Missed opportunity to speak of TITLES

[morrison]

That thread about titles was important to me to read. I am compelled to join into the conversation. Unfortunately my opportunity to speak up disappeared before I knew that the thread had come and gone.
I very much enjoyed the prospect of attaining the next available title. My goal had been to advance relevant conversation at more opportune occasions while having fun with the growth of my own presence on this forum. I am not to be stifled. I don't insult as far as I know and I attempt to be friendly, concise, informative, humorous and relevant.
Certainly, I've posted congrats and hello's and yes to this or no to that as a course of increasing my post count which leads to automatic title advancement. That, to me was a fun game and it contributed to my feeling engaged in this forum. New ownership and new management in my experience rarely permits the existence of a former method of operations. That in itself often leads to a turnover of regulars who see an influx of new visitors and users that see nothing different but stay because there is a continuity present and an apparently familiar banter being cast.

I am resistant to change for change sake. I am slow to embrace the new when it doesn't seem necessary. However, I quickly jump off when the old begins smelling. And here, at XMTS the titles also help cover that moldy oder that comes up in old wool kilts. Just a few thousand more posts and I might one have been far advanced enough to be a "Grand Defender of the Oder of the Kilt" order of the kilt.

The titles were a significant element to my humor here at XMARKSTHESCOT.
If anyone cares to note or even go take a look, you'll find that in one of my earliest posts {6-6-6} I make quite a bit of good sense of the titles passed out to the locals (which I became).

There are numerous other forums in the world that have many people attentions divided. There are few forums in the world that have peoples undivided attention. My attentions go to more than one forum. I'm one of those whose attention is divided amongst this and others. Title at some of the other forums seemed too directed toward identifying the individual rather than just something a bit more fun, whimsical, if you must, such as here at XMTS.

I implore you, ownership and mod staff along with you brothers and sisters to recreate and renew the vigor and interest in the fun aspect here and press to RESTORE the titles to us, the users whom sometimes need to see even a Whimsy or trite recognition, even if it is only a meaningless counter to some.

It meant plenty to me.

[Mael Coluim]

Well said, Morrison. I second with your request.

[Bugbear]

I agree with the people that want to do away with the post counts. At one point, there were forum sections that did not add to the post count, Off Topic, for example. However, we were discouraged from posting frequently in Off Topic after several forum game threads cropped up.

Unlike you, I am not a member of other forums, and this site has, at times, been my only source of friendly social interaction. Having to worry about other members thinking I am posting just to drive up my count or get a title, is a bit stressful; though I'm sure my posts bother people too. I stopped posting in the Newby and birthday threads a while back.

[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.

[thescot]

I don't know about the "vendors supported by kilt wearers . . . ," but I do know that some of the heart has gone out of the community. At times, we--all of us here--remind me of a bunch of older frat boys trying to regain something that was gone a while back.

I just keep hoping.

I personally advocated for reinstatement of and mourned the loss of our titles before, and I again advocate for their reestablishment. Silly? Uh, huh. But it was us.

[tooltruckguy]

I concur with the reinstatement of titles. I never worried about my title but I was pleasantly surprised to see when I had achieved a new title. If the they are not brought back my world will not end, but as Jockscot said I think it brought a little fun into the forum.

Just my 2 cents.

Kevin

[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.

[A Hay]

As one can see, I'm not a frequent poster, but I am a regular reader, on a daily basis, in fact.

One of the things that drew me to this forum and kept me here for the last couple of years has been the friendly banter and the level of knowledge and information that takes place. One of the things that was important to me in the beginning was the message count and the titles, I admit. There were nights when I posted five or ten messages of welcome or I agree, just to raise the count, especially as I neared the next title level.

I say also that as I approached the milestone of 500 posts, I paused and reflected on my time here and posted a message to that effect, as well as thanking the membership for the pleasure of their company during the time I worked up to that level. I see now that I'm officially under 500 again, because some messages were weeded out.

That doen't particularly bother me because I have reached a point of maturity perhaps, where the count and the titles are of lesser importance than the comradship of the forum.

But they are still fun, and I would join my voice to those here who would like to see something of that nature come back, both to encourage newcomers and to recognize achievements of longer time members.

Seems like it would be a fun topic to explore new titles and milestones if members participated in the process, as long as it didn't put undue burden on the moderators or owner.

It won't drive me away from this forum if it doesn't happen. I've looked at some of the other websites and feel more comfortable here so I'll stay.

Thanks for listening.

Tom