Senior Membership Criteria

[fatsoNOT]

I think we should have four categories of membership, Entry Level member(less than six months), Regular Member (6-12 months or higher with 6 "meaningful, informative reports), Bronze Member (13-24 months with 12 "meaningful reports), Silver Member (24-36 months with 24 meaningful reports) and finally, Gold Members (36months or more with 36 meaningful reports).

I think at present, the membership category is too loose and also, i think the Photo gallery should have restricted access, may be only available to Silver member or higher but allow authentic photo contributor to jump the line. Also, I promote "meaningful reports" as you have lots of so called reports which has low information content. The emphasis should be on "meaningful", "unique information" reports. In the old days, pre-1997, the guide was real informative and the information was easy to locate/identify. Now, the look of the site is much better (due to the advancement in internet technology and also Jackson's work), however, the information quality is diminished dramatically as compared to the past. Of course, I do appreciate and understand as Jackson has taken the site from a information site to a community bulletin board. However, I think we can do some work to improve the information content of this site. At present, only the Argentina guide segment's quality is comparable to the "old" guide. Thanks.

[Maloso1]

I go along with the 6 months, 25 reports should get everyone senior status, but if you get a$%-h*@!s in here just causing problems and not helping the cause they should be automatically be removed from the board or disqualified from an upgrade.

Maloso

[Civ2000]

Jackson,

It's my opinion that requiring a minimum number of posts encourages quantity over quality. After ten posts, it should be fairly apparent that the member adheres to forum posting guidelines and quality reporting, after that, if the member starts breaking the rules they can be dwelt with accordingly.

I've seen members with only three or four really good posts that I think would make great senior members, yet I've seen others with over a hundred that don't deserve it. For someone who only posts once or twice a month it could take a year or more to become a senior.

Lastly, I've seen an influx of posters to other boards who are only there because they didn't want to wait forever to become senior members over here. Everyone knows that this is the vastly superior board, yet I see quality posters all the time on other boards who have gotten tired of waiting. I suggest making them seniors, and if they screw up then promptly bump them back to regular.

Thanks for all your hard work and a great board.

Civ2000

P. S. All the guys on the Seattle board would greatly appreciate it if you immediately promoted Jimmi Hendrix to senior membership. His outstanding reports and photo contributions make him one of our most valued members.

[Zoomster]

Jackson,

This is a suggestion fron a newbie, so please take it for what it is worth. Have you considered establishing panels of senior members whom you trust to review the posts of regular members seeking upgrades? For instance, each state or region could have a panel of four or five senior members review the posts of a prospect. Being familiar with the region, they would be in a good position to determine the validity of the information contained in the posts. When a regular member has, say, reached 25 posts and been a member for six months, his posting history would automatically be passed on to the panel for review and a final decision on the upgrade. This would reduce your workload but still allow a subjective element in the upgrade process.

Anyhow, whatever your final decision, I want to say how impressed I am with your site. Keep up the great work! (By the way, should a post such as this one count towards membership upgrade? Or is this the type of BS post Seva Lurker is concerned about?)

[Best Tx Monger]

Jackson,

In reference to that post and membership time in the forum, I agree that a minimum 25 reports and a 6 month membership will suffice.

In addition, I agree that there are many out there that have many post but some are not fruitful and do not yield any valuable information.

Just wanted to take the time and second the 25/6 that 75% of the community is agreeing on. My .02 cents.

Regards,

007

[Seva Lurker]

Jackson,

There is truly a need for Senior Member status, there are several excellant posters with in excess of 100 reports who are still Regular Members.

I think six months and 25 posts is a good start. It took me a long time to reach the 100 report mark, so I would understand Regular Members being a bit upset having to wait. Some would probably swamp the system with BS to get their required number.

[Cienega32]

That's a tough call; trying to establish prequisites for Senior Membership. I do think that Gtrack has a very strong point about the passing of info.

What would prevent anyone from dummying up a bunch of reports in order to achieve senior status and, therefore, slide into the "in crowd"? The rest of the scenerio can be found somewhere "between the lines".

Verifiable, or legitimate, credentials should be square one.

On another note - wouldn't it be nice if the postings from regular members showed as a "new post"? The time delay lets them fall into the cracks sometimes.

Hi Cienega32,

Actually, I've already paid to have the forum's code modified to accomplish exactly what you've suggested, although the report will display a "Report visible pending moderator review." tag line until the report is actually reviewed. This system is being tested in the argentinaprivate.com forum, and I expect to install it here in the near future.

Still, when you run a forum as busy as this one, you learn to be cautious about modifying the software until it's been throughly tested.

Thanks,

Jackson

[James D 2004]

USG is going to be dead. To determine the quality of 25 reports is as difficult as 100 or 1000 reports using any criteria. So we can forget about the quality issue for now. One would like USG to be reference material with clearly classified topics and every post contains useful information. But that ain't going to happen.

There's not enough incentive. Some other sites make people feel that their report worth $10.

KMP girls seldom work for months, same as some famous agency girls. Many girls are touring around the country. Chinese / Korean brothels change girls every week. SW may work for a weekend, and CL girls change their minds in hours. There's no point in collecting and organizing info in an ideal way only to be useless in a month.

You only need one or two good reports to be snatched up by the local secret societies. Still, you are getting a load of rubbish but at least you don't need to wait.

USG did build up a sense of community over the years. Whether it is useful or desirable is up to you. But what I can see is that, if one post often, he will slip in something useful sometimes even if he has no incentive to.

Of Jackero's 6 posts, one asked for info via PM, and the other?

If you are really desperate, there was a wsw hanging around the Stuckys yesterday (tues) afternoon. A face only a blind mother could love.

[LV Fan]

I know you want to automate this, but I agree with many that there are a lot of useless posts. Is there a way for a member to declare a local board, and once the criteria is met (whatever that ends up being) let the senior members of that board sign off on it? I think most of the senior members are very good at calling BS on the less than quality posts.

[Zebra98]

Jackson,

Thanks for the work. I don't think any of us realize how much time it takes to administer the forums. I really like the posting guidelines and the requirement for adherance. But if automation is desired, then I suppose a minimum duration oif membership and # of posts criteria is the easiest way to go. My vote is for 6 months, 25 posts. I'd hope that the worth of the posts could somehow be considered.

It is a bit frustrating that those who requested Sr. status on the old combined borad before it was split to seperate servers, were given Sr. status on the world board, but not the US board after the split. I'd trade my Sr. membership there for Senior here and regular on the world board.

Zebra

[blue]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.

<remainder deleted>

[Pacific Creek]

Jackson,

I think that having a six month minimum and 25 reports is valid. It will weed out the ones who send questions without posting any valid information and then get Senior Membership with 10 posts.

I understand that it will make more work for you but I think it will in the end allow for more responsible Senior Members than some of the lower posting ones we have now.

Also, I think that if you are too backed up in checking posts, please consider the fact that you have many Senior Members who might be willing to help screen the regular members posts before they are approved.

I am sure there is a way for this to be done and it might help lighten your work load some.

Fly low, be cool and always check your six.

[Jackaroe]

Although I would like Senior membership, I just don't write enough reports by the new criteria to achieve senior status. In over a year, I only have 6 reports. Why, I only send out information that I feel would be useful to other folks on the board. There is a lot of BS on the board that provides no information and just wastes everyone’s time. The minimum number of 25 is a reasonable standard. I do feel there should be a one year minimum as a regular member before senior membership should be granted. Thanks for all the hard work.

J

[Gtrack]

I feel you should have legitimate credentials and contacts in order to be a senior member. Also since everybody reads this board you should be cautious in how your information is distributed. If I have good information I generally dont like to give it out unless the poster has at least 20 posts and verifiable posts and contacts. Since I live New York I always go by the saying loose lips sink ships. So far I have never had any problems with LE.

[Kool Klyde]

I agree with most on the 6 mo / 25 post, just hope there is a way to watch those that post the same post in 10 different cities to rack up points.

Thanks for all your work and the fustruations you put up with upgrading these sites. They are great!

kk

[Cloude]

jackson,

what about members who have posts on both the usa and international forum. i'm already a senior member, but was wondering if you can combine the number of posts for members who post in both the usa and international forum when considering senior membership. i have more posts in the international forum than the usa forum.

but, i do agree that 25 posts and 6 months sounds realistic.

cloude

Hi Cloude,

The two forums are completely seperate, and it would be too time-consuming to even attempt to combine the post counts from both forums. Remember, part of the idea here is to make the process automatic so that it actually gets done.

BTW, I appreciate your obvious respect for the Forum's Posting Guidelines.

Thanks,

Jackson