Ignored by:

[Ned]

- Number of posts

A neutral fact, agreed.

- Karma

I agree that it smacks of MySpace and teenagers.

- Stars (from 1 to 5)

Harmless but needless alternate representation of number of posts.  Could be a problem if a reader misunderstands it as some sort of quality or reliability ranking.

- Ranking based on number of posts (newbie, novice, expert, and others)

No meaningful ranking can be based on number of posts.  I think my number of posts exceeds, for instance, Per's.  I certainly don't claim that that makes me more "expert" than he is.

- Color-coded names

Kind of interesting to see when the Administrator is on line.  Otherwise harmless but pointless.

- Creation of various "groups" based on the number of posts and other activities

Does this mean some kind of subforum?  or another way of expressing newbies and experts?  or on-line gangs?  or what?

- "Awards" for members, as decided by the administrator
- "Badges" for members, as decided by the administrator

Ooh, gold stars!

You might want to mark certain classes of forum members.  Christian O, Bob M, Shane of McFeely, Jim Force, and others who are "inside" Festool or its distribution network.  A second, different group could include Work, Rick Christopherson, and John Lucas--people who have had official Festool connection/contract/support.  All of these people are especially reliable in the information they provide and marking them, with stars or whatever, might help those new to the group.

 

[Greg B]

Sooo, Matthew it looks I could ignore everyone. Everyone that is except, YOU!!  ;D ;D
You don't have a fancy "Ignore" button. Clever! Stack the deck why dontcha'?

Seriously, I wholeheartedly agree with Ned's comment on classes of forum members; an objective indication such as those who work for Festool and one for those who work with Festool would be useful indeed, particularly for noobs. At least, with this indication, the quagmire of subjective ratings doesn't enter into the equation.

GB

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Greg,
Sorry!  By default, someone has to be the administrator, and that person can't be ignored.

But on your other comments...

Back when the group was first being formed, I gave some thought about how to indicate who is a Festool executive or sales rep.  We have several Festool sales people in the group, and I wanted to prevent a situation where they start putting too much promotional stuff into their messages.  So, to make it fair for everyone, I developed a set of guidelines.

I notice that these guidelines are not necessarily being followed, however.

Here's a link to the guidelines, which are located in the  TECH TALK > Forum Rules & Announcements section:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=9.0

Matthew

Matthew

 

[Dan Clark]

This group has exersized good self-control and mutual respect. Most of us are discerning enough to have a clue how others feel about them just from the nature of the posts. We had a flurry of contention, and along with Dan I suppose I helped keep it from dying the quick death it deserved. I don't think he would mind me making that observation. It probably is no coincidence that the party that started it joined, made three posts hardly related to Festool and certainly in no favorable way, and seems to have now disappeared. Perhaps if we had all taken a deep breath and not taken the bait it would have been a one post thread. The point is that this will happen every once in a while, Matt has given us his take on how to deal with it, and if we are patient, we can save ourselves a lot of grief. (And save the members who are smart enough to not respond the effort of having to step over the mess.)

I think Greg's point is well taken.  There are a very, very few people that make my blood boil; unfortunately those posters (one in particular) are amongst them.  I think they provide all of us with an wonderful opportunity to practice the mantra, "I will show self-control.  I will show..."  Ah, now I feel better.  ;D 

Thanks,

Dan.

 

[Daviddubya]

Personally, I think the number of posts option should be turned off.  To me it is meaningless.  Some folks post a lot and say little.  Some folks post infrequently and have a lot to say.  Counting posts means nothing, IMHO of course.

At one time I was prone to become inflamed about a post or a poster.  I must have unconsciously practiced that mantra that Dan mentioned, because now I find the inflammatory posts and exchanges humorous or silly, depending on the situation.  As my wife says, "Life is too short to dance with ugly people".  The most effective "ignore" feature is our own ability to be the judge of what we read and write.    IMHO, of course!!!

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Everyone,
Just to reopen this for one point...

I can now turn off the "ignored by" option.  In other words, I can make it so people do not know who is ignoring them.  Right now, the software is set to reveal who is ignoring you (if anyone).  There was back-and-forth on this, so I thought I'd bring it up again to see how people feel.

Should we keep it as is, or should I turn off the "ignored by" option?

To learn more about the "ignored by" features, CLICK HERE.

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Dan Clark]

Matthew,

I'm of two minds on this, but I believe it's good to know who is ignoring you.  If you are being ignored by one or two people, it might just be a mistake and they punched the button in error.  OTOH, if you are being ignored by multitudes, it's a pretty strong message about how you are coming across.

Regards,

Dan.

 

[Michael Kellough]

I'm ambivalent about this option too. But thanks for pointing out the option to find out who is doing the ignoring. It was probably just a mistaken push of a button.