Member status suggestion

[AussieVanda]

This is prompted by another thread asking about how one progresses from jr member, member to senior member. Obviously this is primarily based on number of posts.

There are others however on this board that have a depth of knowledge that far surpasses the majority of us hobby growers. Without them many of us would flounder in one or another. They have influenced us to a great extent and challenged us to become more knowledgeable and practical in our orchid growing endeavours.

What I propose is a separate title for those persons....such as 'orchid master' as recognition for their contributions to this site.
The selection of who would be eligible is of course subjective and should be at the discretion of our mods.......

Thoughts?

[WhiteRabbit]

Cool idea -
I don't know if it would be difficult to set up; or if it would be problematic making the designation ...

[RandomGemini]

I believe that the membership titles are something that are programmed into the forum software itself. They can be modified, but they are still based off of number of posts.

I know what you mean though, I post a LOT. I ask a lot of questions, I comment on people's photos... maybe I spend way too much time on OB... and I am not an expert and sometimes I forget to tell people that when I give an opinion, so something like this might be a good idea if it can be done.

[Andrew]

AussieVanda, this is a great idea, although I'm not sure how you'd go about determining who is an expert. The anonymity of forums can make it hard to differentiate between the experts and the novices. Most of the pics people post are single flower shots which don't give you much idea of whether they're growing their plants well. I would like to hear people's ideas on how you could pick members to be forum-recognised experts. Have them post their credentials or post 20 or so pics of their best orchids in flower and let members decide if they are good growers? Maybe have a yea or nay voting system so that people don't get a bunch of unquestioned votes from new growers who are impressed that an orchid flowers rather than flowers well?

[RandomGemini]

Maybe just a voluntary field where we can input the number of years we have been growing orchids?

[AussieVanda]

Not necessarily an expert at orchid growing but based on their contributions to the board itself that are of benefit to all or even just a niche group on the board, such as some our neo growers or others who are into all things photographic. That's why I suggested it be a subjective decision at the discretion of the mods. A title needn't even be 'orchid master', could even be 'valued contributor' or whatever, just something to set them apart from the pack....

[AnonYMouse]

MVP-Most Valued Participants!

I really like this proposal. Since we do a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing and opining, it would be nice to identify someone who gives sound balanced advice.

I don't know how you'd pick. Has to be knowledgable and experienced with good communication skills.

[RosieC]

A good idea, but not sure how it could be implemented.

As has been said, the current titles, and the flowers that appear under the name, are automated by the software. As an Admin I've seen where this is set up and it's all based around number of posts.

There are some other titles which are based on something called 'reputation', but it's not implemented here. They might help, not sure if they way they work will be useful or not, and I can't implement them, that will need agreement from Marty, but I'll take a further look at how they work.

It seems to be related to members who already have high reputation, high post count, have been here a long time, can vote members up... but also down.

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This makes me think where anything along these lines might cause problems. Even if it were only moderators/admins who could give someone the new titles like we are talking about, you could get a situation where someone feels they deserve a title, but the moderators and/or other members disagree. This could lead to bad feeling.

If someone gets a down vote, or even doesn't get the up vote they would like it could make them upset.

I wonder if this is why Marty has never implemented this system, because I know he always wants Orchid Board to be a very friendly non-divisive place

[AussieVanda]

Fair call rosie. I guess that would be a real risk of people throwing the sads if they think that they've been hard done-by.

I must say though this is by far the best forum I've ever been on. Have been on a few and this is the most courteous, helpful and accepting of all experience levels. I particularly enjoy that most users stay topic focused.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if this suggestion would risk division in an otherwise harmonious little orchidboard community then maybe just let it lie.

PS - every now and then I have these little thought bubbles that kind of explode

[kikitastrophe]

Using number of replies to advance in membership status - I feel - incentivizes the gumming up useful posts with a lot of "nice" and "great" comments that aren't very useful. The like function should allow people to convey their appreciation without extending the post's page count. When there is a gem comment in the bundle, it might be missed by people not wanting to scroll or page flip through 9 pages. This could be somewhat improved by maybe allowing the thread-starter to remove posts if they want to keep a particular post neat and useful.

Additionally, I am by no means an expert, but there have definitely been times when I've received advice that has be unhelpful or worse - here and in the "real world". Though I absolutely agree it would be useful to "up rate" and "down rate" participants (hey, can we do it in the real world too!?) I agree it is more likely to take away from the nice friendly culture than to add to it.