Member Status (milestones)

[64Guitars]

Let's level the field and get rid of them and the post counts, it's all superfluous.

As I said on the previous page of this topic, eliminating post counts and membergroups isn't an option. They are a required part of the forum software.

Quote from the SMF online documentation:

"Please be aware that SMF requires that you have at least one post-count-based membergroup. You can negate this, for the most part, by removing all of the post-count based membergroups except for that one, required group. That one, remaining, membergroup can be given any name. Just ensure that the number of required posts, for that group, is 0 (zero)."

I think a few people are attaching too much significance to the membergroups. They're just a bit of fun and another way to congratulate people on their long history with the site and their valuable contributions to it in the form of the messages they've posted. Forums can't survive if nobody posts, so I see nothing wrong with thanking people who post often and reach certain milestones. It doesn't mean they're better musicians than anyone else. It's got nothing to do with music. It's about the health of the forum, and it's a simple way of saying thanks to those who are actively involved in the community rather than lurking in the background. If everyone lurked, there'd be no point in having a forum. Just take a look at the history of the Yahoo! Boss BR group which I will probably be closing in the near future because nobody there wants to post anything.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BossBr/
(Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the Message History. The numbers are the total number of messages posted in each month.)

The Yahoo! Boss BR group currently has 645 members. Yet, in the past year, only 3 messages have been posted. Everyone wants to lurk; no one wants to contribute.

That's why we'll continue to have membergroups here and we'll try to have a bit of fun with them by coming up with some better names. We need people to post messages - whether they're song posts, replies, questions, answers, jokes, or whatever - to keep the community healthy. So we'll continue to congratulate/thank the people who are most active in the community. Without them, Songcrafters would be pretty dull. Even the lurkers would be bored.

[Hilary]

Let's level the field and get rid of them and the post counts, it's all superfluous.

Quote from the SMF online documentation:

"Please be aware that SMF requires that you have at least one post-count-based membergroup. You can negate this, for the most part, by removing all of the post-count based membergroups except for that one, required group. That one, remaining, membergroup can be given any name. Just ensure that the number of required posts, for that group, is 0 (zero)."

One post-count-based membergroup - wouldn't that be all those members who have a zero post count (new members) and the rest of us (members), thereby eliminating the need for other levels. If you're happy with the levels and that's the way you want to run it then fair enough - I haven't had any previous experience of other forums. I personally think the 'hierarchy' is unnecessary and we should all be level (apart from the admin team) but that's just the way I roll.

[phantasm777]

i hear ya haylie. i had a few forums in the past, your stuck with the names (ranks) and stars but you can change the names, and even the stars, but can't get rid of them entirely. and i also hear ya about post hierarchy. sometimes i see posts that shouldn't even count as posts. but i just basically ignore it.