reconciling a SAP system with data flowing in from external companies - if I find the person who put it in management's mind that you can take a number of flawed datasets and end up with perfect data within a week, I'm going to give them a damn good kicking...)

Bah, not that I'm bitter...

Bryan.

Anyway...I'm sure Drakino will jump in here eventually and let us know the plausiblity of such a suggestion.

It's plausable. I'd probably just do it as a quick hack outside the BBS code because that would be easiest, and would survive any BBS upgrades (though I don't see that happening anytime soon, 6.0 has some crappy features that can't be disabled yet). I have some thoughts on the code in my mind now, so it's officially on the list of things to do.

Ditto.. good to see them again! (thanks Tom!)