Missed opportunity to speak of TITLES

[Jock Scot]

Surely no one takes these titles seriously? How can they? BUT, they do add to the tongue in cheek and gentle fun that I come to this website for. As a member of this website I was fortunate to be honoured with a special title, now some would say "big deal" and that is their right. Speaking for myself it was rather nice that "some people somewhere" had thought that I had contributed, unwittingly, enough "something" to warrant that gift. You know, getting a pat on the back from people from all over the world whom you had never met and in truth are never likely to, is rather nice and frankly, it meant something to me and it also does add, on occasion, to the fun and humour in no small way. Alright, perhaps its time to start with a clean slate, perhaps its time to streamline things, but let us not take away the opportunity for a wee bit of fun. Let us add to the fun, not take it away. Steve, I know you have a lot on your plate reorganising your, it is yours when all said and done, website, but can I ask you to reconsider the "Title" issue.

[Redshank]

A very good friend of mine from this forum in an email to me, made a comment that I think was a very apt, one that I have been thinking about now for several days, he said "xmarks used to be a community of kiltwearers supported by vendors, now it's a community of vendors supported by kilt wearers". could the simple act of re-instating something as trivial as titles put the heart back in the community, I think it's worth a shot.

[ghostlight]

Surely no one takes these titles seriously?

Wouldn't the fact that this topic keeps coming back suggest that some gave them more attention than they were due?

From my perspective, part of the problem with the past implementation of the titles was that they were taken seriously. If they had just been a tongue-in-cheek attempt at some gentle fun as you said, there would not have been a need to exclude some of the forums from one's post count. But some of the forums that are the most tongue-in-cheek and/or fun and/or directly friendly were the forums that did not count.

We were told that the reason for the exclusion was that those forums weren't particularly kilt relevant. If that was the case, then post count and associated titles were not simply tongue-in-cheek fun. They were a measure of each members kilted relevancy.

Titles with any sort of exclusions applied are exclusionary by nature. And they frequently give the appearance of attempting to label the relevancy of other community members.

This isn't an X Marks issue. This is an internet wide issue. I doubt you could find an online forum with any history behind it that hasn't had this topic come up as a hot button issue at least once for all of the same reasons. Most of the forums I have visited have titles turned off for exactly these reasons.

Are we here to discuss kilts or are we here to measure one anothers relevancy? If we're here for the latter...

Nice kilt!

[azwildcat96]

I have only been here a short while, but I have to agree that the silly titles, number of kilts and post rankings, made it a bit more fun to read threads. I would like to see them back too.

This is not the only board that I read, but it is the only one that I am a member of and the only one that I contribute to.

IMHO someone that has 25 kilts is not neccessarily wealthy...they may own less expensive ones, or have collected them for 60 years, or purchased them used at a reasonable price, or they just love the kilt. Or, they may be wealthy!

Someone that has 5,000 posts may not know a thing about kilts, as 4,999 of their posts may be welcome, happy birthday, nice kilt, or I agree commments. Or, they may be a true kilt guru!

So what do these titles, number of kilts and number posts really tell us? Nothing! But they are still fun!

I don't think that any of these things created a "class system" by any means. I believe that anyone who spends a little time here can identify those members that are knowledgeable, and those that are full of it.

Steve, please bring back a few of the things that attracted me to this forum.

[robthehiker]

Wouldn't the fact that this topic keeps coming back suggest that some gave them more attention than they were due?

I would humbly suggest that each member is paying as much attention to this topic as they see fit.

[ghostlight]

Ghostlight. It appears that you may have missed my point.

It seems I did.

Whether or not special morale titles are awarded independently of post count (and I really have no stake in that side of the titles issue), I hope the people who helped make X Marks what it is remember that they distinguished themselves through their actions before they held special titles. While funny tag lines under user names might be amusing for the bearers of those titles, the rest of us selfishly get more enjoyment out of the bearer's continued contributions to the community.

I hope I'm reading too much into the fact that this particular issue keeps coming up for discussion. I hope people understand that their past contributions to the community and their place in the on-going community haven't been devalued over different or missing titles.

[auld argonian]

"...and I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have people like me as a member." -Groucho

I don't think that anyone took the titles seriously...it wasn't like rank or anything like that, it was just about the time you put in....though, there were/are people who managed, say, the 2,000 posts that rated them a "kilted legend" designation in a very short time and some who took years to achieve it. Consider that some posters didn't post unless they had something to say and some posters had a lot of "nice kilt" posts that added to the count. Thus, the discriminating participant knew that the number of one's posts had less to do with one's contribution than the quality of one's posts.

Think of it in terms of any martial art (or any of several other disciplines, I suppose)...if all you go into it for is to get a "black belt", then you've missed the point.

It was, however, nice to see who the old duffers were...some of these folks established a lot of "cred" sticking around that long.

Best

AA

[ccga3359]

Surely no one takes these titles seriously?

I assure you that as "Grand Defender of the Rubber Chicken" I most certainly took my role very seriously, and then there were all the trappings that came with it...

From my perspective, part of the problem with the past implementation of the titles was that they were taken seriously. If they had just been a tongue-in-cheek attempt at some gentle fun as you said, there would not have been a need to exclude some of the forums from one's post count. But some of the forums that are the most tongue-in-cheek and/or fun and/or directly friendly were the forums that did not count.

My title, as it were, was not based on post count but on association to rubber chickens. Before I was awarded this fitting title I was a "Grand Defender of the Kilt" for having over 4000 posts, some of which were accidentally almost quite profound! A count that I did take pride in as it showed that I contributed, I helped build this forum.

There are gentlemen like Jock Scot or Matt Newsome that can in a single post contribute more to kilt wearing than I could in 100 posts. So in that mind the post count based titles are irrelevent. They are very deserving of their special titles that they did indeed earn. Where I cannot add in knowledge I hope I've added in fun. How many have tuned in just to see that Panache thug give that handsome Grant fellow his come-uppance?

[BoldHighlander]

How many have tuned in just to see that Panache thug give that handsome Grant fellow his come-uppance?

Oo...Oo...I did! I did!

(...and might I say it was usually well deserved too! )

[Jock Scot]

Oo...Oo...I did! I did!

(...and might I say it was usually well deserved too! )

Me too!

Grant your contributions do, as far as I am concerned, help the fun element along in a major way. Gosh! Did I really say that? Should I have said that? Well actually --------YES I SHOULD!