When you look at the ATS home page you can see at the bottom a list of all members and mods online. As you can see, the mods and staff are bolded out and members are shown as normal text.

What if those members who have black exploded post bars (see post:What Happens When My Red Line Fills Up?) are shown in red text. Sort of like a text colour of honour.

You can't it goes againt the constitu.....Oh, on ATS, well in that
case it would be an interesting idea.

IT'LL never happen the red bars club won't allow it.

my .02$, interesting idea, but I don't see it happing, more code work for the boss and not much return.

Interesting, but I don't think it will work. New members might mistake those members for staff or Moderators. + the extra codework involved. I don't think it's gonna happen.

My 2 cents...

OK, how many people have broken bars? More than 10? Less than 20? It cant be many people so the coding wont be that time consuming.

And this red text will only show up on the Who's On bit at the bottom, nowhere else so as not to confuse with being a moderator.

Would the code really be that sucky? I have no idea and Ill not say another word if it is... If it is... Ill buy an ATS mug and t-shirt if you do it!

On the left panel on the front page, where it says AboveTopSecrect.com Staff, it could have another heading underneath like, AboveTopSecrect.com Esteemed Members and list them.

Edit to add: Even if the broken bar is a mod, they can still be an esteemed member!

[edit on 1/9/06 by Dae]

I think it would be unecassary and even possibly counter-productive to list all 'esteemed members.' As is mentioned a fair bit, you should not judge members by how long or red their bar is.

Here's an idea.

Make a thread and list those members


...in the BTS Members forum perhaps?

That's right. It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.

Well STATS say...

Number of members with 1,000 to 5,000 posts: 768
Number of members with 5,000 to 10,000 posts: 76
Number of members with more than 10,000 posts: 38

So that shows you who is doing all the work around here

Single them out?

BAD IDEA because it will just stir up the trolls to make even more useless threads to bolster their numbers

PS I find your signature disrespectful

reply to post by watch_the_rocks

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Yeah, bringing in more ways to be competitive may have some unintended consequences. Applause, (in my experience) has as much to do with the Mod agreeing with your point of view as it does the real objective quality of the argument itself. They may also be looking at the quality, but generally speaking, it is rare to get applause from someone who does not agree with your point of view and who is only looking at the quality of the post as a stand alone. Not that that is in itself bad, but if we turned ATS into a "popularity with the leadership" contest by rewarding it too much, we would run the risk of people trolling for Mod approval by posting repeatedly on the topics they knew certain mods were fond of. I think it would have a long term effect of narrowing ATS' as a collectives point of view, not because of a view being imposed upon people, but because the reward would influence the posting.

Members for me stand out because fo the quality of thier posts. There are certain members I will always go out of my way to read even if it is a topic I am not interested in because they take the time to post with clarity and quality not quantity

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

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One thing you have to remember is that the staff are members too and if you breakdown politcal beliefs, religious beliefs, conspiracy beleifs, who a beliver, who is a skeptic, the staff mirrors the board in terms of opinion and diversity.

Speaking for alot of us, we will applaud a post that is well crafted even if we do not believe the thesis of said post.

Illusions...

I have begrudgingly applauded a post because the post was exceptionally well done. I love discussion, not my opinion (though I am fond of my opinion).

As well...I have considered sending a back up u2u after the applause to inform the applaudee exactly how wrong and ignorant they are; as well as flaming their arrogance for having posted in such a fashion.

I jest, of course. You should consider that staff was at one time a member...indeed, I wonder who convinced whom to make me a part of staff...

The first and third paragraph are true...

You could set up a tag like this...

image source: http://atsmedia.cachefly.net/images/badge_fsme.gif


Reward button for reaching a certain participation level... and simply have a few peers review posting history for the merit not quantity of posts

We do that in our Medieval group... a fancy scroll as a thank you for work in the Guild... Its surprising how that effects loyalty. I have seen grown men cry when knighted

[edit on 29-9-2008 by zorgon]

My comment was not intended as a criticism of the staff. Just a comment on human nature in general and that it extends to the staff. Actually that staff are people too is precisely my point. Notice my signature. I believe that all people define brilliance in others as those who agree with them on the issues that matter most to them. You can be conscious of the fact that you are biased towards your own view, and act to correct for it, as some few do, or you can be unconscious that you are biased toward your own thinking and do nothing to correct for it.

There may very well be some staff who will applaud a post that makes a brilliant and well crafted argument against their own beliefs. But, I would say it is fairly rare. I am well aware of this bias and I still rarely star a post that is in support of a position I find abhorrent. No matter how well crafted it is. If I am neutral, sure. If I am in agreement, much more likely.

My point was more that the point system we currently have already affects posting. Some people post topics simply to increase their own points. And, because certain topics are guaranteed to piss people off and draw attention, threads on those topics tend to proliferate. Some advertise their threads relentlessly. There are even threads about how to troll for points in which the formula for high point garnering threads are outlined. I was simply stating that if we begin to make moderator applause too appealing by rewarding it with highly visible tokens, there will be those same people who begin catering to mod tastes with posts crafted with the sole intent of gaining said applause.

Although obviously moderators have a wide spectrum of beliefs and likes and dislikes, threads made for the sole intent of gaining points tend to be rather shallow compared to those created because someone has a genuine interest in a topic and want to share or get input on it. Posts in threads now where people are just randomly flattering moderators get tiresome, if not to the mods, at least to some of us. Not that Mods dont deserve praise for their efforts, but excessive praise given too often just sounds like brown nosing and gets annoying after a while, and if the favors moderators were able to bestow on members were too attractive, in my opinion the sucking up would become deafening.

Understood...and well presented.

I agree that, for the most part, people tend to look for the status symbols; it is a part of our reality. And yes, those with status symbols may tend to focus too much on their status.

Perhaps Stoicism should be propagated more..

Seriously, well presented...

An excellent point, IAG.

The applauses are better left invisible for another reason as well... drama.

If someone were to be applauded for a statement another vehemenently disagrees with, no doubt they will be tempted to critically post on the faulty reasoning behind awarding it.

Personally, I prefer to applaud any post which makes me think a bit... sometimes even in a 1-liner. It doesn't matter to me if it's 5 words or 5,000... if it stands out as good critical thinking to me, then the points rack up.