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Thanks, greatly appreciated.
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I think that membership should be based more/entirely on articles, whether or not you've won VIP, and maybe even article contest wins. In other words, completely remove advancement through message count and membership duration as a direct consideration.
My idea is to realign membership status based on a points system.
1 point for each year you've been a member
2 points for every article posted
1 point for each article contest win
5 points for each time you've been awarded VIP
Bronze - 0-30 points
Silver - 31-60 points
Gold - 61-99 points
Platinum - 100 points or more
In my case, I would have the following points:
Membership duration - 8 years = 8
Articles posted - 39 = 78
Article contest wins - 1 = 1
VIP Awards - 3 = 15
------------------------------------
Total Points = 102 (I just *barely* made it to platinum)
These are tangible contributions to the site. Number of messages shouldn't be a consideration for membership level. I would also like to see membership level increases require at least a year of membership between levels. In other words, you would have to be a member for at least a year before being *eligible* for advancement from bronze to silver. In that year's time, you should write articles and otherwise contribute to the site by answering questions in the programming forums so that when your year is up, you can get promoted immediately. This would also mean that in order to reach platinum membership, you would have to be a member for a MINIMUM of three years.
The points system described above would also make it possible for members to achieve platinum status without having to write an article. It would require 17 years of membership and being awarded MVP for each of those years, but it's certainly doable. It would also still promote the creation of articles in order to increase your membership sooner (who wants to wait 17 years to advance?).
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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I agree with everything you say. Except one.
Answering questions on the programming forums definitely contributes to the site. Therefore, I would modify what you said with this: messages in the Lounge or Soapbox don't count at all. All other forum posts do count. How they count is TBD.
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*But*, answering questions on the programming forums also contributes to winning MVP. Mere message count is a poor indicator, while recognition of actual help is a tangible *contribution*.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. In the end, member level is a quantification of service to CP. Message count is specific and countable; MVP status is a judgment call and hence 'soft'.
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It's actually calculated by the site, based on article submission, the quality of programming forum posts, and probably some other stuff. There also appears to be a cap on the number of people that are awarded MVP every year (but I'm not sure about that). I don't think MVP is a "soft" award at all.
I'm trying to point out that more effort on the part of the user should be required to advance, and allowing mere message *count* is not appropriate.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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Yeah, I hear you. I don't actually know why I'm arguing in favor of including message count, since at the rate I'm going it will be another 10 years before I get to Fixture. 
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A number of members would be reduced in membership level if the system I've suggested is put into place (gold and silver members would be the most affected, along with a handful of platinum members). As for my own personal score, I would not have made platinum until just this last January (2009 MVP award put me just over the top). Anyone with at least 50 articles would have nothing to worry about (that includes you, btw).
BTW, I was scrolling through the who's who list, and noticed there's a bronze member with over 20 articles posted, and 4 years as a member. Why isn't he a gold?
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I was scrolling through the who's who list, and noticed there's a bronze member with over 20 articles posted, and 4 years as a member. Why isn't he a gold?
You know, maybe CP needs an archivist, who can track down this arcane trivia, maybe write a book, CodeProject Internals. Or my personal favorite, Hamsters Unleashed: What CodeProject Doesn't Want You To Know.
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Oh great - something for the conspiracy theorists... 
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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I like the idea. I'd have to do some simulations to see who would lose and who would gain, then work out if the losers were bigger at me and would yell, and then adjust accordingly.
But seriously: I do like the points based idea and have been working on revamping the entire system because straight out 'number of articles' doesn't say anything.
However, MVP status is calculated on the articles you post and the rating of the articles as well as the ratings of your answers in the programming forums. My plan was to use the MVP calculation system to generate point for everyone (not just to rank everyone) and so give everyone a more solid idea of how they and everyone else is going (for those that care). Further, I want to award members for as many actions as I can that help another member find an answer:
- posting an article
- answering a question posted on an article
- answering a question in a forum
- voting on articles, questions and answers (this helps
immensely in the job of sorting the good from the bad
- moderating programming content
There is also scope to have a separate points system that is purely for community participation. Have you joined collaborative groups, have you been a Nishbot, have you moved messages into the correct forums, have you hung around for a long time
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Well, I figured that awarding of MVP (which already has math behind it regarding message counts/quality) was what I call a "tangible". You don't really want to expose the criteria for calculating MVP, so just the fact that someone *is* awarded should be enough, and is visible in the user's profile. My idea was formatted in such a way as to create as little *new* work as possible for you. It also presents an easy job for Joe Sixpack users to verify their own status without having to bother you.
You already know my opinion on user level - it should be earned, and difficult to earn. Under the system I proposed, many users will find that they have been "demoted" by at least one level (and I suspect a lot of gold members would become Bronze as a result).
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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OK - I'd be a loser here, and I'm definitely bigger than you Chris. I'd have a grand total of 38 points.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: I'd be a loser here
start yelling, I'll join you. Chris asked for it after all. 
The basic idea seems sound, but clearly the 31 and 61 thresholds John proposed are too high, there should be more of an exponential curve there.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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Arctic Jim on 38 points? Doesn't sound right to me.
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text
Ain't that Groovy?
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martin_hughes wrote: Arctic Jim on 38 points? Doesn't sound right to me.
I spend a lot of time out on the lash.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys
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Yeah, I kinda figured some folks would get caught in that net, and it's a perfect of example illustrating how hard it would be to make gold (and subsequently, platinum) status. Gold requires 15 articles right now (30 points in my proposed system).
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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There are currently only around 950 Gold members.
Do we really want to reduce this number even further? Personally I'd like to make it slightly easier
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Only 950 gold members, and about 30 platinum members certainly is an exclusive club on a site with almost 6 million users. Just ignore me then.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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I'm afraid you are mistaken, there most likely is a big difference between accounts, people and active users.
There are 950 golden accounts, probably all belonging to different people;
there are almost 6 million accounts in total, the number of people involved is unknown.
It would be my guess the number of active users (lets say people having an account and logging in at CP at least once a year) could be well below one million.
I do recall we recently had an account with just the single message asking how to delete his account; the recent flock of "doubting" people just today have proven to have more accounts than people; and I don't hear or see several people anymore that were very active some 12 months ago.
So things being very dynamic, and accounts being somewhat hard to get rid of, I would stay far away from mentioning 6 million users. After all, every page mentions there are some 20,000 people on-line at this very moment. Did you ever notice a much higher number? and do you think most people log in and out all the time?
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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It would be interesting to see how many actually active accounts there are, but I don't think Chris would give that number up for fear of loosing advertisers.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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Why not just have MVP and bugger all else in terms of rating?
It would seem more democratic to me. The Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum statuses don't really make much sense - especially for lounge lizards like me - and could be replaced by the Messages posted description (expand it though - I'm much more than a "personality"!).
Hold elections on MVP status, and hold them more regularly. Members could nominate people who have been useful and/or re-elect those they consider still worthy. This would both involve the entire community in the process, and keep MVP's (like Moobs) on their toes (and maybe, just maybe, stamp out the Lord of the Flies mentality that rewards unpleasantness on this site, on occasion.)
Just a thought. Just a thought.
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text
Ain't that Groovy?
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Nice one, Moobs.
How about -10 points for each and every post on bowel movements and -100 points for racist commentary?
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text
Ain't that Groovy?
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Why is it messages get accounted for only through a possible MVP status (of which only 40 are awarded, so message quality isn't absolute, it is a competition of kinds), whereas articles count directly and absolutely?
Since in the end you get what you award, some people will start calculating "How many (possibly crap) articles do I need to keep my silver/golden nugget?"
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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MVP indicates a person that is actively helping the community. This help is effected via answering questions in the forums and through posting articles. I believe (but I'm not sure) that it's not merely message count but might also include some sort of "worth" calculation based on votes you receive on the messages you post (in the programming forums).
Luc Pattyn wrote: How many (possibly crap) articles
Hopefully, the "crap" is caught by the pre-screeners. Besides, that's one of the reasons I suggested such high points values for progressing from one level to the next.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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