Forum Ranks

[richard]

I'll kick the suggestion box off with the subject of Forum Ranks.

The forum software supports rankings for each registered member. These are just labels that appear below your name. They are set by the number of posts that you have made. As you make more posts, you move up the ranks.

As examples of rankings, there's a technical forum I read that uses judo rankings (more posts implies greater expertise). Or there's the National Preservation forum which has tried both locomotive types (progressing through history starting with Trevithick's Pen-y-darren engine), and employment grades (cleaner, fireman, etc).

Implementing these rankings is really easy and might be fun for some readers, but I've had trouble deciding on a suitable scheme. I could use employment grades all the way from Cleaner to CME. Does this mean that Draughtsman is above Top Link Driver?

Or a more interesting scheme would be to use LNER engine types.
For example the bottom could be a Y1 or Y7, and then go all the way up to an A4? I think it would have to be on a fame/prestige level. If it was chosen by power, then the top ranking would be the U1!
Also there's the political aspect of choosing competing designs. E.g. Should a C1 rank above or below a C7?

What do you think?

[Bullhead]

When I owned an Alfa Romeo and used to post regularly on an AR owners discussion forum, a similar arrangement - something to do with cloverleafs - applied there. I definitely think it would be an attractive feature, although it may encourage pointless "me too" type posts as people strive to cast off their Y7 and become a W1 (ironic, given that it was the "hush hush"!).

Or possibly we could have mileposts, or stations between, say, Aberdeen and King's Cross. Or railway grades: Signal Box Lad, 3rd class to Divisional General Manager.

[karlrestall]

How about doing a train service starting with the slow country trains that are 1 or 2 cars long with a small tank engine then work up through to the suburban trains, cross country trains, secondary express' and then when you reach the principle express trains you then start to name them from the lesser known ones such as the 'Tynesider' through to 'The Flying Scotsman' 'The Silver Jubilee' and 'The Coronation' The more posts you get the more prestigious your train rank will be. Possibly the highest rank you could get would be a Pullman train such as 'The Queen of Scots'. This makes the ranking go one style and comfort rather than speed of the train.

Regards

Karl

[talltim]

Surely the top rank of train would be 'Royal train'?

Tim

[karlrestall]

I have never actually seen pictures of a LNER royal train yet surely they must have had one. But Yes it could be if we were going right the way through (I had completly forgotten about the royal train Possibly because I have never seen a picture of it).

Regards

Karl

[richard]

That's a good idea Karl.
We could even start off with something like "Coach Shunter" or "York Pilot"

Richard

[John B]

Richard,

Great idea , how about allocating a fixed number of posts to all the various parts of an A3 or an A4, building all the way up to a complete locomotive for say 1000 posts

This would probably cause some creative posting to achieve a complete A3 or A4 but at the same time this would increase the posting traffic on the forum.

It would be tiresome to set it up but once done it should take care of itself

[Ben]

I think this is a great idea! although, when I mentioned it on The NYMR forum I got more or less shouted at! How about the main stations on the ECML as rank names, ranging from a start of Edinborough, up to Kings Cross

[rorz101uk]

this sounds kewl, can you put me as Passed Cleaner

[John B]

The idea of station progression on the "UP" line of the ECML would be a good idea and very easy to administer as the progression is logical and sequential, some of us might even learn about stations that we know little about.

The idea I had, of parts of an A4, could be constructed in such a way that 100 named parts could be numbered sequentially 1-100, then say 1-10 posts would qualify for a chimney numbered 1, all the other 99 parts would then add on to that sequence till a score of 100 is reached, then after achieving a fully constructed A4 you could go on to build an A3 and then an A2 etc. etc.

[karlrestall]

You have a good idea John but I think that it would be never ending (or seem that way) I think that if you were to do one locomotive such as the A4 you could then, once fully built the locomotive start moving onto trains that they pulled, or as Ben suggested do a run that the A4 would have taken stopping at most of the stations on the ECML.

Regards

Karl

[richard]

John, I might mis-understand what you mean but this sounds like it would need modifications making to the software?
I'd prefer not to do that The software supports some simple text captions ('ranks') and corresponding post counts.

I think the four ideas we have are:

- Job Positions
(but does an apprentice draughtsman rank higher than a top link driver?)
- Loco Parts
Could be complicated - who wants to be a middle big end
- ECML Stations, Edinburgh to Kings Cross
- Named trains, starting with an unnamed shunting duty)


Richard

[Ben]

How many rankings do you think we should have?

[richard]

Perhaps a dozen or so? We don't want it to be too complicated. Let's say at least ten but no more than two dozen.

Richard

[karlrestall]

Perhaps a dozen or so? We don't want it to be too complicated. Let's say at least ten but no more than two dozen.

Richard

I suppose then Richard, that puts some of the ideas out of the widow. Some of the ideas we have such as the job positions, (which is a good idea but has complications with who ranks higher than who and who is the top of the pile), named trains and the loco parts will all need more than 24, unless you 'slim' them down a bit. I can see where you are coming from Richard. Can you also set how many posts a user has to achieve before changing positions, or is it already set for you?

Regards

Karl