I saw that different members have different ranks (e.g. like GMC Member... etc) so i wonder when and how do you advance in ranks and what ranks are there?

There's Moderator, Administrator, and Retired Staff..

Also YoYoGames Staff and stuff..

Really, you don't get ranked. Some are lucky enough to be bumped up to mod or global mod, if you want that, just be really good and make a few successful things.

There is no ranking system on the GMC.

There used to be a system whereby you could change the text below your avatar (your user title), but that no longer exists.

And how do you like got Genius Games etc...? U edited user title?

It was gone before I joined I think.

Before, you just PM'ed an administrator, and they did it. I'm pretty sure all administrators no longer do that, although I'm not certain about that.

I am sure they still do that. I've seen users who have changed their name. Perhaps favoritism?

Perhaps it was their "donation" to my Paypal account? I charge $20 to change a member's own custom title. But for $50 I'll change another member's title to whatever you like (if you want to play a joke on them).

Seriously, barroga... before you accuse the staff of unethical practices like favoritism, you should read the title of this topic and the posts in it. It has NOTHING to do with member name changes. I think you owe the staff an apology.

I am sorry, I did not mean it that way. I just assumed that staff would not change member's titles anymore.... but I've seen members with different name so I assumed they must have done something to get into staff's good graces.

maybe i should alter the default cut off date on announcements too...
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=403325

edit: done.

No harm done. I guess there was some confusion about the difference between custom titles and user names. They are two different things, of course.

As Chronic said, we no longer provide custom titles.

Perhaps I stupidly missed something said before, but why exactly are custom titles no longer provided?

You should seriously try researching on your own. You've asked several questions in this topic that were right in front of your face.

Edit: Sorry, Spydog, I thought you were the OP. (but my point on researching before asking still stands)

That post seriously made my day. *thumbs up*

I approve of the Paypal way of changing titles. Sounds like a good idea to me =P.

The paypal way would be handy for the staff lol.. get some money for all their hard work!

I'd pay to change some members...

After 10000 Posts, You get"Life-less Member" In your title.

I hope so, those people deserve that.

Considering many of the people who have the highest post counts, like Ragarnak, are some of the most helpful people here, I don't think it would be a great idea to award them a title that berates them for all the work they've done here.

Besides, Ragarnak isn't a human. Ragarnak is a group of inter-linked computers that continually scans the forums for repeat questions and spits out the same answers over and over, never showing any emotion and always being right. A human just isn't capable of doing the work.

Ha >_<

Well then, Make it 100000, That would truly be a lifeless member

I agree. There is no other plausible explanation. *shrugs*

(No offense intended of course, I have quite a high regard for Ragarnak)

Agreed Adil, he is a very well designed robot.

Sadly he'll never see this post, the system of bots never scans outside the questions forums.

Ahem ....

Well, I must say you're a bit right. I only visit other forums once-in-a-(long-)while ...

ragarnak, have you passed the Turing Test?

Never tried it. I could imagine I could easily fail it, as I do not seem to have much of a memory for day-to-day stuff (including peoples names).

In one Turing experiment (the last one ?) some of the testers deemed humans as Automations just because they did not know/recognise the name of an "important" sportsman/politician/musician/other.

Although this is one of the rare instances (haha, geddit? INSTANCES? GM joke...Uh, sorry...) where GMC members are merrily having a light hearted conversation, I have hunch this topic is slowly nearing its demise.

Oh... please. Don't do this. Don't discuss the topic itself, and speculate about when the moderators might closed it. The staff HATE that. It's a sure way to kill the conversation.

It you don't have anything to add to the discussion, then post somewhere else.

****
Back on topic:

Speaking of post count, I must admit that displaying it hasn't caused the trouble I feared. So I'm happy about that. There's only been a few times when I had to intervene with members who were obviously trying to inflate their count. It's amazing how removing a few hundred counts from the post count will get someone's attention.

Wasn't the actual 'topic' about custom user titles and not post counts?

Nope:



So originally, the OP was asking how one gets member ranks which are generally (when automated) tied to post count. For example, a forum might set 1-50 posts to display "new user," 50-100 posts to say "intermediate user," 200+ posts for "super user," etc. Stuff like that.

Well yes, I am aware of that. But I don't see how one could automatically assume that from the original post (considering he himself made no reference whatsoever to a post count based ranking system). And I can't see how the majority of people would either, considering it took till post #19 for anyone to even mention post count (and that too in a light hearted context).

The OP mentions "member ranks" and "advancement"; that implies that he was initially intending to discuss the sort of system I mentioned. That is, where you post (or do *something*) more and eventually advance in ranks (though he seemed to be referring to the user titles, thinking they were member ranks). And because many of these types of member rank systems usually use post count to determine advancement rates, post count is relevant. I think people just didn't seem to realize that he meant this kind of member rank because the first few posts were about usergroups, then they started discussing user titles (and then usernames...lol).

But that's okay, the topic of the thread certainly isn't debating what the topic is. XD

Anyways, there's no member ranking system of any kind, either user titles or actual member ranks; and I doubt there will ever be one. They imply that a higher post count is "better"; in e.g. ragarnak's case, this may be true. But with others, it just means they have too much free time to spend on the GMC.

EDIT: Rewritten, for clarity.

The GMC should get a ranking system where you rank up based on how many questions you answer successfully in the Novice Q&A forums... Anyways... I applied for a custom title thing a few months before Chronic decided to stop... wonder what happened to it... lol.

Indeed. In fact the post count has the opposite effect on me to what you feared; the more posts I have, the more I feel that I have no life.

Won't that be slightly unfair towards members who have some other aspect of game making as their primary forte?

Well, then they get the other benefits of that forte. You don't really get much from answering Noob questions. It was also kind of a joke, I don't expect the Admins to go and program something like that anytime soon.

http://dreamincode.net has member ranks (badges): Contributor, Author, Expert, Alumni, etc.

I don't see much difference with it in this case.

^^ as well as Zelda fan game central... (zfgc.com). (yay advertisement)
I don't think it really matters, except to encourage users to be more active, but then some users would resort to spamming...

Some forums have them some don't. I agree with your post, I personally think that if we were to introduce member ranks there would just be an increase in useless posts/spamming in order to obtain another rank. I could just predict what might happen, it happens on Bungie.net all the time, a Noble Member (Bungie.net rank), will start bossing around a new "Member" acting like he/she owns the joint, just because his/her rank is more "superior" then the "Member" rank. Their ranking system is based of activity and trust though so it is a fairly different system but very similar concept.

Edit: The system may increase activity, but the increase in activity, I believe, could just be an increase in spamming or useless posts.

In conclusion, the feeling of superiority will just get to some members head and destroy them from the inside out.

I don't think I'd call it lucky...


Well, just a heads up, Mailas, you're nearly halfway there. Seriously though, don't even worry about it. Ever.

Sokota

Those were the same arguments provided for not introducing post counts, and the same argument for not adding a GM version tag on the profile, and the same argument for not doing anything else that may or may not benefit the forum. As of yet we've not really seen this behavior you've described with post counts.

Dumb n00b, with like a quarter of my posts. jk

probably not the best or the newest idea, but a Reputation field would be nice. It will show how many people thanked him for something (=how he was useful for the community).
It doesn't mean anything especial but shows who is talking)

Well there was the GMC Karma extension if you're looking for that, but I haven't used it recently so I'm not sure if anybody else still is either?

Custom User Titles not being allowed, I guess I can agree to that,
but member ranks would be pretty sweet.

Good idea. Make me an admin, and for only $100 you can change any sub forum name. What would happen?

Member ranks are essentially the same thing as having a sign on your profile that says "this user has more than 1000 posts!". I doubt they will cause any problems at all, let alone some massive spam outbreak. The lack of off-topic forums on the GMC means we would be even less likely to have some spammers trying to raise their post count, which is rarely an issue on most forums that do have member titles.

They are, however, pretty much useless. Although if they replace "GMC member" then I'm all for them.

I don't think anyone would be that rich enough to (or to pay for such a thing)change all the titles XD.(or a single one for that matter)

Gosh, leave a n00b alone wont ya?

"As of yet we've not really seen this behavior you've described with post counts."

Well, I guess I was trying to base my points around the fact that people would act more superior then others because they have obtained a higher rank then others. The argument(s) might be/is the same as the post count argument(s) because that is/may be the primary effect it could have on members if they were to have Member Ranks, in both cases it suffers the problem of "Will this cause an increase in useless posts/spam". May I please emphasize the word could.

It's amazing how the conversation has gone from:


To: