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Topic: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ] (Read 18885 times) |
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william wu
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[ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« on: Sep 9th, 2002, 2:24am » |
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FAQ: member ratings and stars?
so some people have been asking me what determines how many stars get placed next to your name in the forum. stars are determined solely based on how many posts you make. it's a pavlovian system that came with YaBB that i didn't design. you need to register as a member so the forum software can keep track of how many posts you make. the ranking thresholds are as follows:
15 - junior member
40 - full member
75 - senior riddler
125 - uberpuzzler
these threshholds have been recently slashed from their original values of (50, 100, 250, 500). i think this reduction is appropriate considering the nature of this forum. compared to most other forums on the net, it's relatively difficult to post here. we talk about very complex problems. you might spend many hours on writing just a couple paragraphs. plus there's always some worry about looking stupid -- which i think is actually a good thing, but that's another story. i was reading thoughtful posts by the prolific forum regulars, and it didn't seem right to see labels like "junior member" next to someone who had written 70 or so well thought posts.
btw, if anyone has better ideas for the member ranking names, i'm open to suggestions. riddle freak? puzzle god? 
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| « Last Edit: Sep 9th, 2002, 3:21am by william wu » |
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #1 on: Sep 9th, 2002, 6:49am » |
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Will,
I am fascinated by my instantaneous leap from three stars to five without a single post!!!  Imagine, going to sleep a mere Full Member and waking up an Uberpuzzler!!!
on Sep 9th, 2002, 2:24am, william wu wrote:FAQ: member ratings and stars?
these threshholds have been recently slashed from their original values of (50, 100, 250, 500). i think this reduction is appropriate considering the nature of this forum. compared to most other forums on the net, it's relatively difficult to post here. we talk about very complex problems. you might spend many hours on writing just a couple paragraphs. plus there's always some worry about looking stupid -- which i think is actually a good thing, but that's another story. i was reading thoughtful posts by the prolific forum regulars, and it didn't seem right to see labels like "junior member" next to someone who had written 70 or so well thought posts.
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I definitely agree with this! I had the same thought when I was a newbie at 30 posts!!!!!
on Sep 9th, 2002, 2:24am, william wu wrote:FAQ: member ratings and stars?
btw, if anyone has better ideas for the member ranking names, i'm open to suggestions. riddle freak? puzzle god? |
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I think they're pretty good overall, Will -- I was certainly intrigued to see my new "position"!  If anything, "god" sounds better to me than "freak", but I think it's tough to fit into the current hierarchy of names (all of which seem fairly appropriate).
Two questions:
1) Can you extend the system beyond 5 stars? Otherwise what reason do Uberpuzzlers have to live??! Seriously, though, I would anticipate the possibility of a crunch at the top at some point in time, unless you decide to re-up the limits.
2) Why don't the positions show up in the membership list?
Best,
Eric
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| « Last Edit: Sep 9th, 2002, 6:51am by Eric Yeh » |
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AlexH
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #2 on: Sep 9th, 2002, 7:07pm » |
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I have to agree with Eric ... while I wasn't looking the bell rang me up to uberpuzzler and I didn't get a chance to salivate, how can I carry on?
In keeping with the spirit of the forum it might be interesting to have the titles come according to some unknown pattern so we can collectively determine the thresholds and try to solve the pattern.
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #3 on: Sep 9th, 2002, 7:16pm » |
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Although let me be quick to add (before some horrible fate overtakes us) that I am not at all willing to give up my uberpuzzler status at this point
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william wu
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #4 on: Sep 13th, 2002, 8:19am » |
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Quote:
In keeping with the spirit of the forum it might be interesting to have the titles come according to some unknown pattern so we can collectively determine the thresholds and try to solve the pattern. |
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That is a GREAT idea! You guys are so clever. OK I'll see if I can extend the titles further.
Eric: The members list positions column refers to things like "admin" or "moderator", it doesn't show member ratings. I'll look into getting the ratings listed if possible.
For Eric's sake I'll leave the uberpuzzler title around for a little while
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #5 on: Sep 20th, 2002, 6:30am » |
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Will,
The strange thing is that if you click into someone's profile, you will see that they do define Position as the name of the rating. The rest of the data from the profile is copied straight into the members list, so the asymmetry seems quite strange to me.
More on naming: After some thought, I decided that I believe "Junior Member" and "Full Member" to be "wastes" of titles in soem sense. You are throwing away the option to make two categories that are more colorful! My suggestion would be to change at least one to "Junior Riddler". Possibly:
Newbie - JR - R - SR - UP
but even that seems wasteful; maybe:
N - JR - SR - UP - PG,
although I am loathe to give up UP, and it would also outdate my Puzzle Forum narrative!!!!! Perhaps it would be better for the long run, though...
Of course, if you can extend it to beyond 5, that would be far far superior!!!!!
And just to clarify your statment about the changing titles etc.: The titles themselves will never change after a point, right? They should at most be changing in cutoff. (As I mentioned before, I think the cutoffs may currently be slightly low -- for the long term.)
Best,
Eric
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TimMann
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #6 on: Oct 12th, 2002, 2:55pm » |
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Hmm, colorful names...
I like Uberpuzzler and Senior Riddler, and we wouldn't want to mess up Eric's Puzzle Form puzzle, so I'd say to keep those.
How about:
Newbie - Junior Solver - Enigmatist - Senior Riddler - Uberpuzzler
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TimMann
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #7 on: Oct 12th, 2002, 2:59pm » |
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... or if you really like Enigmatist (I do!), you could do
Newbie - Junior Riddler - Senior Riddler - Enigmatist - Uberpuzzler
OK, I'll stop now.
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #8 on: Oct 12th, 2002, 4:13pm » |
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Tim,
I agree that there's no doubt Enigmatist sounds cool. My problem with it is that it sounds difficut to place, not knowing anything about it. Your second post illustrates this point exactly: is E>SR, or E<SR?? Hard to say what should be, unlike N<JR, UP<PG, etc.
I agree it is something to be thought about, though!
I also don't like the asymmetry btwn "jr solver" and "sr riddler" -- I'm not sure if that was just a typo, though.
Best,
Eric
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Lupin
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #9 on: Jul 17th, 2003, 10:00am » |
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Maybe these:
- Novice
- Apprentice
- Solver
- Riddler
- Master Riddler
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| « Last Edit: Jul 17th, 2003, 10:02am by Lupin » |
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #10 on: Jul 24th, 2003, 3:37pm » |
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novice sounds all right v newbie, tho it would change lore a bit but i think uberpuzzler is still far and away best for top honors! (plus, some of those others sound a bit similar to me...)
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #11 on: Aug 12th, 2003, 1:07pm » |
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eh. i got downgraded. whats up w that??!
hahaha jk.
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mistysakura
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #12 on: Aug 12th, 2003, 10:56pm » |
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Yeah, people are being "degraded" - I seem to remember Speaker and myself as Senior Riddlers, for instance. What happened? People with 300 posts are meant to be uberpuzzlers...
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| « Last Edit: Aug 12th, 2003, 10:57pm by mistysakura » |
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towr
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #13 on: Aug 13th, 2003, 1:56am » |
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interesting how this is leaving everyone puzzled..
But the reason the thresholds where lowered in the first place is because william didn't think people would post as much as they do.. But, since they do, the thresholds can be set higher (though I suppose one could also invent new intermediate ranks)
On the other hand one could dispose of rank alltogether, that why it won't be an issue..
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| « Last Edit: Aug 13th, 2003, 1:57am by towr » |
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william wu
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #14 on: Aug 13th, 2003, 3:18am » |
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hehe ... don't worry guys ... once i figure out how to hack this forum properly and insert intermediate ranks, we'll have plenty of grandiloquent titles and crypto-encoded post threshholds for everyone
let me try to get this math symbol / smiley hack working properly first ...
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| « Last Edit: Aug 13th, 2003, 3:19am by william wu » |
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Eric Yeh
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #15 on: Aug 13th, 2003, 5:48am » |
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no worries; i know ive been gone for ages. im still not sure why after a year ppl suddenly started writing to [several different ones of] my watch threads again!! o well 
and no, i was never "puzzled" towr, haha. just joking around. as you can see from my original posts to this board (starting from #2), i always thought the thresholds should be higher too. and its good that im finally given a chance to moonlight as a senior puzzler, since ive never been one before!!! hahahahaha
and will, my only humble suggestion is that you are very careful to preserve "sensibility" if you insert many new titles.
as may be evident again from my earlier posts to this very thread, i find it really funny when a title structure encompasses levels which are not clearly different from one another. in the current scheme i think it is easy to see which title is "better" for any two titles... i hope it will remain that way!!
o -- and ive also always thought that contributors should get something distinguishing too but i know i know, thats getting greedy hahaha.
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william wu
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #16 on: Aug 29th, 2003, 3:12am » |
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on Sep 9th, 2002, 6:49am, Eric Yeh wrote:2) Why don't the positions show up in the membership list?
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update: membership list has been revamped. members are now ordered from greatest number of posts to least. also displayed are ranks, country flags, bar graphs, registration dates, e-mail addresses, homepages, and links to four different instant messaging screennames (forum IM, ICQ, YIM, AIM)
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Icarus
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #17 on: Sep 1st, 2003, 2:09pm » |
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I assumed when you changed the scales again that you had changed them back to the defaults (50, 100, 250, 500). But I see that Maryl has over 500 posts but is still listed as a Senior Riddler.
What are the new cutoffs?
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william wu
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #18 on: Sep 1st, 2003, 10:29pm » |
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I shifted it to 50, 150, 300, 600. This was intended to be a temporary threshold sequence until the forum is modified to have additional membergroups (ranks). However, adding ranks turned out to be more difficult than I expected due to boring technical issues (recent modifications affecting intended modifications, incompatibilties with the version of YaBB we're running, etc). I'll try again.
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Icarus
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #19 on: Sep 2nd, 2003, 4:25pm » |
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It's no skin off my nose, obviously. I was just curious.
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I wonder: Which is larger
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SWF
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #20 on: Sep 2nd, 2003, 7:58pm » |
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That is easy for you to say, Icarus. You weren't demoted from Uberpuzzler down two levels to Fool Member, like me. 
I just need to be more prolific to improve my status.
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Sir Col
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #21 on: Sep 3rd, 2003, 1:30am » |
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Don't you dare, SWF; no one could produce posts to your standard in abundance, without sacrificing quality. In the words of Gauss, pauca sed matura, which means, "few, but ripe". 
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| « Last Edit: Sep 3rd, 2003, 1:34am by Sir Col » |
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Icarus
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #22 on: Sep 3rd, 2003, 3:32pm » |
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on Sep 3rd, 2003, 1:30am, Sir Col wrote:| Don't you dare, SWF; no one could produce posts to your standard in abundance, without sacrificing quality. In the words of Gauss, pauca sed matura, which means, "few, but ripe". |
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Ahh! So this shows what you think of James', Towr's, and my posts!
I guess the words me would be "many, and overipe!"
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"Pi goes on and on and on ...
And e is just as cursed.
I wonder: Which is larger
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Sir Col
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #23 on: Sep 3rd, 2003, 3:53pm » |
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multi et super matura
To dig myself out of the hole, I need to point out that one of my heroes, Leonhard Euler, was both prolific and profound in his mathematics. Did you know that, of all the science produced in the 18th century, Euler produced one-third of it? I kid you not.
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maryl
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Re: [ FAQ: member ratings and stars? ]
« Reply #24 on: Sep 3rd, 2003, 5:03pm » |
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on Sep 1st, 2003, 10:29pm, william wu wrote:I shifted it to 50, 150, 300, 600. This was intended to be a temporary threshold sequence until the forum is modified to have additional membergroups (ranks). However, adding ranks turned out to be more difficult than I expected due to boring technical issues (recent modifications affecting intended modifications, incompatibilties with the version of YaBB we're running, etc). I'll try again.
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Actually, I think these numbers make more sense; oh I don't mind sweating a little longer-it always makes you appreciate things more.
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