I thought I'd start a new thread about this, as a constructive way of offering our input. Yes, many of us are upset that the ranks and post counts have been taken away, but I understand the reasons for it, and rather than harp on that, I think it would be good to offer up requests and suggestions on what we'd like to see.

Here are things that I have suggested or seen suggested in the already long thread, and have gotten lost or ignored. For the counts and titles, I've ordered the severity of the suggestions Feel free to add anything.

Post Counts:
1-bring them back
2-bring them back but far less noticeable and unobtrusive
3-place them only in user profiles
4-place them only in "My Home"

Ranks/Titles:
1-bring them back
2-allow users to create their own titles, of limited size and text only
3-allow users to select (via radio button) one of many titles

Other Suggestions:
-increase the height of the personal photos to something like 100 or 120 pixels, so we might be able to add something of our own there and show some personal creativity. This is nice because users can choose whether or not they want to see personal photos.
-if ranks aren't brought back, delete the list in the BBS FAQ
-display date registered. Can't compete with that number, can you?

Obviously, the easiest of these would be the image size increase. I also don't think it would take up too much room, as we've gained quite a bit back and posts are often long enough to take up that space.

If there are any other suggestions for this, feel free to add them. Sorry for what might seem an extraneous post, but I thought we should discuss this and get going.

Thanks DiGNAN17, looks good i like how u made it simple for the higher ones to decied anything on there sounds good to me, anyone else agree?

Keep in mind that most of the stuff you listed is serious coding and requires a chunk of time on Drakino's part. Removing the pooh-bahs was just commenting out a couple lines of code, but you're talking about more complicated stuff.

Don't get me wrong, if anyone can do it, Tom can, I'm just saying that stuff takes work.

I'd be up for some coding.

Quis custodiet ipsos coders??

I vote that we bring back options 1 and 1, AND nuke the stupid red coloured names (greens are fine).

-ml

I was out of town all weekend so I missed the big hubbub about ranks/post counts, but I did talk with Tom on ICQ for a few minutes last night. Here's my outlook:

I think there should be three titles that are displayed in a similar manner to the old titles: Newbie, Member, and Moderator. Newbie should be there so that we can know someone is new to the board when they ask common questions. I'm much more apt to help someone who's new than I am to answer questions for an established member who's too lazy to read the FAQ. The Moderator title is necessary because the mods try to keep some semblence of order around here, and if someone's being an idiot, they should know that the moderator is there to take care of it.

Otherwise, I don't see a reason for any kind of distinction based on post count. It's a very irrelevant statistic. So I'd like everyone to just be "members" other than the mods and the new guys. I would, however, be in favor of having the "registered on" date somewhere on the header/sidebar.

This is similar to how I ran my dialup BBS back in the day. You had your newbies, your members, and your sysops. No arbitrary designations within these groups, and no post count prominently displayed.

I think this balances the need to have some info about a user's experience on the BBS with the desire to avoid arbitrary and sometimes counterproductive "ranks" for regular members.

This sounds like a fair solution to the problem.

Of course, we more or less have that already. For one, the moderators already have their distinctions with the colored names. Second, I think it would be even more boring if almost every single person in a thread had "member" under their names. Lastly, I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't see the community growing in size too much in the future. The user base won't get much larger. So there won't be as many newbies.

Plus, as was one of the reasons for getting rid of the ranks in the first place, some people are newbies but have been around for years! So we'd need some way of changing that.

Frankly I'd just love to see something else in that place.

And I still say take the ranks out of the BBS FAQ!!!

I would prefer it in a different way:

Use green names for newbies,
yellow names for regulars,
red named for moderators.

And put the old ranks back online, but replace "Newbie" with something else like "friend". I can imagine that a lot of people hate being called Newbie, me included.

I could live without the ranks if we still had the post counts in the user profiles (and I really don't expect people to start stupid "What's your postcount?" threads. After all, those stats are available in the user profiles for the original poster), also I would like some useful information in the place that was occupied by the rank. I liked the "home country" idea, but I noticed that _very_ few people on the BBS filled their profiles to a usuable level, let alone filling it completely.

cu,
sven

cu,
sven.

Yes, i agree, maybe have ranks that don't necessarily indicate post count. Possibly the length of time registered with the board coupled with regular logins to read posts, something like that. If you'd been registered since 1999, read the posts every day and occaisionally replied you could then be promoted to a higher rank.

There could be all sorts of weird names, you could start off as 'Vole' and if you behave yourself you could work your way up to the heady heights of 'Supreme Badger'!

[offtopic]
My favourite roadsign on the way to work -

Danger!
Badgers

conjures all sorts of bizarre images. Even funnier when my mate came back from Cancun with an Aztec tattoo of a badger. And his day job involves machine guns and missile launchers

Badgers! BADGERS!!! We don't need no stinking Badgers!!

Today we're teaching poodles how to fly!

Conan the librarian!

Ah! This reminds me...I've GOT to order that DVD online!

Thanks guys!

Quality film, and so far, my only Region 1 DVD...

I've got it too. Hil-arious. The commentary track is amazing...

Unbelieveably, my G/F bought it for me as soon as it was released. She said I could have it on one condition, I NEVER EVER tried to make her watch it.