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icon12.gif  Military cutback Sun, 10 November 2002 11:16 Go to next message
BlueTurbit

 
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BlueTurbit died Oct. 20, 2011

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What is rank and what is it's purpose? I noticed a new rank "civilian" just popped up and many crewmen are now civilians. Is that some sort of demotion/promotion?

I resent being booted out of the galactic service without a proper defense. I don't have any civilian expertise and prefer to remain in the service. Mad

Where's da manual? FAQ is very limited? Very Happy



BlueTurbit Country/Rock

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Re: Military cutback Sun, 10 November 2002 11:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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BlueTurbit wrote on Sun, 10 November 2002 11:16

What is rank and what is it's purpose? I noticed a new rank "civilian" just popped up and many crewmen are now civilians. Is that some sort of demotion/promotion?

I resent being booted out of the galactic service without a proper defense. I don't have any civilian expertise and prefer to remain in the service. Mad

Where's da manual? FAQ is very limited? Very Happy


ROFLMAO
'Rank' is simply a measure of how many messages you have posted. Unfortunetly, in its current incarnation, it can easily be abused by people posting frivilous short annoying messages just to gain rank. Mad

I inserted 'civilian' rank at the very bottom of the rank structure so that people 'just passing through' wouldn't have enough rank points to make 'crewman recruit'.

Currently, it is as follows:
Civilian            0 posts
Crewman Recruit     4 posts
Crewman Apprentice 10 posts
Crewman            20 posts 
and so on


In the future, if we get a good user base and have some good trusted moderators, I want to implement a rank system where moderators/admin will assign rank points based on the *quality* of a person's post. Thus, frivilous posts would not add to rank.

[EDITED: This ranking info is now obsolete.]


[Updated on: Fri, 22 November 2002 09:48]




Ron Miller
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Re: Military cutback Mon, 11 November 2002 09:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
JamesWD is currently offline JamesWD

 
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BlueTurbit wrote on Sun, 10 November 2002 16:16

What is rank and what is it's purpose? I noticed a new rank "civilian" just popped up and many crewmen are now civilians. Is that some sort of demotion/promotion?

I resent being booted out of the galactic service without a proper defense. I don't have any civilian expertise and prefer to remain in the service. Mad

Where's da manual? FAQ is very limited? Very Happy


Work hard trooper, and one day you'll be considered a part of the finest fighting force in the galaxy soldier!

Guess that qulifies as an irrelevant post yeah?
I would have thought that flooding would be more applicable for denying process towards promotion rather than irrelevant posts. Otherwise you might as well disregard the Bar & grill topics altogether.



[img]http://www.ukrockers.com/forum/attachments/si.gif[/img]

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Re: Military cutback Mon, 11 November 2002 09:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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JamesWD wrote on Mon, 11 November 2002 09:29

Guess that qulifies as an irrelevant post yeah?
I would have thought that flooding would be more applicable for denying process towards promotion rather than irrelevant posts. Otherwise you might as well disregard the Bar & grill topics altogether.



I do want an area that people can just chat in.

I suppose that I could just not count posts in the 'Bar & Grill' area for rank, or only half a point per post or something like that. Not quite sure what to do. I don't want rank to be so important that people would post like crazy to get it -- which would basically make rank worthless

Rank should *mean* something. It should not be so easy to go up in rank. I'll think about it, and figure out something.



Ron Miller
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Re: Military cutback Tue, 12 November 2002 02:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
EDog is currently offline EDog

 
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Re: Military cutback Tue, 12 November 2002 05:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
JamesWD is currently offline JamesWD

 
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You might want to think about applying demotions as well for certain things, any entries that are racist,sexist, advertising, discussing outright criminal activities. Can you ban people for a period of time?


[img]http://www.ukrockers.com/forum/attachments/si.gif[/img]

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Re: Military cutback Tue, 12 November 2002 09:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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Yes, users can be banned by IP address or login name. Hopefully I won't ever have to do that, or demote people.




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Re: Military cutback Tue, 12 November 2002 11:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
JamesWD is currently offline JamesWD

 
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Ron wrote on Tue, 12 November 2002 14:35

Yes, users can be banned by IP address or login name. Hopefully I won't ever have to do that, or demote people.




I'd suggest a warning first, then banning for a period of time depending on the nature of it. Might also be worth having a forum for notifications on rules etc...

Not that I know too much about forums and spend all day in them when I should be working Very Happy



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Re: Military cutback Wed, 13 November 2002 20:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ccmaster is currently offline ccmaster

 
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Banning all players how post only to get Rank , for all time noone needs them . Also I think noone needs the Rank , forum is fore information transfer .


ccmaster
King of the Traders


[Updated on: Wed, 13 November 2002 21:08]




ccmaster
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Re: Military cutback Fri, 15 November 2002 12:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
UAF commander is currently offline UAF commander

 
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I must ask, WHY should rank be important??
As ccmaster said, forums serve to transfer information.
Right now, what rank mean is how active a member is, no one would post just to get rank, because it would be silly, rank don't have any deep meaning that would make poeple "cheat" to get it.

In general, I'd even say to drop the rank, and let people choose cool avatars as they please, you still have the "posts:" field to show how many posts they made.

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Re: Military cutback Fri, 15 November 2002 17:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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UAF commander wrote on Fri, 15 November 2002 12:48

I must ask, WHY should rank be important??
As ccmaster said, forums serve to transfer information.
Right now, what rank mean is how active a member is, no one would post just to get rank, because it would be silly, rank don't have any deep meaning that would make poeple "cheat" to get it.



Correct, at the moment that is what rank means. However, it is still a 'cool' thing, at least *I* think it is.

Quote:


In general, I'd even say to drop the rank, and let people choose cool avatars as they please, you still have the "posts:" field to show how many posts they made.



I think avatars would slow down page views, and I'd rather not have HWF get as slow as Star Base Delta seems to be, which is why avatars are disabled.

I'm working on a way to make rank mean something.



Ron Miller
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icon12.gif  Re: Military cutback Fri, 15 November 2002 18:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
BlueTurbit

 
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Quote:

I must ask, WHY should rank be important??


A typical civilian attitude. But kind of a peculiar statement coming from one who calls himself: "UAF commander" wouldn't you say? Uh Oh



BlueTurbit Country/Rock

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icon5.gif  Re: Military cutback Fri, 15 November 2002 18:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
FurFuznel is currently offline FurFuznel

 
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Fast Forum or Fancy Avatars?[ 17 votes ]
1. Fast Forum Teleport 12 / 71%
2. Fancy Avatars Bounce 3 / 18%
3. Do not really care! Bored 2 / 12%

Ron wrote on Fri, 15 November 2002 17:58

Correct, at the moment that is what rank means. However, it is still a 'cool' thing, at least *I* think it is.

Even if other people abuse it, I like occassionally being surprised by my "promotions" since (as was posted elsewhere) I am not the most observant person. Very Happy

Quote:

I think avatars would slow down page views, and I'd rather not have HWF get as slow as Star Base Delta seems to be, which is why avatars are disabled.


I really appreciate the speed of this forum. As well, Avatars often cause a topic to become quite long even though most people only respond with one or two lines. If this was put to a poll... hey wait a second, why don't I just put it to a poll... I wonder how many people would prefer to have avatars? Wink

FurFuznel



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Re: Military cutback Fri, 15 November 2002 21:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
UAF commander is currently offline UAF commander

 
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Here is a post to another forum I'm active in:

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~timewarp/ikonboard//ikonboard.cg i

Now, in there, everyone have their own avatar where (here the rank show) and you can also choose a nice thing to write next to it (here, where the rank is written).

Long signatures and pictures in them DO make a post long and make the forum slower, but those little avatars never coused me a problem, or anyone else to complain.

BTW, I think it's possible to disable avatar by choice personally, so I won't see avatars if I want, but others would.

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Re: Military cutback Fri, 15 November 2002 23:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ccmaster is currently offline ccmaster

 
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Fast forum is what i want , and information trad , if you need
something like this make a picture and put it in front of your
tastertur .


ccmaster
King of the Traders

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Re: Military cutback Sat, 16 November 2002 02:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
BlueTurbit

 
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Quote:

Fast forum is what i want , and information trad , if you need something like this make a picture and put it in front of your tastertur .

Greetings, welcome to Earth! Do you come in peace?
What is "tastertur"? Is it better with salt or without? It's kind of like tartar sauce,isn't it?
Rolling Eyes

Fast forum is nice, yes! But it is sad indeed that in an age of mega and giga-speed computing systems with super graphics capabilities that we must sacrifice the beauty of color and art in expression, and be reduced to slightly more than 26 symbols for communication on the net? A picture used to be worth a thousand words. And now, a picture is worth a thousand miliseconds. How sad indeed... I think I will have another helping of Draknoid spud-chips dipped in tastertur sauce... Teleport



BlueTurbit Country/Rock

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Re: Military cutback Sun, 17 November 2002 13:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Caracan is currently offline Caracan

 
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I don't mind nice graphics etc, especially when I'm sat on the work connection Laughing

But while I may have a giga-speed computing system at home, I am sadly due to circumstances out of my control stuck on a 56k modem..... No broadband here.. Sad Crying or Very Sad

So once they get ADSL or the like sorted I wouldn't mind Avatars, but right now its a pain to keep downloading Massive Sig files etc in other forums (Although the net cache gets round this somewhat)




--
Caracan

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Re: Military cutback Mon, 18 November 2002 20:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ccmaster is currently offline ccmaster

 
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@ BlueTurbit

The Traders always comes to trade not to atack , yes we come in peace . Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy

Tastertur is german (sorry ) keyboard was the word i mean .
You can try to eat it with or without salat Laughing Laughing


ccmaster
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Re: Military cutback Tue, 19 November 2002 05:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
JamesWD is currently offline JamesWD

 
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I doubt avatars will make a huge difference, especially if people kept them to a reasonable size?


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Re: Military cutback Tue, 19 November 2002 13:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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JamesWD wrote on Tue, 19 November 2002 05:17

I doubt avatars will make a huge difference, especially if people kept them to a reasonable size?


If ever allowed, they would be limited to 64x64 pixels.

This is a Stars! oriented message board, and I really don't want to have graphics that don't go along with the 'space' or 'Stars!' theme. <shrug> just me, I guess.



Ron Miller
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Re: Military cutback Thu, 21 November 2002 14:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Stalwart is currently offline Stalwart

 
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Greetings all,

UAF Commander: There are many reasons why Ron has done what he has done. If you think back Ron has done nothing but Helped improve the quality and reputation of the Stars! Cosmos. What Ron is trying to do with this forum is just the same. Rather than having extravagant Avatars and people who strictly use # of posts as a way of rank you get a forum that takes forever to download just to get a list of jiberish.

What Ron is doing here is trying to improve the qualities of posts by promoting detailed on topic information on the forums and does so by using the rank system. For example take a person who has over 132 posts, only thing is this person is still a Civilian. Then you look at another with 43 posts and is already a High level Crewman. You start to realize that the person with 132 posts just goes from post to post mentioning: *bump* on each post, you then can go into the options and check "Ignore all posts by this user". Thus in turn shortening your download time and also freeing up the time reading absolute jiberish.

There is a lot to see what Ron has done here and it is EXTREMELY thought out. It proves to let people who are new to the forum to look for posts by any high ranked users to find USEFULL information that help their lifes in the Stars! Cosmos.

Ron: Keep up the good work, Thumbs Up what you are doing is well thought out and works to help teach new people who in this forum are helpfull and who is just their for the pings, while at the same time still providing tools to help eliminate such long download times for those trying to find help and in turn promoting them to add their thoughts, not flames, to the forum and the Stars! Community. Kudos! Very Happy

Thanks always and best wishes,
Stalwart



"Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."- Sun Tzu

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Re: Military cutback Thu, 21 November 2002 18:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
UAF commander is currently offline UAF commander

 
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Is someone with 134 posts and civillian rank, and one with 43 and is High level Crewman?
To my understanding, the person with more posts would (currently) have the higher rank.

Also, I am not talking about pics in the signiture area, I'm talking about having the avatars where the rank is currently shown. (You looked at that forum I mentioned?)

Also, by getting rid of the rank by # of posts system, we made usre that no one would go from thread to thraed and post *bump* just to get rank.

To sum it all: it's not the rank system I'm againt, it's the nice (small!) avatars I'm in favor. And right now the rank system just seem useless to me. If I want to know how many posts someone made, I'll look at the # of posts field, not the rank.

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Re: Military cutback Thu, 21 November 2002 19:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
tech25 is currently offline tech25

 
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I still don't really understand what the rankings are for. There doesn't seem to be any "perks" that go with them so they are just decorations as far as I can tell. I was just happy to find a web site up and running with some activity on it. A number of years ago I saw someone playing Stars! on a computer in the micro lab at USM when I was working there. I had to ask him to remove the game from the machine. But I let him finish his turn and we talked about it. So, I finally got around to looking up the game (good notes) and I found dead links and sites down blah blah blah. I ran across this forum with some active players and I am in heaven. LOL Turn based Conquer the Universe type games have sort of disappeared from the radar scope into the thermal noise. So youse quys are sort of atavistic, last stand types. Keep up the good work (stiff upper lip and all that rot.) Piled higher and deeper
tech25


[Updated on: Thu, 21 November 2002 19:25]




Anyone can learn from loosing ...
an excepional individual learns from winning
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Re: Military cutback Thu, 21 November 2002 22:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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UAF commander wrote on Thu, 21 November 2002 18:22

Is someone with 134 posts and civillian rank, and one with 43 and is High level Crewman?
To my understanding, the person with more posts would (currently) have the higher rank.


In the original rank system, rank was directly tied to the number of posts. In the new system, rank is tied to points I assign based on the quality of the post. Therefore, users who are more helpful, insightful, etc get more points. Totally irrelevant posts get zero points.

If someone posted 20 messages, they were on topic, but not very helpful or insightful, they would get 1 point for each message. This would give them 20/20 or 1.00 ratio.

Say another user posted 20 messages, 5 were off-topic or rude/flame etc, and the rest were fine (1 point each), would get 15 points, or 0.75 ratio.

Along comes another user who is well known in the Stars! community, posts 20 messages, 12 are insightful and helpful (2 or 3 points), 8 are normal 1 point posts. Total: 32 or 40 points which gives a positive 1.6 or 2.0 ratio.

Quote:


Also, I am not talking about pics in the signiture area, I'm talking about having the avatars where the rank is currently shown. (You looked at that forum I mentioned?)



Actually, if avatars were displayed, they would be under the rank image, and would be limited to 64x64 pixels. But, as I already posted in another thread (with a poll), they would slow down the page display speed and could distract from the Stars!/space theme. Avatars range in size from 1k to about 3k, and if there are 20 messages displayed on the screen, would add 20 to 60k of data to transfer (assuming all 20 were different avatars).

Quote:


To sum it all: it's not the rank system I'm againt, it's the nice (small!) avatars I'm in favor. And right now the rank system just seem useless to me. If I want to know how many posts someone made, I'll look at the # of posts field, not the rank.


The FAQ shows the number of rank points that go with each rank (for those interested)(may need to be adjusted in the future). I'm not sure I want the actual rank points to be displayed, but I could display the ratio (signal to noise ratio?). Would that be helpful?



Ron Miller
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Re: Military cutback Fri, 22 November 2002 05:39 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
UAF commander is currently offline UAF commander

 
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Oh, you changed the rank system, I didn't know about that Embarassed

Well, then ignore what I said before and keep up the good work Very Happy

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