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Crazy4Thai
09-06-05, 09:16
Hello Jackson!

I have participated for 2 or 3 years and appreciate the reports that contribute some real information to the board. I try to do just that when I post. I quickly tire of the flamers and skim past their BS. I'm not much for chit chat style that contains no real info either.

I imagine this membership is so large that your criteria almost has to be "statistically automated" in order to determine who gains Senior status. But it would be nice if there was some guage of "quality vs. quantity" in determining Senior Membership. I think a small handful of "Seniors" don't really contribute at a Senior level and that many Regular Members do.

Since I still reside in the US, it is also harder for me to post more quantity here because I abide by my own guidelines of wanting to contribute real information. That challenge was not a factor in the past as I was getting pretty active on the forum for my local area before the site "split".

Thanks for asking our input and do keep up the good work. This site is a treasure of real-time information and makes the hobby fun and rewarding. I look forward to participating whatever the criteria.

I can only try to imagine the enormity of managing a site of this scope. Thanks for your dedication.

C4T

Local Expert
09-06-05, 09:19
Jackson, I totally agree with you about setting new rules to Senior Membership. Your poll's questions though are misleading:

Are the following sample postings "REPORTS" ?:

"I prefer xxx chicks to yyy chicks", or "more pics please" or "i am going to xxx next week, anyone there to hook up with?"

There are many contributors (even senior members) to this forum who post such irrelevant stuff, but have around 500 postings and more on their account. At least, postings on "Opinions and Editorials", "Test Messages", "Special Interests", etc. should not be counted as "Reports".

A regular member should have posted at least 15 REPORTS within six months to earn the right for senior membership promotion. Each report should consist out of a minimum of 500 words in order not to count "where can I get laid in xxx" as a REPORT. Photos should be made visible ONLY to senior members (see the "Belguel" problem).

Further on, you may set a rule that PM's can only be sent by members with at least 5 REPORTS. I get a lot of PM's asking for phone numbers of chicks in Turkey by members with one (irrelevant - see above samples) or even zero reports.

Master Diver II
09-06-05, 11:40
The problem with this automated process is that it doesn't take the quality of the reports into account. If someone sends 50 inquiries and they get logged as posts, does that qualify him as senior member? Surely not!

I have similar experiences to Local Expert with members who have zero reports also asking for information. A forum is a place for exchange - not handouts, hence there must be some give and take.

MD II

Sporadic
09-06-05, 12:58
Gents,

I appreciate Jackson´s position. I voted for the six month and 25 report (post) option simply because if the guy is willing to hang around for six months, he may actually contribute.

I do not think that there is any easy way to qualify "reports" without requiring serious time investment by Admin.

At all events, a senior member is like porno, you know it when you see it.

Pulling senior status from "less than deserving members" would probably be less labor intensive and meet the same vetting goals.

Cheers,

Sporadic

Tiger 888
09-06-05, 15:41
Hi Jackson,

I think the main advantage of being a senior member is that reports show up right away without being reviewed and delayed. Which also saves you time for not to have to review the reports. It also implies that a senior member should have understood the rules of posting and respect them. But as I look through the forums, there is so much crap going on about people getting personal about each other. So the aumomatation will be a setback in this respect.

My opinion.

Tiger

11Bravo
09-06-05, 15:42
As I understand it, Jackson wants to automate the process. Difficult to automate judging of a valid FR as opposed to the posts that Master Diver and Local Expert cite.

Using a word count would have to remove the quoted parts of others' posts (a number of posters cite the FULL original post, rather than just parts, seemingly unable to cut). As in citing full content of a great FR, adding, "Yes, I agree."

And a lurker could easily be a member for 6 months, getting off on reading posts, and posting his usual "send me your contacts..."

That's why I voted for the 6/100 option. For me, the biggest difference between regular and senior is having the posts appear immediately. But by having a slower matriculation to senior status, doesn't that put more of a load on the vet'ers?

Perhaps Sporadic's idea of being able to "downgrade" a senior member provides some relief.

Admin
09-06-05, 16:06
Hi Guys,

I have anticipated that if I switch to an automated upgrade system based soley upon post count that there would be a motivation for some members to artifically inflate their count. Therefore, I was planning on re-writing the Posting Guidelines to define and prohibit junk posts. Actually this is relatively easy to police because these "Thank You", "Great Post", "Please send me her number" posts, and anything else that really should have been sent via a PM, would simply be deleted without comment.

Thanks,

Jackson

Piper1
09-06-05, 16:19
Jackson - I went for 3/25. Obviously quantity doesn't mean quality (often the opposite).

Of course regular members will stack the votes, but Senior members may also stack the votes, for their own reasons.

Also, even we senior members sometimes post useless info (such as ahem, "witty" banter, etc - but that's the nature of forums).

Overall, human checking will still be needed, but automation will clearly save you time in the long run.

cheers

Piper

bilbo
09-06-05, 17:29
Dear Jackson,

Perhaps another way to select the senior members is by letting other members "backed" his promotion. For example, a promotion requires x amount of votes from other senior member.

Thanks for this wonderful site. Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Bilbo

Frequent Flier
09-06-05, 17:49
Thanks for the inclusion Jackson.

Truly a democratic approach to see what the members would like and then choosing what is best for the forum. Hope that doesn't start a flame.

I also chose the 6 month 25 post option. I would also like to ask if once Senior membership has been bestowed on an individual, is the honor removed if you are not contributing on a regular basis?

I do contribute when I am in Asia, don't do any mongering otherwise, but I have been heavily involved in the start up of a new business and my travels and my mongering, boo hoo hoo, has suffered as a result. I have been absent from Asia, and this board, for over a year now and hope to have myself back in action by the end of this year. Point is, do you lose your status after some amount of time?

Also I wonder if posting pictures, truly amateur pictures taken in the guidelines of the rules stated, would also give members a short cut to senior membership?

Thanks and congratulations on a great site.

FF

Marconista
09-06-05, 22:01
Good of you to let us air our opinion on this Jackson.

I voted 6/25.
Reason for the vote is that I expect that members need that much time to write 25 serious posts (have 25 rendevouz to report about) :)

I hope that you also will police the possibility to revoke senior membership strictly, avoiding to much BS-posts by senior members.

As FF, I mainly have time for mongering while on holidays and on some business-trips, so I "beg" that you will not cancel senior membership if we are not active for some months, knowing we will contribute well when having the opportunity.

Mimonger
09-06-05, 22:48
This shouldn't be a hard problem at all, and see no reason to blow things out of proportion. 6/25 is fine. The person should have to do both. At least a 6 month membership and 25 reports. Filtering out what is considered a report might be a problem, but if it requires 250 words or 25 sentences maybe that will address the issue. How about throwing in something with 15 reports and 10 photo's :) Don't we all love PHOTO's.

Don't make this out to be harder for yourself Jaxson. I have been a member for several years and only have a few post because of the fear of the wrong person finding out. I have made several mongering trips and would say I have alot to offer. I send way more PM's then post. I feel anyone who has been around for over a year isn't going to start abusing the site and cann't see why they cann't have senior status with 15 post. Just my 2 cents.

Nice update with site.

M&M

Grand Pollo
09-06-05, 23:34
I don't think word counts etc. should make or break a good report from a bad one and if they do 500 is probably too many, however if the photo forums per location don't have photos at all count them as zero since there is so much bandwidth and so little photo content there is no point in encouraging that. With a senior member reward that is. Nice jugs or post more are hardly reports that provide anything of value to members.

I am tiring of sending reports and getting nothing similar in the forums other than a couple of regulars. And PM's with just plain silly questions, maybe a PM cap of 5 or 10 might be nice.

Gipse
09-06-05, 23:58
Ok, I voted for 6/25 basically cutting my own foot with my axe. I can now say goodbye to any hopes of becoming a senior member for years to come. My once every 6 month week long trip results in 1 real report, the rest of the postings are additional information or clarifications. (I am new here).

With imagination and creativity I can write one post for each day giving me 7 reports every 6 months. Now if I write a seperate report for each encounters instead of a daily diary, I can increase that number to 10-12. Wait a minute additionally, I can post pictures of each encounter as seperate posts giving me grand total of 20-24 informational posts. Ah! there is hope for me.

It's a good criteria, making people contribute more specially if there is a filter for junk posts.

Crypton
09-07-05, 00:20
Jackson,

I think this is good idea - especially if it reduces your work load - you do a lot already. I chose 6/100 because in 100 posts, a poster's true character is likely to become transperant. Are they posting junk, are they being abusive to other members, etc. I am, of course, assuming that there is a way to filter out short posts or those devoid of any information. Of course, I am also close to 100 posts ;-)

Keep up the good work and thanks for everything you do.

Cheers.

Tiger 888
09-07-05, 02:10
Hi Jackson,

I just saw another setback for not senior members.

The post shows up at the original time of posting, no matter how long the review takes. If senior members post meanwhile, the reviewed report will show up chronologically before theirs. If a (regular) viewer does not scroll back that far he will overlook it. But of course I understand that if it shows up at the time after the review, the issue might be laready outdated and the post might look silly.

Maybe ther is a way to show the number of new unread posts in a thread, so someone interrested knows to have to scroll back. (my report on this thread was posted at 10:41pm and didn't show up at 1am yet [all Hong Kong time])

Another nice thing about new members asking questions would be if there was a way to see how many reports they have read already on the thread. But unfortunately this looks a bit difficult to me to trace.

Tiger

Yellow Fever #2
09-07-05, 05:43
I voted 25 reports.

Regular members reports are reviewed and so any member with 25 accepted reports should be welcome to join the senior clubs.

I think that garbage posts should not count in the 25 reports.

It is possible for jackson to 'rate' a report, say from 1 to 10? As Jackson or an administrator approoves each report from a regular member, he can rate it's usefulness and use some value say 100 points as a criteria to reach Senior status.

I do not think it necessary to give the rating in the report only use it for private statistical purposes.

Also if admin can limit (or calculate) for regular members a maximum of a single report in any calendar day regardless of the number of reports written, then even 25 reports should be more than enough to chase away those who want to abuse the system.

It will be clear enough for Admin those who are junk posters and those who want to contribute.

THere is still a procedure or forum for those member who want to complain about some members abusing Senior status, so even if a few bad ones get through they can be removed easily and quickly enough.

Yellow Fever

Akibono
09-07-05, 06:55
I think the best criteria is for a certain number of votes by senior and regular members with senior member votes counting more.

This would indicate quality of votes as well as weed out the offensive posters.

Counting number of postings encourages false or duplicative reports. We are interested in people who have actual experience--not those who merely read a few ads and repeat the information.

Denver Sam
09-07-05, 07:07
Thank you Jackson for having started a very democratic process (especially one that is not ruled by any religious fatwa). I think to be fair to everyone it should be 6 months and 25 reports. I think it is the substance that counts and not just inundating the site with meaningless garbage and also the fact that there has to be a certain recognition for loyalty. Even frequent flier programs reward the loyal customers so why not this site? This can be an incentive to be a memebr but I suggest that anyone who has not logged on for more than 3 months should be downgraded or the membership cancelled. That is just my 2 cents.

Cheers,

DS

Local Expert
09-07-05, 07:35
BILBO had a good idea in my opinion. Jackson may want to appoint one or two senior members who regulary post per city or country and make these inform him on a monthly basis whether there are any candidates who "smell" senior.

That would decrease Jackson's work and delegate it to guys who have a more detailed overview of their city/country.

Member #1005
09-07-05, 08:04
It is my understanding that the purpose of this forum is to share information with fellow mongers. Often reading through the forum with many of these so-called “Senior Members” who I often wonder how they ever made it to senior members.

I say this because I would say in the forum there is something like:

20% of actual Posts
40% repetitive questions- asked every ten days
15% of people's egos
20% of flames
5% are general questions (non sexual) that could be answered by putting this into any search engine.

Just this week one senior member posted a question, “Can any of you senior members tell me what the exchange rate is there?” Notice he didn’t want the regular member to answer but a senior member. What is even stranger is that a senior member answered this request.

But I have seen people who have been upgraded to Senior membership and basically what they call a “post” are actually six questions in another forum, with such gems as, “ Hey what does RTFF mean?” Actually counting towards their six supposedly posts.

Let’s be clear, if we are here to exchange real information then we need to be more ridged in our approach and I am in favour of the six month – 25 posts and these should be posts and not dumb ass repetitive questions.

Juniour

Master Diver II
09-07-05, 09:44
Is it possible to have a seperate counter for reports and another for posts? Each member would then have a note under their name saying x no of reports and x no of posts which would make it clear to anyone how much he contributes. I understand that you could isolate the petty one line messages and not put them in as posts, but how sensitive is this system? What would be passed as a genuine post? Some of the arguements in the various forums have spawned several hundred word posts which cannot be deemed as genuine Reports.

Bilbo backed by Local Expert has come up with a potential solution - but it would take some time for Jackson to vet each country to come up with whom he would entrust these roles to. Not an easy task and I can see that these members could become hate campaign targets by dissatisfied members.

MD II

Green Banana
09-07-05, 16:19
I'm afraid that a purely quantitative approach would reach nowhere.

Why not requesting the candidate to be patronized (I mean, recommended) by two Senior Members?

This would support the 'Club' aspect of the Forum rather than multiplying wannabees. Qualitative aspects would be under responsability of the Seniors.

Hope it helps.

Cheers

Grenn Banana

Optimist
09-07-05, 17:10
I can't think that number of reports is relevant. Five outstanding reports can be worth 200 uninformative reports.

Also I support the suggestion made by one member that seniopr membership could perhaps be revoked if the member no onger posts anything of relevance

But I realise I am probably being impracticable - Jackson has better things to do. I am just grateful that he has set this forum up as a contribution to the good of man and woman kind

Jason King
09-07-05, 17:31
Hello,

Stupid question intelligent answer. Whats the difference between Senior Member and Regular Member? Is the search criteria better, because when I'm searching something the search result is everything but helpfull.

Yes I know, a newbee and already complaining.

J.K.

Love The Ladies
09-07-05, 17:57
Jackson,

Many people who post "junk" typically have a minimal amount of characters in their post. Yet people who post X characters or more typically have quality information or insights. We would simply need to determine what X means.

Does this software allow this type of reporting? If so, then I believe either a 3 or 6 months member period and 25 quality reports/5 photo posts would be a great criteria.

LTL

Seva Lurker
09-07-05, 18:39
As I said on the US board, 100 posts is a lot of posting and those who are obnoxious will post trash to meet that number.

I am not sure I totally support LTL's 5 photos. Photos do add a lot to the post, but when one can post five photos in one post, does that count? If not, then the regular monger will make five posts of one photo each.

All in all, there is no really good system. Whichever is implemented, I hope Jackson uses the same criteria for both the US and International forums.

Stravinsky
09-07-05, 20:38
Jackson,

I've been reading the WSG/ISG for the past 3 years. Something that I have noticed on many different boards, in all parts of the world, is that, generally speaking, the people who talk the most seem to have the least to say.

I understand that it will make your life much easier to determine who should be upgraded to Senior status by simply using some easily quantifiable parameters, such as number of posts and time served. If your goal is to improve the quality of the reporting, this is probably the worst criteria to use.

I would like to propose a system of Nomination for Senior Member status. Members who desire to be upgraded to Senior Member status must be nominated for an upgrade by at least 1 existing Senior Member. This qualification would be in addition to the regular requirements of number of reports and time served.

But no upgrade would be possible without at least 1 nomination.

The guys who follow a given board on a regular basis pretty much know whose contributions are valuable and who is simply spouting drivel. They should have some input into the process.

Of course, I have no idea how something like this could be implemented using the vBulletin software. But, you're a clever guy, and I'm sure you could figure something out.

Stravinsky

Derby Dervish
09-08-05, 00:11
IMHO

I have read a lot of reports on a number of threads, and I have found many to be very informative. Some are really asinine and stupid and off-topic. What is really annoying are the few egotistical and easily insulted members who use a thread intended for a well defined purpose to start or continue a flame war.

I think that anyone who has been a member for a defined period of time (6 months? 12 months?) and who has posted a reasonable number of informative reviews (25? 50?) should be given Senior Member status.

I don't know how to enforce the "informative report" requirement - maybe when a member has been lifted to Senior Member status it should be provisional pending other member's comments. Those comments by others would not be binding on Jackson but would definitely point out and highlight any new Senior Member whose posts have not been informative and ther3efore should not count toward Senior Member status. The number of "trash" posts could then be deleted from the poster's total. A thread could be dedicated to Senior Member appointiments for this purpose.

I also think that Jackson should consider adding the following rules:

1) Flame wars must not be allowed in the forum discussion. Those who insist on starting and/or continuing a flame war should be required to do so outside the forum, by PM or e-mail or whatever. I think this would make the forums much more enjoyable and informative. Let those who have to beat on each other do so without detracting from the good experience that most of us have from Jackson's excellent effort here.

2) Any Member or Senior Member who posts a report which is an out-and-out flame should be penalized by subtracting 10 (5? 15?) from the poster's total; and if the flaming continues it should put the staus of that Member or Senior Member at risk of being revoked, both penalties at Jackson's discretion.

Off-topic discussions, which are perhaps distracting from the particular thread, are much less critical and probably this is not worth the effort to try and control. Sometimes good related information is made available in this form.

I guess nothing's perfect, and I'm just trying to add to this discussion in a constructive way and in a way which would improve the forum for all of us.

AcapulcoHeat
09-08-05, 01:08
Good Evening to Jackson and all fellow Mongers.

I really do not believe that the number of entries is what entitles one to be a Senior Member. In fact, I really believe that it should be based on the quality of the reports. The info given, accuracy of the info, its quality, and does it help out other fellow mongers.


I have seen those with as few as 4 postings, and yet have contributed information that is of value, on the flip side, I have seen those who have contributed over 2000 entries and most of the time it is just banter. Wasting space arguing with other mongers, insults, and asking the same questions over and over again in the same section.

So to me it is quality, not quantity that should be the determining factor.

Just my opinion

Regards to all mongers!

AcaHeat

Domino
09-08-05, 04:40
1. quality, not quantity is of the essence.
2. jackson imagines the regulars will stack the vote just as he imagined muslims would stack the belguel vote. many regulars, like many seniors, are just happy to get the information they want without contributing much. some, like minomger, have said so in posts. a small minority of posters, freeler being the obvious thai board one, deliver the goods; most of the rest do not.
3. i have noticed many new regulars posting recently. they are the new kids on the block and many of the seniors just prattle on, with no insights or worthwhile news. who cares if they pay some eden club skank to [CodeWord140] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord140) and shit over them; certainly not most of us who are repelled by trolling shit eaters.
4. as an example of seniors wasting space, look at the notorious thai photo thread: the last two pages of reports have only two new lady photos, each of which was posted by a regular on their first post. those same two pages also contain about six posts by someone on my ignore list (to save me wading through his endless drivel). all photos contain little worthwhile information in any event. so, if the last two thai photo pages were our samples the best posters would all be regulars with low posts and noballs with plenty of posts would be the worst.
5. no matter what automated system is chosen, vetting is still needed.
6. this should be a two way street with relegation and promotion. the best way to do this is to eliminate drivel posts by periodically culling threads. the low information to noise ratio is the biggest problem here.
7. perhaps one month with ten posts would have been a better option.
8. a long waiting period implies the quality of seniors' average post is better than the quality of regular's average post. this is not always the case. this is compounded by losers like some of the more notorious thai posters turning the threads into chat clubs where they prattle on and turn on any regular who asks a question, reasonable or not. on the samus aran thread, one troll posted six posts in a row with no reply; admittedly this senior member, terry troll, admits he is a moron but he insists on proving it all the time. regulars get jumped on for stuff like that.
9. as skanking is not an exclusive sport - the best brothels are always open to all cash paying comers - paying more or spouting more should not bestow prestige.
10. the average data miner will be looking for quality not quantity. attica, jackson's predecessor, knew this well as he put the emphasis on skanking in new areas and said that reports on individual women were not so valuable.
11. jackson's own best post, imho, was his santa fe experience which was a welcome relief from reading about beauties. it showed some class in writing (for a change;))
13. the last person to contribute new information on thailand was alexander with his udon thani post; even freeler acknowledged that. six posts like that should be more than enough for senior membership, when we consider that most posts have no information and that life's losers was a chat club instead of a fuck club. i was thinking of visiting negros in the philippines but the thread is full of arguments about **** sex. no information on negros at all.
12. bottom line #1: quality over quantity. this goes for the entire board. jackson needs help he can trust to cull the dross, to cut the barnacles off the good ship skankalot.
13. bottom line #2: moderateship and massive and regular culling is more urgent. jackson needs help he can trust to cull the dross, to cut the barnacles off the good ship skankalot.

Cachorro
09-08-05, 05:52
Hi Jackson,

Agree with the recent responses that quality is key. So I cast my humble vote for none of the above.

With the aim of reducing your time spent in admin duties -- the best idea I can see is to appoint a few moderators with the power to blow away or edit posts. The mods could also nominate or consider requests for senior status.

Alternatively, have senior members nominate newbies for senior status.

If there is a barrier to pass before being eligible for senior, maybe set it low like 3 posts and 1 month membership. Regular members still need to be encouraged to post. It's important for the quality of the forum to also keep the stream of new contributors.

Tiger 888
09-08-05, 06:16
By reading the last posts here I had some new Idea I would like to share.

Why don't you create a new level membership above the seniors and call them superviser for example. Upgrade at your descretion.

Then every applicant for a senior membership could put his name on a list, so that the supervisors can review his posts and vote for him. A certain number of votes would be needed to qualify.

But there should be also a posibility to downgrade seniors if a nomination and a certain number of negative votes are accumulated.

You could then take the option as the last instance to grant pardon to him if you feel the downgrade is not justified.

Tiger

Love The Ladies
09-08-05, 06:37
OK, the photo's uploaded is only a "wish list" item.
Yet quality is what we all want. What if we have a rating type system such as:
"Did you find this post helpful"
It is then ranked on a 1-10 system.

If a poster gets 25 posts of an 8 or above. (minimum 10 votes), then he should be upgraded automatically so that Jackson doesn't have so many admin duties. This would be very easy to implement if the software allows this feature.

What do you guys think?

Local Expert
09-08-05, 07:41
Good idea ! The rating though should only be done by senior members or (even better) by "supervisors", declared prior by Jackson; I believe the software can handle that.

In addition, the ratings should go to an "account", ensuring that the want-to-become senior member posts at least 10 helpful reports. "Bullshit" reports or "chit-chat" should deduct points from this account.

Bart9000
09-08-05, 09:09
I apologize if this has already been addressed-It's late and I don't have time to read the whole thread right now.

I was going to suggest something that I have seen on other forum sites-a user rating system for indivudual posts, with points accumulating as appropriate to a target. For example a post deemed "insightful", could be worth 4 points (and be labeled accordingly per consensus vote), "informative" could be worth 3, and "Troll" could be worth -5. Just a thought.

Yusta Vansel
09-08-05, 12:11
IMHO, in short words quantity doesn't mean quality.

When you read the posts in the WSG forum, you could easily recognize that some persons deserve the senior membership according to their valuable reports. Their posts are real reports. They obey the forum rules like no chat room style, no flaming, no trollling, no spamming, no offensive posts, etc. Also they take into consideration posting guidelines like letter format, standart capitalization, general politeness, etc. I have seen those with a few but very informative postings (reports). Only one outstanding report can be worth 100 uninformative reports.

On the other hand, I have seen some members who have contributed over 300 posts and most of the time these posts are not real reports. These members arguing with other members, ask the same questions over and over again, discuss off-topic things, post one picture at one post. I don't understand why some of them only write "Please send me her number" etc. in report section not in PM.

If you say "The requirements for Senior Membership should be a member for 6 months with 100 reports", then some regular members might post many uninformative reports in order to gain Senior Membership. This action might increase your work load.

The two basic criteria are number of reports in combination with a minimum length of time as a Forum Member. The third criteria might be something like this:
If a newcomer comes to forum, writes very valuable reports, fits forum atmosphere, shares information with fellow mongers then he will be recommended by two Senior Members to you.

Keep up the good work and thanks for everything. Your new web site is wonderful.

Cheers,

Damon Pythias

Bubba Boy
09-08-05, 17:14
I would have to agree with most people here that quality is far more important than quantity. You do have some senior members that post alot with sometimes limited value but I would think this is rare. On the other hand I can name one example of a regular member who has 170 posts in the last 3 months, of which all but 10 posts are basically worthless, hence he should not be given senior status based on the number of posts (he is in the brasil forum - he is actually driving me and a number of other posters nuts!).

Hence if the software could handle it, a rating system of posts should determine when senior member status is given. When a member has posted say 10 - 20 posts of above average rating, senior membership should be automatic.

If the software couldn't handle a rating system then maybe a method where an upgrade automatically occurs if X number of senior members recommend him.

Swede Thing
09-08-05, 18:15
Add a voting feature to the forum where users can vote for posts. If a user give a couple of much voted for reports, then he (or she?) would be given senior membership.

If that is not possible then I would prefer a criteria based on a combination of how many days one has logged on to the forum and a minimum number of posts.

Luis The Great
09-09-05, 07:33
A good way is to reach Senior Member status is to reach a certain point status. Points can be only given to by other senior memebers. Therfore quality will be very good. We have a lot of poster who post nothing usefull. Therfore they will get no points regardless if they post may reports containg nothing. Something like the hp.com forums.

Fido Dido
09-09-05, 21:39
What Bubba Boy writes makes sense.

Quantity doesn't say that much.

Maybe there should come a seperate thread for short, wasteless reactions on each other replies.

ChicagoBoy23
09-09-05, 23:03
too complicated

stay with current system

Senor Amable
09-10-05, 02:39
Jackson:
I personally believe that in order to qualify for Senior Membership a candidate should be an active member for at least six months. I qualify the word "active," to mean a minimum number of meaningful reports, perhaps three to four a month. What qualifys as a "meaningful report," that obviously would be one that presents interesting,factual information,on topics of interest to us all.
It would be easy for an individual to write an insundry amount of meaningless
posts, just to qualify under the numeric portion of the Senior Membership critera.
Just my two pesos. . .
Suerte,
Amable

Bruce Ley
09-10-05, 05:56
Hey Jackson -


I wasn't aware of this scheme for senior membership upgrades, but once I got a notice from you by e-mail, I found that I couldn't log into the site. What's going on?


I was forced to log out, then click the 'go back to forums' link, and then log in again through the "back door". Has any one similar or different log-in issues after their membership upgrade? I'd appreciate a prompt response, and maybe a remedy to the problem.


Bruce.

Mark04
09-10-05, 08:20
Just adding my 2 cents. Some members only use the forum to chat and do not provide any FRs or worthwhile info. In giving Snr status to these people will encourage them to chitchat all the time and use it like their private forum. I personally think its better with the old way where certain criteria has to be met before they can post their ramblings 'live'.

I feel that they should have at least 10 FRs (local or overseas) and not just useless postings about their pimples or frackles on their behinds. No need to have a timeframe how long they have been a regular member because one can be very active in a matter of days. I like the South East Asia forum as people there are actively contributing info all the time unlike certain other places where you can only find info after viewing pages and pages of ramblings about their daily lives....

Ganoosh
09-10-05, 08:43
Granted, some senior members seem to use this board more as a chat forum, seemingly to get their post count up. But I'd like to see some sort of control on the never-ending "Where should I go to get a good soapy in Thailand?" posts from the noob community. I propose that new members are banned from any post for at least 30 days. This will give them time to cool off and hopefully put in the effort to find the info they're looking for. Rarely do noobs have any valuable FRs or pics to post, just asinine repetitive questions. 90% of the time, answers can be found by using the search engine or merely clicking past the most current page of a thread.
//Ganoosh

Sweetboy07
09-10-05, 12:20
I am agree with Marko4.

Important is the number of report and not the number of posting (sometimes just a question or a funny remark). I like the pics of the pictures gallery, may be can we find a way to get more of it. I find also that pictures of street, bar, club. are interested to help to locate it.

I am not agree with Ganoosh. To ask where to go should not be banned because it has still a lot of place where we have very few information or too old information (not for Thailand, agree!).

All this doesn't really help Jackson to find a solution for an automatic upgrade. Maybe a solution to distinguish the short useless posting to the report can be the number of character of it (>500 ?) Of course the number of character should be kept secret.

Sweetboy07

Tongue Wiggle
09-11-05, 01:42
To be totally honest, who cares?

I use this forum mostly to read, occasionally if I've got something that hasn't been covered extensivly before I'll post a report or if someone has posted something I'd like to know more about I'll ask a question

As long as senior membership isn't required to read reports I couldn't care less if I'm a senior member or not.

What's great about this forum is the massive amount of info that's available, not who posted it.

I say do whatever is easiest/best for you.

TheCatsMeow88
09-11-05, 02:58
Jackson,

I hope a photo post counts as a post towards senior membership qualification.

Please clarify.

The Cat

Hi Thecatsmeow88,

Of course photos count!

Thanks,

Jackson

Domino
09-11-05, 07:08
Jackson: I see the 6 month fanatics are packing the vote. At least do a weighted average of the times to bring it down from 6 months to whatever the average vote is.

Labadi
09-11-05, 14:53
First of all i want to thank your for the good job you did in the last months. Now the forum is fantastic and your server better than ever !

To judge a member will stay difficult. If we would just count the posts we would get hundreds of short post every day for the China-Forum. In fact, we would get some spam-like-posts just to get the numbers of posts up.

IMHO the new system should consider the content of a new post (which doesn't mean, that a long post is better than a short post), if there are some nice/interesting pictures and if someone opens a new and interesting field.

So if you want to make it more easy - I would like to do the same in your position - you may get some problems in respect to the quality of the forum. Even a rating of posts doesn't help too much, since there are some very active sections like CHINA and some small sections like RWANDA.

For the moment, I would leave it as it is (it's the best from all the bad alternatives)

Member #3453
09-12-05, 02:12
I voted for the "6 month-25 reports" criteria, but...

I think there are some writers whose contributions are so outstandingly written, whose information is so thoroughly complete, that even 10 reports over 3 months might be worthy of Senior Membership.

I also believe that individual mongers have varying levels of experience around the World, and that their sphere of knowledge is exceptionally beneficial to the rest of us, especially in a logistical sense. Some of those individuals are lurkers, but they travel extensively, and they have significant knowledge if we could only find a way to motivate them to write.

We need to encourage that group of individuals who might otherwise be lurkers to contribute as often as possible. Perhaps if some of those "experienced" lurkers had the opportunity to achieve their deserved status more quickly based on nomination, they would come out of the closet.

So, I also suggest that in addition to the standard criteria, a monger have the ability to receive nominations from other mongers based on a series of posts that may not necessarily meet the minimum requirements for appointment based on numbers or membership seniority, but whose content and quality of contribution is above and beyond the norm.

Perhaps you should draft some kind of nomination criteria in addition to a standard set of criteria.

Ferolga777
09-13-05, 02:41
Perhaps you could make a new poll to determine the number of posts that most people think is essential. From looking at the post so far I see that the most important consideration is time spent reading the forum and getting used to the mores of this community.

Find out if people prefer 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 votes plus the six months lag time between regular and senior.

Pipers
09-13-05, 03:58
Hi Jackson, also remember to count those regular members who post international threads and photos. This surely should shorten the process as was my case.

Notidik
09-13-05, 08:23
6 months period and 25 reports. I think the 6 months thing is a little too long for bonafide contributors. I don't believe having a longer time can judge the member or to qualify him as a senior member. The number of reports and where it is reported is what should be used as an indicator. What we want is members to contribute and not to have members to stay on just for the sake of having a senior title. My pov is 3 months and 25 reports and more. Just my 2 cents.

William Saw
09-13-05, 08:51
Its not how many messages you write, but the information. Those who gave regular updated in their area of expertise should be promoted to senior membership after at least 10 good reports. Jackson should decide.

Hi William Saw,

Great idea, but I never have the time because it's very time-consuming, so it never gets done. Things had gotten to the point that I was getting angry emails from prospective Senior Members, many of them who felt slighted because they hadn't been upgraded, and many including threats of quitting the Forum if I didn't upgrade them.

Thanks,

Jackson

Mutt
09-13-05, 16:26
What is the difference in Sr. vrs. regular membership? Both contribute well. Is this for status only?

Hi Mutt,

That's pretty much it.

Thanks,

Jackson

Don River
09-14-05, 16:27
I found this site years ago when it was edited by the mysterious Atta. As a neophyte international traveler, who wanted to monger on my own and not be dependent on business associates for information, the site was invaluable.

Many times the reports were dated by a year but they gave me an insight into the local situation. With the present format I have had to go through several pages of somone's "stream of conciousness" or arguments to find what I wanted. Many people do not bother search, they just reiterate a question without bothering.

The number of posts does not assure that information will be useful. However, by requiring that a person be a member for at least six months, we are least requiring that they make some committment to the forum before allowing them to make unedited posts.

Jackson, I am sorry to hear about your legal problems. Assuming that they relate to the website, can you discuss the details?


Don

Night Cat
09-14-05, 22:17
If the plan is to continue the current practice of having Regular members' posts moderated (checked for compliance with Forum Posting Guidelines) while Senior members posts skip moderation, then I might suggest that the criteria for upgrade should consider the number of posts that were compliant without modification. You might also consider the percentage of the member's posts that were compliant, perhaps giving more weight to recent posts than older ones (as people may improve their compliance rate over time).

If Senior membership will continue to be a recognition of the quality of reports (as I understand it was in the past), then there would need to be a way to flag messages as passing a certain standard. If Regular members' posts will still be moderated, then the moderator can judge that. This can be made easier for the moderator if the member self-declares the type of message he is posting. For example, for message posting, you can provide a check box that says something like, "This post has on-topic information that may be helpful to many readers." So the member sets the flag, and the moderator can unset it if he disagrees. Perhaps there should also be a way to give extra weight to a post with tons of info.

I'm not sure photos should count, because someone can take 25 pictures of a girl and wind up with Senior Monger status without ever having posted any informative reports at all, and without ever having been checked for compliance with Posting Guidelines (if they just submit photos and don't write anything).

Just my two cents. Good luck, and may the Force be with you.

Shsdlux
09-17-05, 06:51
Greetings to all of you,

I think the criteria for Senior Membership should be as hard as possible to obtain!

Time, the type of report, feedback and informational content should all be a contributing factor. If everyone can obtain a sernior membership then what is the point. I only browse this forum from time to time because of all the reports that i can verify and check out due to my extensive travels in Asia. Right now i am in Shanghai and i can see that many of the reports are a pure waste of time and money! I am not sure if it is my standard or just the poor informational content even of some members who have 50 or more posts.

With that said, i am sure it is not possible to monitor every post at all time.
For me even starting out i still would prefer and have voted for a Senior Member status of 100 report and 6 months time frame. This will however not change anything in the quality of reports. At this time i cannot even repond to some senior member that are sending me messages. So what is the point of Senior Membership if the information flow gets cut of? Limiting access to pictures and chargin a few? Well it might be a necessity, but it definately is not in the interest of this board.

Some members would be able to post valuable information, but with the new guidelines i think most of the info will get lost and never be available. I will give it a try and start posting some more information for you guys, but i am afraid this will not make a difference. In my posts however i will be different. I will give you guys a location ,description and a picture of the place so you can find it. So to sum it all up. What you post is what matters. All the comments and wrong instructions are what drives the cost of this board up and the result is what you see now. It is just funny that i had an angry Senior Member send me a message when i asked him if he could be a little bit more precise.

Result: It was nice while it lasted.

Banana61
09-18-05, 09:35
I would like to vote in the survey, but I keep getting an error message: "POST requests from foreign hosts are not allowed" presumably because I am not based in the US. Is this an editorial decision?

Whatever, my vote is 25 posts/6 months, which seem to be sufficient measure to distinguish those who occasionally pass by.

Night Cat
10-04-05, 14:42
Hi Jackson, this is an addendum to my previous post. Would you consider adding a feature whereby we can "rate" each others' posts as to their usefulness (as is done on some other sites like amazon.com and imdb.com, e.g., "69 out of 86 users found this post to be useful")?

One reason would be so that the aggregate ratings of a user's posts could then be used to partially determine their promotion to Senior Monger status, helping us not to lose the "usefulness/informativeness" factor in promotion to Senior while still being able to automate the promotion process. Another reason would be to provide a way for "reports of distinction" to get visibility without users having to browse a separate "reports of distinction" folder (as I've seen recently, but I tend never to go in there), and also having their "distinctiveness" determined by consensus rather than the opinion of one person.

Just my two cents, I'd be interested to know if you think this would be useful. Best regards,
NC

Il Cobra
10-04-05, 22:35
I think that the senior membership should be given if the posts have a certain quality standard. The number of posts is not as important: 25 high quality reports are more useful than 200 medium quality. For the same reason is also not important since how long one is a member, as long as he prove to be able to write very detailed and useful reports.

Be There
10-05-05, 02:55
Jackson and Friends: I think your current policy is fine. It seems to be a workeable alternative to what could be very restrictive and/or confusing guidelines. At the end of the day, what we all want is that the Forum grows and prospers and shares information between all of us. Certainly we members can distinguish between the wheat and the chaff. My only comment is whether you would not want to migrate towards some sort of 'Country Manager' criteria where there are some super senior members in each country that you could turn to for help and help you manage any issues that arise in each country or region. Argentina is a super country, but it is a long way from Asia or Europe. It seems to me that you must have an enormous amount of work managing the Forum by yourself and, heck, even God recruited Archangels to give Him a hand. " ...on the seventh day, He rested."

Relax and enjoy.
Be Safe,
Be There

Guido88
10-15-05, 23:54
Banana61,

I get the same error message "POST requests from foreign hosts are not allowed" if I try to log into the main page. I am based in the US.

The solution I found was to go to the individual country page and then logging in with no problems.

Hope this helps.

Guido88

Dacian
10-16-05, 01:53
Criteria for senior membership should reflect benefits of being made a senior member … ie .. “Senior Members are not held for review and thus are immediately displayed in the Forum.” This says to me that a senior member is given and therefore must assume a role of responsibility within the forum.

The number of posts and time as a member, does not in itself preclude a person who may have posted 25 post over the last 6 months but has also been an agitator, irritator or down right dickhead, from becoming a senior member.

I suggest that in addition to the 6month 25 post criteria, to become a senior member one should also have their application posted for a month and subject to acceptance or rejection by other senior members. If it is not rejected senior membership is therefore approved. But if rejected, senior membership should be delayed for 3 months. An explanation should be provided and the person then has three more months to continue posting before they can reply. They may use that time to improve their posting methodology or just lift their game. Just a though.

Cyberspace
10-16-05, 18:10
I think that the senior membership should be given if the posts have a certain quality standard. The number of posts is not as important: 25 high quality reports are more useful than 200 medium quality. For the same reason is also not important since how long one is a member, as long as he prove to be able to write very detailed and useful reports.

I'd like to echo gg's sentiment in that there should be some form of weighting for more qualitative posts. If for each post there were something like a checkbox for the Admin which could indicate that a post is counted toward membership, maybe such a task would not be overly burdensome. Of course the idea here is that for posts that state little more than: "Hi, I'm going to be in Bumfuk Egypt on a layover for a couple hours, please tell me how to find anal providers for almost no money" - would not get the check.

Daeng
11-29-05, 04:36
Jackson...

Well i had vote...
I note that some regular member with 20 report of
just chatting some 'info' has been upgrade to Senior..
When i read his report it just turn up to be review
of other report...none of his report could be
regarded as a his personal FR...just crap..

My 2 cent of opinion...

Admin
01-01-06, 02:00
Greetings Everyone,

For the first four years of this Forum, Senior Membership was awarded to those Forum Members who demonstrated their willingness to adhere to the Forum's Posting Guidelines (standard capitalization & punctuation, no chat room style writing, etc.) However, I eventually came to the realization that this proved to be ineffective as an inducement and time-consuming to manage. Thus several months ago I quietly suspended Senior Member Upgrades as I searched for an alternate method of achieving the same goal of both recognizing the Forum's most prolific contributors and maintaining a minimum level of writing quality.

The conclusion I reached was that Senior Membership would become strictly a recognition for the Forum's most active contributors. This would allow me to use the Forum's built-in functions to automatically upgrade Regular Members to Senior Membership based on criteria that are easily quantified, such as number of reports and length of membership, which brings me to the subject of this survey:

What should be the requirements for Senior Membership?

The two basic criteria are number of reports in combination with a minimum length of time as a Forum Member. The purpose of this poll and the accompanying thread is to obtain some feedback from the Forum Members as to what they believe the exact criteria should be.

Of course, I anticipate the possibility that the Forum's Regular Members may stack the results of this poll, so I'm advising everyone that I will be giving much greater weight to the votes of the current Senior Members, and in fact it's quite probable that I will filter the poll results to display only the Senior Member's votes, but we'll see.

Thanks,

Jackson

Swirl
04-07-06, 22:43
I am a member of couple of years, but due to my bad english(my fourth language) did not post any reports. Now, to access all threads and photo gallery, I have to pay. Discrimination? Ok, it`s not a big deal, but now when I would like to start new thread, it seems impossible. So, that`s why it is off topic.

I would like to say, that our P. gallery in need of improvement. I can see the fat hairy stomach and a flabby d*** every time when I look to the mirror and I am not very excited to see the same vital parts of mens body in P.gallery again.

More photos of girls, that`s what I would like to see in Photo gallery!

XXL
05-27-06, 15:19
... consider adding a feature whereby we can "rate" each others' posts as to their usefulness (as is done on some other sites like amazon.com ...?

That's a great idea but wouldn't it put contributors to less well-known destinations at a disadvantage? The 10000th contribution on Bangkok would be rated by many members while a (badly needed?) contribution on some godforsaken place in Africa would get little attention.

One might argue "who needs to know about godforsaken places"? I think many people do, even, or rather especially, if the place is one to be avoided because of crime, civil war, scams etc. Speaking for myself, I think a forum like this one comes into its own when it features lesser known or unknown places.

Another thing: too many contributors click on the "quote" button rather than the "new report" button. The whole forum becomes cluttered with full-text repetitions of previous postings. This is off-topic here but I couldn't find out where to post my comment.

That Asshole
09-26-07, 03:35
1. left click on user name
2. select from menu: - view public profile - find more posts -**view personal library**

This is the proposed improvement that I suggest. In fact it would do away with the whole "senior member" story - which has really proved nothing. Scores of so called "senior members" -with hundreds of posts each- have amassed credits for absolutely worthless comments.

Instead I suggest: ....to have each member maintain his/her own little library of contributions. All it takes is an hours of work, simple links to your best comments/reports that shows to others who you are. Also communicates to Admin about your "real status" and not just a meaningless number.

Like this:
This is a list of my most significant contributions (10-15 links max)

Thailand forum........link, link...
Indonesia Forum....link....link

Mexico Forum....link...link

I have had problems (as had others) with jerks complaining about everything and anything. Senior members? What kind of? Who are they? My problem still has not been resolved but that's another issue. Just as an idea, the following links demonstrated the kind of "link-library" I mean. So easy. We need no "Senior Members"! Just "Contributing Members" please!

Also, this way your laborous "works of art" don't get lost under the general rubbish but are easily available to anyone.
--------------------------------------------------------

The story on how I was forced to come up with the idea:

letters to editor:
http://www.internationalsexguide.info/forum/showpost.php?p=641236&postcount=59
complaints:
http://www.internationalsexguide.info/forum/showpost.php?p=641588&postcount=566

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Another improvement:
Can please the membership profile include the "gender" of the member? We take it for granted that we are all men. It is far from the truth though. Would make it a bit clearer of who really a member is and what he/she is trying to mean. Just think about it for a moment.

Rubber Nursey
11-09-07, 03:37
As much as it hurts for me to agree with anything That Asshole says, I have to add my support to his last comment.

That Asshole might 'take it for granted that we are all men', but there are a (albeit small) number of women who post in the various sections - plus the women who sign up for advertising purposes.

I think 'male/female' under the username would be a good idea.

Rubber Nursey
11-09-07, 03:46
Jackson,

Does this software allow for ratings?

If so, perhaps if regular members had a 'ratings' button on their posts, senior members - and only senior members - could rate the QUALITY of the regular members' posts? Then you could set your software (again, I have no idea about the actual capabilities of the software) to automatically grant senior member status after the regular member reaches a certain number of 'approved' posts?

This would stop regular members achieving senior member status after 25 'me too' or 'nice pics' posts, or asking 25 inane questions in 25 different threads, and ensure that only the people posting quality information become senior members.

______________________________


Sorry - I've just gone down the page a bit and realised that I'm the millionth person to suggest a ratings system. I'll leave my comment here to bump the subject up a bit, but otherwise...forget I spoke. :)