Hello,

I would suggest that either keep the current rank titles as is, or change them as they will verbalise the experience of members in more formal language such as 'New Member', 'Senior Member' etc.

@splendid fault, I must admit I'm less keen on that idea of a change, sinse 1, it would seem to me even more dull than the names we have now, ---- games are a fun hobby afterall and nothing wrong with a little humour just as in the news posts.

2, that is pretty much what most forums, whether their games, tech support, teacher training, governmental offices or anywhere else will have, and 3, you'd soon run out of ranks without it being ridiculous.

Junior member, member, full member, senior member, mmm, more senior member, even more senior member! we'd have to delete a fair few ranks just to stop the system becomming ridiculous, and sinse we're now getting people with rather high post counts, we should really be thinking of a system that lets us create! more ranks, not have less.

@bcs, this idea is similar to one I saw on the retroremakes forrum, based on historically important computer games of the 1980's.

a member started off as a wumpus hunter (which reference I got), then became an emerald archer, ---- which reference I didn't! then became a grue grabber, which I not only got, but thought very funny.

Based on the ranks I saw, even those I didn't get I thought were fun to read, sinse it was much more interesting to encounter cyber captain and emerald archer than just "junior member" or even "junior gamer"

Plus, unlike that system, we have the advantage that the list of games all these references will be taken from will be just one click away, which is also an advantage in the system, sinse if a person hadn't! played swamp, getting a rank based upon it might encourage them to wonder what is so great about the game that we made it a rank.

The only major disadvantage I can see here is that it could be in danger of being obscure and a bit too impenitrable and cleaquey if the references got too much based on in jokes.

For example, a "waiting at chillinghams' gate" referring to the joke that at the end of the game you basically get to that gate then wait for a sequal which will never come would be waaaaay over the heads of most visitors, and even a read of Chillingham's entry in the db wouldn't be enlightening.

To stop that happening, these ranks would be based only upon what information was obtainable from the db page, ---- indeed as far as possible I'd try to just involve a play on a game's title such as tank compadre or business monkey.

As you might tell, I obviously like this idea myself, but I don't think it's crucial. We can go on as we are, and maybe even add some new ranks in the same style, eg "super hyper advanced guru diehard audio gamer with avengence!"

But I think as a vibrant and creative community we can probably do better than this, hence the poll.

Hi,
I think the names should be changed as zombie hunter etc etc, because they are being funnier.

hi dark, how do you make votes before the post?

i'm also for this newly proposed system of ranking. However, I would venture to take it a step further; that being to link to the game we're referencing. The kitchen golfer one is a good example. Most newcomers likely wouldn't imagine being able to play an audio version of golf at all without at least hearing about Jim's work first, but the Kitchen Golfer would arouse curiosity which I imagine would lead to active player of a game should he/she be pointed in the right direction.

well you can just list the users by number of posts in descending order and ou will have a pretty good overview of  what the post titles are. Well looks like I'm part of sarah's social circle. I wonder what she thinks about it.