Most Prestigious Members @ The Sand Trap

[Quinn07]

Erik,

Not sure if this is the right place for this thread or not OR if this is even possible. In a VERY AROUND ABOUT WAY, this thread is about golf.

I am curious to know which member(s) has been around the longest (still active of course and not on the staff), highest number of posts, highest reputation, lowest reputation (If that's possible without being banned). I was just reading through a thread and was checking out avatars to see when they had joined and just thought it would be an interesting thing to know.

[DaSportsGuy]

You can actually go the the memberlist and sort the members by number of posts and reputation.

But their's really no "at a glance" way of really telling if they are still active unless you go into their profile.

[right handed phil mickelson]

You can actually go the the memberlist and sort the members by number of posts and reputation.

For all your The Sand Trap stalker-needs.

[iacas]

I am curious to know which member(s) has been around the longest (still active of course and not on the staff), highest number of posts, highest reputation, lowest reputation (If that's possible without being banned). I was just reading through a thread and was checking out avatars to see when they had joined and just thought it would be an interesting thing to know.

We only have 16 people who have a negative reputation. Banning doesn't occur very frequently - you've either gotta pull a LOT of crap to be banned or do something incredibly heinous. And the member list and reputation is fine to a point, but it can be abused in a "mutual circle jerk" kind of fashion sometimes.

Frankly, the only purpose I see for Reputation is to highlight the few Bad Seeds and to ensure that someone's at least not a complete jerk if they want to do something like sell in the Marketplace. So the only two numbers that matter are 5 and 0 in that sense... Plus you get reputation for making posts, and some people (maybe even me, I don't know) get so many points just for having made 14,261 posts or whatever. So like I said, beyond the 5 and 0 levels, it's pretty pointless. Your post comes at a good time though. I have been thinking of ways to "reward" good members. Some sites charge you money and give you a badge that's meaningless - it just shows you had $20 or something. But how we'd reward people AND how we'd identify people who deserve to be rewarded I have no idea. We don't charge for anything, and I hope we never do. So I can't reward people by giving them something "free" when everything's already free. I could raise the limits from three open threads in the Marketplace to five or something, but rarely do people even need three. I could, what, give them more reputation power? But that gets into problems and the current limit of two seems to work quite well. The only real reward we could give people is to put a little icon under their name that signifies that they're an important and/or valued member of some kind. But then we get into trouble with promoting them. And what groups do we have? Just one, like a "Good Guy" badge, or do we hand them out for areas of specific knowledge like "S&T; Guru" or "Equipment Dean" or something? I'm still kicking around ideas, so if you have any, let me know. I'd prefer not to take away anyone's rights that are already in place, of course - and I recently opened up "Sig Pictures" and "Profile Pictures" for people to use... so... there's not much more to enable. I'm kind of stuck. Maybe a little badge icon will be enough for people though? It does show something - that you know what you're talking about or whatever... I dunno.

[iacas]

I will also say this: I was tempted to hold blogs back to people who we could designate as "bloggers" ( http://thesandtrap.com/forum/blog.php - I don't mean the main site itself), but that just seemed silly to me. Established Members all get blogs because they make a great way to keep a little personal journal, bookmark tips for yourself and others, etc.

[goblue107501]

Maybe a little badge icon will be enough for people though? It does show something - that you know what you're talking about or whatever... I dunno.

Maybe you could have the badge icons or title for yearly service (1 year active member, 2 year, etc.). Or have a separate special icon that would signify 6 months, 1 year, 2 year, whatever you wanted to do. Or something along the lines of the NFL captain patch where you get the patch when you are a captain, and for each year you are a captain they fill in a star. Get the badge at 6-8-9-12 months (whatever would work out best for this purpose), then each full year a new part gets filled in.

[sean_miller]

Can I get sparkles in my badge?

Seriously though, something to signify credibility would be nice. Especially with some similar usernames and avatars - which _____fill in the blank____ is the expert and which one is the assclown?

[allin]

Perhaps Sand Trap Staff could review a poster's history at say 1000 posts, need at least 2 or 3 reviewers, knowledge base, courtesy and communication skills, special contribution, or maybe just have a vote on posters after a nomimation period once a year. Funny man of the year, newcomer of the year, maybe some others you come up with. Then they have a special badge/ icon added for the next year.

[Quinn07]

I like the idea of the badge for the years you have been a member, however there would have to be a way to weed out the non-active members. Kind of like a club sort of thing to idenitify the vets from the relative newbies with cool scout like badges. The awards would be a really cool thing but I think this would implement a significant amount of work to identify the selections for the categories.

The problem with giving a badge for the number of posts is you might get people just broad stroking threads to get the cool badges.

[iacas]

I like the idea of the badge for the years you have been a member, however there would have to be a way to weed out the non-active members.

Two thoughts, devil's advocate style...

1) Wouldn't their lack of posting kind of "weed them out" automatically? Sure, we might have someone somewhere with a "6" Badge, but you'd never see them because they're inactive. 2) What does years of membership really mean? What's the value? You have 423 posts and didn't join until 2007... but you've probably contributed more than 80 to 95% of the people who joined before you.

Kind of like a club sort of thing to idenitify the vets from the relative newbies with cool scout like badges. The awards would be a really cool thing but I think this would implement a significant amount of work to identify the selections for the categories.

Well now that you say "scout badges" I think we might be on to something... kinda gets the old wheels a spinnin'. We could have little badges for different things like "Real Comedian" and "YouTube Star" or the "Equipment Dean" I mentioned before... and heck, you could try to collect as many as you can, and if you don't uphold your status, you could lose badges, too... (so, in that way, it wouldn't be truly like a scout badge - they don't take those away if you forget how to build a fire or you lose at the Pine Wood Derby the following year).

[Quinn07]

Two thoughts, devil's advocate style...

1- True.

2- Perhaps you need like a Hall of Fame criteria to get the badge...has been a member for 3 years and has contributed 400+ posts. (numbers are obviously completely arbitrary at this point)

Well now that you say "scout badges" I think we might be on to something... kinda gets the old wheels a spinnin'. We could have little badges for different things like "Real Comedian" and "YouTube Star" or the "Equipment Dean" I mentioned before... and heck, you could try to collect as many as you can, and if you don't uphold your status, you could lose badges, too... (so, in that way, it wouldn't be truly like a scout badge - they don't take those away if you forget how to build a fire or you lose at the Pine Wood Derby the following year).

I love the badge idea but how do you evaluate those? Would there be a section for people to vote for certain posts or threads and if enough people vote for that person they receive the badge?

[Shindig]

I am curious to know which member(s) has been around the longest (still active of course and not on the staff), highest number of posts, highest reputation, lowest reputation (If that's possible without being banned). I was just reading through a thread and was checking out avatars to see when they had joined and just thought it would be an interesting thing to know.

I have the most posts of anyone except Erik by a decent margin. When you sort by reputation, I'm also in second place. I don't know if this counts as prestigious. I think the post count can be explained by that I can check posts at the office and at home, and am somewhat obsessed with golf (primary hobby). I think the reputation is a function of that I'm not a jerk all that often, and frequently type out long advice pieces when it's something I know about, such as fitness routines or what to consider when purchasing irons.

[iacas]

I love the badge idea but how do you evaluate those? Would there be a section for people to vote for certain posts or threads and if enough people vote for that person they receive the badge?

I don't know. I just liked the idea. Maybe we could have a thread for each badge type and people could nominate others by linking to five examples that they feel qualify that person? We could even have a few tongue-in-cheek badges like "Grouchy Old-Timer" or something. Assuming people wouldn't get their panties in a wad. If I was eligible, I'd gladly accept the "Multi-Quote Maniac" badge.

[Big_M]

I don't know. I just liked the idea. Maybe we could have a thread for each badge type and people could nominate others by linking to five examples that they feel qualify that person? We could even have a few tongue-in-cheek badges like "Grouchy Old-Timer" or something. Assuming people wouldn't get their panties in a wad. If I was eligible, I'd gladly accept the "Multi-Quote Maniac" badge.

I like the idea of badges, and I like the idea of humurous ones. Make it so... if you want.

[jamo]

There should be The Sand Trap awards.

[Jay-Bird]

sorry. had to be done.