Titles

[Ari Rahikkala]

We're using titles (special ranks, in phpBB parlance (they're called special ranks because normal ranks are determined by postcount)) really inconsistently... I blasted the "Citizen", "Kaiser", "Praetor", "Site Admin" and "Steward" ranks for now because they're probably very out of date ("Denizen" and "Honorary Citizen" will stay because it's so long since we last made anyone a denizen or honorary citizen that the ranks probably *are* up to date).

(yes, Jonas's rank was correct as Praetor, but I couldn't be bothered to check if any other, older accounts also had the same rank)



Any ideas on what to do with user titles? I mean, I'll obviously recreate Kaiser, Steward and Praetor, but... should we mark Dukes and Barons? (I don't think we should - it wouldn't be nice to the counts!) Should we just mark all citizens as... citizens? Should we use the space for frivolous/semi-frivolous titles as we did on ezBoard? (actually, if we're going to do that, we might as well just add a custom profile field for it, so that people can change it themselves - especially since adding special titles through the rank system is kind of annoyingly complicated)

[Erik Mortis]

I miss the old silly titles..

[Jacobus Loki]

Me too.

[Kaiser Hasan I]

Custom titles are a bitch to manage, but they're fun and a point of pride.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Actually, while we're at it...



I think there are two major problems here - one with the title, another with the postcount and join date.

The title breaks the graphical flow here. Not that I'm a graphic designer, but... it's just in the wrong place, and even if it were moved below the avatar, it still wouldn't look right unless it were prefixed with something like "Title:". Fortunately, we can do just that kind of thing with custom profile fields (we even get the benefit that people can change their own titles).

The postcount and join date really are... useless pieces of information. Postcount because 1. we're way too mature a community to care about it and 2. actually we aren't, and word association is proof. Join date because... well, just look at Erik's account. I think he was here quite a bit before 2003 .


So, my proposal is:

- permanently drop all user ranks except Denizen and Honorary Citizen (whoever happens to have either of those probably has it for a reason)
- hide postcount and forum join date in the thread view, to make space for more useful information
- put in a custom profile field named "Joined in" so that people can provide some actual reliable information on how long they've been around
- put in a custom profile field named "Title" so that people can identify themselves as Very Important People
- put in a custom profile fiold named "Semi-officially unofficially" so that, well, you know

[Erik Mortis]

works for me I suppose.

[Andreas the Wise]

I agree joined date is useless, but I'd keep post count ...

I know on other phpbb forums self-editing of titles is dead easy .... conceivably it should be so here also. The rest of it sounds fine.

[b3n|<3r|\|]

I agree with all of Ari's points.

[Jonas]

put in a custom profile field named "Title" so that people can identify themselves as Very Important People

Something interesting for Switching Day

[hypatias mom]

I may have no one to agree with me, but I have found "Joined Date" very useful in compiling rosters of active citizens. Unless there is some accounting, one is left in the dark as to zir length of citizenship.