Help Pick Names For Forum User-Levels

[Ajita Kamal]

I'm not a fan of the default user-level names: Newbie, Member, Moderator and Administrator.

We can set the defaults to whatever we want, and we can even increase the number of levels up to 7. Does anyone have any good ideas for what we can do in this department? Specifically, I'd like to know from those here who have participated in other such communities online.

I think the taxonomy should reflect the cohesiveness of the community, but each name should clearly represent the amount of time and energy that the person at that level has put into the community. That is, the levels will be merit based. Other than the admins, moderators and supermoderators, all others will be able to slowly climb the ladder as they gain experience and acceptance into the community. This is automatically determined by the number of posts.

So please let us know if you have any ideas for what the different levels can be called. Personally, I'm leaning towards using god names, but the true-believers might not like that.

[Lije]

That is a good idea! I know of a Java forum which has titles like greehorn, ranchhand, bartender and sheriff (a wild west theme). I can't think about any names right now. Instead of god names, how about some sanskrit words that are commonly used to describe us godless mlecchas?

[siddharth]

Jayesh contributed the following:

Quote:am not the best with indian words. here's a weak attempt -
Newbie - Brahmachari, kumar, taza,
Member - Jawan, Sainik,
Senior Member - Ustad, Baba
Veteran - Guru, Buddha, kabir,
Posting Freak - Narada, Lahar, band baji,

I have a suggestion for Posting Freak: Grand Ayatollah.

[Ajita Kamal]

(31-Jul-2010, 05:22 PM)siddharth Wrote: Jayesh contributed the following:

Quote:am not the best with indian words. here's a weak attempt -
Newbie - Brahmachari, kumar, taza,
Member - Jawan, Sainik,
Senior Member - Ustad, Baba
Veteran - Guru, Buddha, kabir,
Posting Freak - Narada, Lahar, band baji,

I have a suggestion for Posting Freak: Grand Ayatollah.

Thanks, Sid and Jayesh. I'm unable to construct something cohesive from this, so can one of you folks take a stab at it?

One thing I should point out is that we should avoid gender-specific nouns.

While we're at it, here's an interesting concept that takes being a 'centrist' to a different level:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterarchy

Quote:A heterarchy is a system of organization replete with overlap, multiplicity, mixed ascendancy, and/or divergent-but-coexistent patterns of relation.

Quote:A heterarchy may be parallel to a hierarchy, subsumed to a hierarchy, or it may contain hierarchies; the two kinds of structure are not mutually exclusive.

Another idea is using some sort of science theme for the user-level taxonomy.

[siddharth]

Having a science theme is actually a great idea!

Anyone wanna take a shot at it?

[donatello]

I think that using a science or a religion based user-level taxonomy would in some ways restrict the scope of the community. I feel that we are not solely about science (which would make us look too elitist, IMO), or solely religion bashers (which is what we will look like if we use god names). I favour the use of some non-scope restricting theme. How about drinks? I've seen this in use on the Ubuntu Linux forums (http://ubuntuforums.org). There they use a coffee based idea.

On similar lines, I would suggest something that would indicate how immersed a person is in freethought, as the number of posts (s)he creates increases.

How about:

< 10 posts - Nirmukt Noobie
< 50 posts - Addicted to Freethought
< 100 posts - Large shot of Nirmukti
< 200 posts - Nirmukt Centurion
< 300 posts - Zealot of Freethought
< 500 posts - Way too much Freethought
> 500 posts - Freethought Sage

Perhaps, it's a weak attempt, but what do y'all think? Perhaps we can modify it with even cooler sounding titles?!

[siddharth]

Donatello, I must say I loved your idea!

[Ajita Kamal]

Excellent stuff, donatello. I did consider the ubuntu user-levels model and had rejected it. But you did a nice job integrating it with random hierarchical elements. I've taken them and made a few changes:


User Title Minimum Posts

Nirmukt Noobie 0
Addicted to Freethought 11
Nirmukt Centurion 83
Veteran of Freethought 250
Nirmukt Sage 750

I've limited the number of levels to 5, but we can add more if that's preferable. I'm not really sure which would be better for group cohesiveness.

[donatello]

I suppose we can add more levels as activity in the forums goes up with time.

However, don't you think that Nirmukt Centurion should more to do with a hundred? Min posts should be 100 for it I think

[Ajita Kamal]

Quote:However, don't you think that Nirmukt Centurion should more to do with a hundred? Min posts should be 100 for it I think

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion

Quote:Most centurions commanded 83 men despite the commonly assumed 100, but senior centurions commanded cohorts, or took senior staff roles in their legion.

We can still make it a 100 to represent the modern association with the word 'century', but I felt it would be a nice for Nirmukta to represent the loss in translation.

[donatello]

(10-Aug-2010, 07:37 AM)Ajita Kamal Wrote:

Quote:Most centurions commanded 83 men despite the commonly assumed 100, but senior centurions commanded cohorts, or took senior staff roles in their legion.

We can still make it a 100 to represent the modern association with the word 'century', but I felt it would be a nice for Nirmukta to represent the loss in translation.

Wow. That's pretty meticulous. I only looked at http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A...8&oe=utf-8 and thought it should be 100.

The reason sounds pretty cool to keep it 83, and looks good for Nirmukta too!

[siddharth]

I like this, Ajita!

Waiting to see if anyone can beat you to being a Nirmukt Sage!