This discussion started across two different threads. To avoid hijacking those threads i have copy and pasted the 3 last and most pertainent replies here for further discussion.
For those just joining in, we are basically discussing the lack of function for ranks since the linking and upgrading of the forums and the SD banners that identify their expertise or position and how the two could be combined to offer all members such a system.
Read on.
(The quotes were not working properly in the OP. I assume Bara is hard at work tweaking... )
That is about the jist of it so far.
I know i have, especially in the OT threads had no idea as to the location (SD site wise) of fellow posters, as many assume they are all reading that thread from their own native site. Also, the ranks being non functional now, (apart from level of karma able to give out) aside from their use on WC has left many of us wondering exactly what our fellow users area of expertise or specialty actually is.
The Stardockians have the very helpful banner that list exactly what function, for lack of a better description they actually perform on the forums and within SD and having something similar for the members would save much grief in cross posted topics and give us a bit more insight into our fellow users.
Discuss....
You might want to post in a colour other than yellow/orange, its almost impossible to read
'Ranks' on WC are not forum related, but related to the contribution you make to the site. So someone can progress through the ranks by submitting skins, being helpful to other users etc.
I'm currently Master(5) which comes from submitting skins and 8 years of commitment to the site and to its wellbeing. I was formerly Super Wizop(7) which I held for four years until I 'retired' last summer.
I agree it would be good to have a uniform system across all sites. There was some suggestion it might go altogether but I believe that would be a bad thing. People like to have recognition for their contribution to a site.
I have long wanted a system whereby you knew which site people are posting from. We are all Stardockians, so to speak, but with widely different interests. But we are all here for the common good, namely, to pursue our interests with like minded people.
Weird, the yellow has now gone... fuzzy scratches head...
Also, last time I saw suggestions like these, SD ended up reading the Riot Act. (I like 'em though.)
I'm not sure about the necessity for ranks, apart from the official StarDock banners, but some consistency would be nice. For Karma, but also for things as clicking 'My Posts'. I'm currently posting from the Elemental forums, but when I click My Posts in the GalCiv2 forums I don't see anything, despite this being the Off-Topic forum which is shared between all forums
The banners/usergroups aren't actually related to the ranks at all. If you you look around you might find some SD people who don't frequently do anything on the forums, thus ar estill Citizen rank.
Anyway, at presetnt the groups are only settable by the highest admins. I don't really foresee any option for users to add their own or anything like that since that would lead to issues (they could fake an official one) and avatars already let people add their own stuff.
I did have some yellow text in the OP prior to actually posting it but edited it for the reasons you pointed out, never posted it though.....Very Strange.
I'd agree that allowing users to have any control over this is open to abuse.
My thoughts though at the very least is some kind of indication in each members post of exactly where they are posting from. I admit, i like the idea of member banners reflecting their interests and their native site, but that's not an actual productive feature, where the showing of "posted from" would be invaluable to many.
A great example would be with piderman above. Where Kryo's Stardock banner is piderman could simply have a similarly sized Elemental banner.
Ranks aside that feature would help other users become aware of the other SD sites that are open to them but might just not know about and even increase participation/sales in other parts of the community.
Perhaps not. I'm only speaking really of my own experiance in what i have viewed. But it seems that folks like Crazy, Kryo, Zommba, Bara, Brad/Draginol, Shirley, Highlander, Melibee, Zubaz, Jafo.....uhmmm..that's about all i can think of, all those do seem to carry their respective banners across all sites.
In that i would think that such a system is possible to implement. Be it worth the time in SD's eyes is for others to decide but i sure think it would add to the forums.
Boy this "view edits" function is impressive, but I wonder if all this effort just to mostly watch people correct their spelling mistakes is really worth it.
All in all I do think the effort at making all the sites consistent is a good thing. I even think that the blurring of sites by the sharing of forums is not all that bad either. I do think that it would be helpful to at least have the knowledge of which site a post or reply is coming from. I also think that since it's been made clear that this is the way things will be then you should go "all the way".
Why is it that I have 80 karma on Galciv2 and 31 karma on Joe User and 0 karma on some other sites? Why if I look at my profile on Galciv2 does it say that I'm a journeyman (4) but on Joe User I'm a citizen (1)? Also if I view my profile on Galciv2 it says I've made 24 posts and 736 replies but if I view my profile on Galciv2 I've made 101 posts and 3935 replies. Why the difference.
Basically I'm all for consistency but if you're making changes that blur the distinction of one site to the next then be consistent and make these functions the same across *all* sites.
Also the earlier comment about yellow text brings up another source of inconsistency.
Each site has it's own default color scheme. The game sites are predominately light text on a black background while other sites are black text on a white background along with some other variations.
One thing is that the user has no choice in the matter and I know people have complained about one scheme versus another due to readability issues. It would be nice if the user had at least a limited choice between dark on light versus light on dark.
Also if you stick with the "default" font/formating you're at least reasonably legible on *all* sites, but once you try and use color or font size or anything not default to make your post or reply more legible on the site that you're posting from you run the risk of making your post/reply totally illegible on another site which as far as you know may be where most response is coming from.
[edit] Check out the "view edits" feature on this post to see me change the word "reply" to "response" and to add this edit. I think this makes for more confusion not less. [/edit]
I am all for more consistency... the "highlight" function helps a littile with legibility, as you can set the background color if you are using a non-auto font.
On TriggerStreet.com (a screenplay writers gathering place owned & operated by Dana Brunetti & Kevin Spacey), i once gave out a set of "bannerlike" ranking images that were tied with people's quantity of posts... i'm sure we could do a much more complex & ingenious system that correlates a number of participatory elements to everyone's Forum status, be it across numerous SD sites or not.
Such as this;
Want some? Assuming the feature would be implemented and that the overall thematic Icons and background frameworks should be altered to be galactic in nature or games driven or somethin' along those lines.
You'd reach 10,000 replies & posts on TS, you got to ride a maximum reddish stampede reputation (And well, RobinHood as long gained 25,000 and still counting, last i checked!) and be perceived as a "Blue Peeker" for having less than 20!
Lemme know!
Make it a two side coin, then. And flip it, member #2379736 is far from being indicative of someone's site location or participation ratio(s) be it Karma or otherwise.
Admit it Neilo, if it weren't for some TyrannyofEvil friends your own "Karma Value" would be a little less... and mine would spike up in the stratosphere for being helpful!
Fairplay indications to the many by the most is my motto here, only.
It seems only logical! And possibly, fair if not highly informative for the good of both StarDock and its membership.
Hey i'll be the first to admit that Karma is not indicative of one's forum presence/activity or expertise. It does go part way to doing that but is open for abuse...or for comedy/flaming.
I think the ranks do at least somewhat fill that gap, if they were used a bit more often. Having 3M citizens obviously does nothing, but there are many folks that should be Veteran or higher (i won't ever remember the new rank names).
The prefect system IMHO would banners that were reflective of the native site a user is from and included the rank/title within it. It may be more helpful to the community to show other that a user is a known and adapt modder than a veteran or citizen. Same goes for a skinner.
On sites other than WC when conversing with a skilled and experience skinner one cannot tell. the Karma does not reflect it on other sites and the rank is not reflected.
The banner system tied to ranks or titles would solve this.
As Mumble said, the sites are so interconnected now that we converse with users we never would have before, and vis-versa. If the sharing of threads over sites is the direction SD want to go then some level of consistency must follow as well.
It would seem that the ranks would be too difficult since they hold a purposeful function on WC.
A system put in place by SD where everyone has a default banner then selects either WC, SINS, GC2 JU, DEMIGOD..etc and then selects from a predefined list...Skinner, modder, rank, blogger..etc would allow everyone easily to see where you post from and what your area of interest is.
Plus it advertises the other sites to each other......
I hope this hasn't been discounted already Kryo?
A simple "Descriptive term" for ranking would be enough for me - but, i'd also add some sort of gaming proficiency (as reflected by your own row of Medals) or expertise symbol. This way for example, a 500+ games played is certainly a good reference for someone looking for some solid advice, etc. Sure forum members would be "categorized" in stuff such as Coding, Modding, Helping, Playing.. and many more by some SD staff subjective decisions and yet, i could use something like a wrench (Mod) logo with the word helpful as my banner since Moderators DO have a "floating jacket".
And certainly, the site source of the posts.
I actually think that the moderator symbol is one of those orange relfecting vests like traffic directors wear...
Aside from that, I approve.
As in what Peace Phoenix has, yeah that's the only one i know of. Though Drengin many moons ago did have something similar IIRC.
Apart from the time needed for someone to make up the images and the application for us to select the predetermined text, i can't see this being hard to implement.
It's obvious the structure is there for banners to be shown in the user info area, it just needs the support i guess.
I can't stress enough to SD how easy this would make the cross posting and across forum interactions between us users.
True, they have so many great Artists staff but i doubt we'd be the ones choosing the "text" for ourselves; some kind of algorithm would need to parse through a number of parameters in a huge DB.
I only meant that we would perhaps get to choose if we wanted our rank shown, or a title. You would choose a title of modder (or equivalent other wording) over Citizen i would assume.
We, if it were so, would only get to choose from a drop down list (that's how i would envisage it) predetermined by SD.
I'm a lapsed philosophical anarchist, so the rank stuff rankles me a bit. But I suspect it has 'manipulative' value for Stardock, if they choose to continue using it. When I unexpectedly got a promotion to Veteran over at GC2 (I'm typing from Elemental), it both made me uncomfortably pleased and left me feeling mildly obliged to pitch in more often and generally try to be a bit of an NCO on the boards.
As for karma, I'm trying to give it out regularly now, especially to reasonable new folks with little or none, but mostly I wish it would go away. I hate the pesky nature of my own vanity and I strongly dislike the few-member karma loops that can run up totals that say little more than "I have at least one really good karma-loving buddy on the boards." I've actually developed a rough rule of thumb and try to avoid giving karma to a karma-rich poster if I've given some in the past fortnight or so, even if I especially liked a particular post.
p.s. You should all give lots of karma to psychoak. He says he hates getting karma and seems to greatly love being irritated.
To which i can only refer to the "warning" provided by SD;
Karma is a way of letting other users know who is helpful, nice, or just a fun person. Only give someone Karma if you feel they deserve it.
Knowing this, i believe that if you can make a lot of Friends, you can have as many Karma Points as you deserve or not. That's the nature of the beast as it is now.
I stopped judging people (as it relates to the above "rule") the minute OFF-Topic threads chit-chatting background noise matched up value based on the above formula and for everything else found in these Forums.
Thus, why a solidly implemented "Member Banners" system (even if simply symbolic, btw) would probably solve this weird chaos of an egos contest.
As far as differentiating between posts and replies on the various sites, I have the same issue where it can be kind of confusing knowing where it came from. For the moment I do not have a solution in the pipeline, but I'll see what I can do as far as an elegant solution.
Unfortunately, I did not have time to read this entire thread but I figured I'd post a reply just to let you know I'm listening I have this thread bookmarked for future reference as well as added to my todo list of things for the forum.
Bara
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