User titles have been updated to better reflect user groups. Gone are seedling, climber, and (the contentious) plant expert. Plant enthusiast has been changed to be the highest level of user title. Registered (1-2 posts) Registered Plus (3-29 posts + 2+ days registered) Contributor (30-99 posts + 20+ days registered) Generous Contributor (100+ posts) Plant Enthusiast (1000+ posts) (and for reference, user groups) Note that if you are a Contributor, Generous Contributor or Plant Enthusiast, you can change your user title to something custom (as some have already done - these have been left intact or updated to reflect the new user titles)
Yes, the problem does remain that number of posts does not really signal expertise. They could all be idiotic or useless comments. Alternatively, someone new to the forums might have some serious expertise to offer. Is there a solid reason for having any designations at all?
I was hoping that I removed any implication of expertise out of the equation, instead promoting contribution to the forums. As for the why... well, if you've the time, I'll direct you to Clay Shirky's A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy. Reading the whole essay helps give context to the parts that are most relevant as an answer, "Three Things to Accept" (particularly 2 and 3) and "Four Things to Design For" (particularly 2, 3 and 4).
Or perhaps you could use an icon. Maybe a mouth, that gets bigger the more posts that have been made. Of course, some might find that insulting...
On the subject of icons - how about a plant - beginners start out as seeds, then comes stems, leaves and flowers (or trees). Maybe there could be a couple of different plants so someone can be a flower, another can be a tree, someone else can be a tomato and maybe there can be a mushroom. Just a thought, seeing as we are all talking about plants.
Daniel, Very interesting essay by Clay Shirky. I can see the dynamics on other sites as well and it rings true to the sites with the greatest cohesiveness among it's members. By the way, I don't care what I'm labeled, we're all the same. I don't care if someone has posted 1000 times as opposed to once. It's the subtle things I pick up on and remember. Deb
An interesting thought, but two knocks against it are 1) confusion with avatars (the pics already associated with some people's usernames and 2) load time (though this is a minimal concern, since the icons would eventually find their way into browser caches) I suppose a third knock is me finding the time!
I'll second Deb's impression of the article; it is fabulous and in fact ties in to some other work I'm doing so thank you for posting it. I will now lapse into chastised silence on the topic of user designations :-)
I agree with doing away with the title Plant Expert, although there are a number who are clearly experts (Oh Great Ones!). Does it matter if we know how many posts a user has contributed? I say it does. Someone who has posted 4000 replies clearly has put in time and effort to contribute hugely to the site and should be recognised. Someone who has less than 10 posts, whether he/she is a plant expert or not, is still a newbie on the site. It would alert me to be extra welcoming to them in the hope that they will remain long term contributors to the site. So, ideally, the monikers should: 1. alert us to those that are new to the site 2. acknowledge those who have contributed greatly to the site. 3. make no references to intellectual "superiority" (Oooops! Got to go! More later.)
I just posted my 100th contribution to UBC Botanical Garden forums and I found that I was still a contributor and obviously far from generous. ;-) Well, may be this 101th post will do the trick. Anyway I suppose that there might be a bug (wrong calculation?)
The script for promotions to different usergroups runs once an hour. Wait 18 more minutes, I believe.
Yes, for some reason Robert's usertitle was set as a "Custom User Title, User Set", so the promotion script wouldn't touch it. I changed it to "Default User Title" and it was corrected immediately.
