Well said. This is why, on several occasions, I said that we (FT) does not need more titles.

Members have always been willing to help new members (with the exception of the infamous "do a search" posts..

IMHO, we do not need a new level of members.

As someone who cast a vote in your favor and entrusted you to represent me, I take great disapointment and offense at such a blanket statement. Please paint with a finer brush.

Quarterly Informal Recognition
 

I would be poised to send PMs to various members of my forum on a quarterly basis to express our appreciation and recognition of their proactive efforts to make our forum more welcoming, civil and informative.

Basically, acknowledging their 'ambassador' role in a more quiet and subtle fashion. The advantage of this approach is simple. There is no pressure or expectation on the 'ambassador' to perform from quarter to quarter. If they take a breather or have a discipline problem, they simply don't get a PM that quarter. If another member steps up during a quarter, they would get a PM.

So, the process of recognition would be dynamic, ebbing and flowing based on how involved and well-behaved a member was during any given quarter. Mods could decide how many PMs to send. (and since there is NO public gain here, there is no reason the Mods would need to make 'political' decisions). And because this process would be unannounced to the general membership, the member would treat the recognition PM as a nice compliment, not as an expectation.


If RP was so inclined, he could ask each form Mods to submit their list of quarterly 'ambassador' PMs, and if some people ended up being recognized 4 quarters straight, RP would have a database in case HOM wanted to recognize long-time 'informal' ambassadors on his own.

You are absolutely right, FlyinHawaiian, I did paint with way too broad a brush, and have now gone back and amended my post.

Please accept my most humble apologies.

[Edited by wharvey to accomodate poster request]

Or RP could ask each mod to submit a nominee for one Forum Ambassador to him each quarter and he sends out a personal PM of thanks and recognition. Speaking from my own perspective, I don't get a whole lot of PM's from Randy so each one is memorable. :)

I think a PM from Randy would be more impactfull than a PM from the forum mod. But either or both would be better than the recognition system we currently have in place.

Good suggestion IMO.

"Clean-up on Aisle 3".

Thread temporarily closed while we get out the mop.
_______________________________


OK, the janitorial staff has finished.

The forum mods want to make something clear, interpersonal bickering will not be tolerated, nor will off-topic postings. Don't stray.

He certainly could.

Randy could be even far more savvy and ask the MEMBERS using each forum to drop a note to :

[email protected] or whatever, and head it with the Forum and the nomination of member -

United - Ambassador Recommendation - XXXXXX

Hyatt - Ambassador Recommendation - XXXXXXXX

etc.

Then the active members of a Forum would be electing who THEY thought was doing the best job as a greeter already.

Pretty democratic process hey?

If member XXXXXX gets 18 recommendations, and the only other one gets two, seems like a no-brainer to me as to who the members mostly prefer. Bit like Talkboard elections. :cool:

No black helicopters, no politics, no perceived Moderator bias of "Gold Stars for Friends" etc. The Forum Mods could of course vote too - why not - they are just ordinary members after all, we are constantly reminded. :D

A quick eyeball of that inbox now and again will give Randy a nice fast overview. And he may even care to click on a few to read the reasons.

And Randy is plenty savvy enough to sort the wheat from the chaff if the next post tells me "the vote could be rigged."

And if winning Candidate XXXXXXX has been suspended 17 times, and is mostly posting from Leavenworth, it will be Randy's call as to whether to appoint that person - or not. @:-)

Glen

Very good ideas, Ozstamps.

Have you ever thought about running for TalkBoard? We need lots of good ideas. :)

How do you explain the 7-2 vote against it, including the guy who seconded the motion and 3 of the 5 non-mods on the Talkboard?

One of the things that's useful about what mods are tasked with doing is that we know a great deal about the function of an ambassador, because it's part of what mods currently do. Ergo sum, when a proposal that's a huge step backward was proffered, many mods were opposed to it because (as written) it was not in the best interests of FT. It has nothing to do with control and more to do with the extremely vocal minority that regularly tries to portray anything/anyone that has do with moderation in a bad light.

So I'm curious: the mods were pretty much opposed, the Talkboard was massively opposed (and if we believe that the Talkboard really is representative of FT, most of FT was opposed)--who was in favor?

Actually, no. Nothing stops FT members from doing this today. Nothing. People are free (and many do) welcome new members regularly.

The original proposal didn't work because it had lots of problems in the process, regardless of what Punki would like to believe about it being perfect. The subsequent reboot hasn't flown yet so far because it also has some issues that haven't been solved.

Regardless what those who are anti-mod would like to believe - and speaking as a regular FT member can I say I am getting SO sick & tired of stuff denigrating into anti-mod stuff & I'm not even a mod - a lot of us 'regular' FTers still aren't convinced that a) an ambassador program is needed; b) nor are the methods for choosing, administering, removing, workable, and that's why us - the 'regular' FT folk are not supporting the proposal. Nothing at all to do w/ black helicopters.

Cheers.

This fellow regular FTer agrees and finds it mildly ironic that such a goodwill proposal has managed to engender enough animosity in this and other recent threads.

+1


And, just a quick follow-up to beaubo's proposal:
As far as I can tell, there is nothing stopping anyone (moderator, TB member, or "regular FTer") from sending a "thank you" PM to friendly/welcoming/helpful posters in your forum(s) - with or w/o a formal program. Sort of like how friendly posters are doing the welcoming now. ;)

If we really want special titles...
 

I think someone suggested this earlier, but what about custom "choose your own" titles like they have on fatwallet.com? Happy Member, Grumpy Member, Disillusioned Member, Greedy Member, Anxious Member, Hyperactive Member, and on and on. Have a big list and let people choose their own labels. Include "Helpful Member" for those who want to be ambassadors and by choosing this label can volunteer to help newbies. FAQs would suggest that newbies send PMs to "Helpful Members".

This would put the decision to be an ambassador squarely in the hands of each member rather than in the hands of any other individual or committee. It is also fully compatible with beaubo's idea.

nsx, I think we'd be missing the point of such a proposal with your idea. The purpose of this proposal, as I see it, is to have dedicated ambassadors that are willing to help out whenever there's a question, accept PM's with questions that have been asked a million times before, etc. There's nothing to stop someone from choosing the "helpful member" tag and then saying "Do a search" whenever they see a newbie that might have common questions. I think that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.

That scenario seems highly implausible to me. Why would someone who is annoyed by newbie questions choose a label soliciting those questions and then take the time to answer them discourteously?

If it became necessary, we could specify that when you choose the "helpful member" label you agree to be helpful, and that failure to act consistently with that would be a TOS violation. I seriously doubt anyone would break such a rule.

We might want to set up a minimum longevity threshold (e.g., the same as for OMNI access) for choosing the "helpful member" label to prevent creation of sham "helpful members".

These problems are all technical details, really, and easily resolvable.