User Titles / Reputation / Post Ratings

[rsscott]

After the initial comments in the thread Where is the Queen Ant ?

User titles

it seems forum members would like to see some alternatives to the rather boring Junior Member, Senior Member user titles we currently have by default.

User Titles are based on the number of posts you have made. There are thresholds which we can define that tip you over into the next layer.

User/Post Reputation

Another suggestion from Paul (Allotmenteer) was the ability to award points to a post. We do have a feature on the forum for User Reputation but this has proved problematic for some other forums with members using it as a tool against each other.

Another modification I have seen which I think is much better is the addition of a "Thanks" button underneath the post.

Finally, don't forget there is already a feature in place called 'Rate Thread'. This allows you to assign a star rating to a thread which is shown in the main thread view.

Views/thoughts welcome!

cheers
Russ

Russell Scott
Pedelecs UK

[coops]

It occurred to me that a "points" system could be abused; it would be a disaster if a system intended to improve quality of information backfired and resulted in upsetting the apple cart i.e. being destructive not constructive.

I quite like the idea of a "thanks" button, as long as its not diffficult for those administering this site to implement - I've no idea how it'd work, but would be good to give & receive some feedback I think

Thanks for the reminder about rating threads & so forth: I really must explore all the features already available sometime...

P.S. my suggestion for a change of user title (if it was to be done) was simply "new member" at first, progressing to something else, like simply "member" (mike's idea) later on. That may be seen as more boring than at present, but at least its accurate the titles represent the amount of experience at pedelecs, not the age nor experience of members with ebikes or anything else

Other useful member-specific information could be shown in "signatures" etc. at each members discretion e.g. bike type owned, normal usage etc.

Stuart.

[rsscott]

There is also a feature of the forum called 'User Ranks'.

User ranks are images or text that are assigned to users based on their post count. The most common usage of ranks is that of stars that increase or change color based on the user's post count and usergroup.

User's ranks generally appear beneath the username on posts, private messages, announcements, usernotes and in your profile.

If there are any budding artists on the forum, it might be nice to design some cartoonish bike images like the ones shown on ExtraEnergy :

Pedelec Types - Information: Glossary, Literature, Regulations, People - ExtraEnergy.org

What do you all think ?

cheers
Russ.

Russell Scott
Pedelecs UK

[slimtim]

this runs from

geriatric (things were better in the old days)
guru (happy with bike, dispensor of wisdom)
grumpy (wishes they had bought a more expensive/cheaper bike)
greenhorn (just bought their own bike, innocent excitement)
gauche (asks annoying questions that were covered by threads months ago)
gadfly (just visits, never actually settles on bike cos waiting for perfect solution)

[coops]

Very creative! I wouldn't like to be the one assigning the titles though, slimtim!

To Russ: Hi Russ, the limitation of both the "titles" and "ranks" systems is that they're both based only on post count, which is visible anyway for each member on every post, and so in my view to use either to signify anything more than "amount of posting experience at pedelecs" would be misleading: a rank or title which suggests expertise for instance, could mislead because, while it helps, more posting doesn't necessarily equate with expertise .

I rather like the simple "post count" as a measure of number of posts!

I don't think its a big issue since the meaning of any title/rank is largely redundant: it only signifies the post count, which is why I said before that a simple but accurate title system reflecting that is sufficient; in my view its best left to members to decide the level of expertise & quality & accuracy of advice, rather than it be suggested by a post count .

Stuart.

[rsscott]

There are some features of vBulletin which allow us to use rank but I don't really want to use it as it can also be used in a negative way. There are loads of enhancements for the software so I will have a scout around to see what is available.

For the simple post count, rather than reflect some kind of 'status' which as you say, can be meaningless if someone makes 500 useless posts. I would quite like to come up with something fun and tongue in cheek

[coops]

On the endless sphere forums a system of "power" rating is used, something like uW, mW, W, KW, MW i.e. micro- to mega-watts, which is quite good, except you feel very small as a uW!

Maybe we could use something similar & also ebike related?

[coops]

We could be really cheeky & use "energy" ratings, not power, so same as above but using joules (J): mJ, J, kJ, MJ or the alternative energy rating used for batteries, watt-hours (Wh) with the same prefices . The good thing is they go up or down the scale just about as far as you want to take it - I forget them all, but there's levels below "nano-" and above "mega" there's "giga", "tera" etc. calories is another one.

(In a sense, joules (energy) makes more sense than watts (power), since the latter is the rate of energy change, while energy is a more basic unit .)

A bit technical, but useful & very concise? What do you think? Tongue in cheek enough?

Stuart.

[slimtim]

wasn't there an indonesian prime minister called Megawatti? Were they enthusiasts?

[coops]

I hope you're not suggesting we have titles based on prime minister's names..... ugh! The idea alone gives me the creeps!

I think the Wh one in particular would work, 1 post could be 1Wh even, so flecc's range already got to ~200miles! Could use miles instead, but that might be a bit ordinary... gradients?!

Stuart.