jrl767

I find the current "Evangelist" nomenclature catchy in an inside-joke sort of way

the proposed levels for "Contributing" (1000), "Dedicated" (5000), and "Distinguished" (25000) strike me as reasonable, and I think that having fewer but widely separated thresholds would, in large measure, be a reasonable reflection of the arbitrary/subjective "quality" of an individual's posting history

that said, wrt the other two descriptors, I am reminded of the old "scrambled eggs and bacon" punchline: the chicken is "Involved", but the pig is "Committed"

goalie

You do along with others but some other constituents may also ^ but regardless, there is always a Tootsie-Pop® for everyone

It was once possible to have your title removed and thus not show in your profile but I'm not sure about now and I think the CD could be able to shed some light on that (or maybe there is an option on the IB side to have it as a profile option where members could toggle it on or off? Don't know but throwing it out there)

jackal

Doubtful. The way the CD "removed" a title in the past was, as I recall, to put a blank single "space" in the custom title field she has access to in the vBulletin Admin Control Panel (the same field that those of us with custom titles, such as moderators and Talk Board members, get our titles put in by her). Knowing what I know about vBulletin and FlyerTalk's ancient version of it, I highly doubt there's any way for them to add in a self-select option.

Besides, it's something that only a very, very minuscule minority of people would turn off, so there's no rational reason why they should invest development time at a high hourly rate into adding this functionality.

goalie

Bummer as I was hoping it would have been along the lines of showing/hiding signatures

JetAirways77W

I would like people to vote "yes" because it allows people with less posts to have a title, even a lesser one. I think that people are more trusting of others with some sort of "status", no matter how much intelligence that they (the others) have.

dchristiva

Wait a minute. Let's be consistent here. Evidently people care about titles so TB is considering changing them. If people care about turning off those titles, why shouldn't the investment in development time be made?

SkiAdcock

I think if you polled FTers they would pick getting a decent mobile app as where they'd like to see IB's development team priorities/$$ go vs turning off titles for the few that don't want to see them

Cheers.

jackal

A huge number of people don't even notice the titles. The vast majority of FlyerTalk, even if they notice them, doesn't care. Among the relative handful of us who do care, a large number of people think "Evangelist" is stupid (which it is), and a few prefer the current dumb titles.

A very, very, VERY small minority of people (like, two) are so hot and heavy with the current titles that they'd turn titles off altogether if the new ones are adopted.

I'm sure that you're not seriously suggesting that Internet Brands should devote $3,000 or whatever of one of their developer's time to implement this feature. If the TalkBoard did demand that, Internet Brands would laugh in TalkBoard's face, and that would be the end of TalkBoard.

Oh, wait...I just gave some potential ammunition to the camp that's in favor of disbanding TalkBoard.

Seriously, and putting histrionics (which seem to be very popular in this thread) aside for the moment, the change TalkBoard is proposing is free. The change you're proposing is not. Free changes are easy to make. Ones that cost money? Well, I'll tell ya I was absolutely shocked that we got the wikipost module (and IB actually volunteered that one, since we were talking about it in the private TalkBoard forum and IB basically took the idea and ran with it before we could put it to an official vote). But clearly there was a case to be made that the money they spent implementing wikiposts had a positive ROI. The same cannot be said in the slightest about programming in the ability to give yourself a custom title or turn titles off.

ozstamps

Not sure that there is the lack of back end functionality build in, that some appear to think. @:-)

I run a very large Bulletin Board of this style, and changing ranks and wording is a few keystrokes on Admin panel. Cost - ZERO.

I can add ranks and titles at will, and remove them manually, even when software added them.

So removing any titles is easy if minded to do it on our software. No-one has ever asked in 9 years.

I have a hunch that this is all built into all board software as default.

Folks do like tiers and ranks to aim for, and that generates interest. That is spoken with my hat on as someone who runs a board with them, not someone armchair hypothesizing about the subject. Members like them, and want them, and are conscious of them.

jackal

You can do it easily, yes. That was never in question. The CD can do it easily (and she appears to have not had an objection to doing it in the past).

The question is, can you enable your users to do it on their own?

ozstamps

Jackal .... I see your question now.

No, that kind of stuff members cannot do themselves.

Like here they can create signatures etc, and opt in or out of PMs etc like here, and accept or refuse reply emails etc, but "ranks" are the purview of Admin.

Bit like changing members handles - Admin does that not members, but members time clock zones, avatars, locales etc are their right.

I think that is pretty universal on boards that 'Ranks' are not member changeable.

kokonutz

I just voted 'yes' on this proposal in the private TB forum for one very simple reason: the current titles are stupid, stupid, STUPID.

dchristiva

I understand your point, but that's even more reason to leave things the way they are. You say that the title "Evangelist" is stupid. You're entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that all titles are stupid and we should eliminate them, not add to them.

I want no part of officially segmenting the FT population any further than "Evangelist" and/or "Legend" already do, so, yeah, I would advocate dropping $3,000 to create a feature that allows me to turn off my "title".

dchristiva

Is it your argument that there are titles that are the opposite of "stupid, stupid, STUPID" (meaningful, in other words, I guess)? If so, how are they meaningful and do you advocate further segmenting the FT population simply by post count?

Ocn Vw 1K

Although I find that the current levels and titles work well, I'd endorse one additional one at 5,000 posts.

I'd recommend caution in selecting title names. The current titles, "Evangelist" and "Legend" are good titles as they don't comment on the worth or value of the member per se, but do connote the experience or involvement that goes with the post count. OTOH, titles such as "Contributing" and "Distinguished" may or may not describe the member's value to the community, if post count is the sole criterion.

In my 10+ years on FT, I've found the FT Community to be very savvy in assessing members based on "Join date" and post count, together with impression of overall contribution.