Star Members and the Wizard of Oz

[scruffy]

Muhammad, personal opinion on Harv's 'seat time' idea. I personally don't agree with it. Why? I've run into people through the years that have tons of experience, but don't have the common sense to fill a pea, or as a life long friend of mine, the luck to go with his experience. Seat time in itself is not a viable 'measuring stick' in my opinion. The other major factor here is, many people couldn't even begin to say how many hours they have operated a tractor, or some other implement. I grew up with them, and don't have the foggiest idea of how many hours I've operated one.

 

[Muhammad]

Yeah, that's very true... those with many hours probably won't be able to easily think back and total it up... plus once can say that they have all the experience in the world, but what they post here may tell a different story.

There probably won't ever be a way to have a user title or profile tell how much one does or does not know about tractors, so maybe we shouldn't put a whole lot into much other than what is actually posted, and what that is worth.

The other profile fields I was going to add would be more along the lines of options to enter info on...

Tractor Make, Model, Year
Attachments
Total Hours (on tractor)
Uses (what you use the tractor for)

And maybe a few others... if one wants to tell how much (or how little) they know about tractors in their profile, we have that 'bio' field. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Harv]

Scruffy, Muhammad -

There is much truth in what you say. There is no single number or method for measuring wisdom, but that's not what I meant to imply. "Seat time" would be just one indicator of experience, which is altogether different than common sense, I agree. But combined with Muhammad's "Uses" idea, it would give at least a general idea of the member's tractor background. Certainly the 187 hours logged on my tractor by the previous owner pulling apple carts wouldn't have nearly the same meaning as 20 hours of Mark Chalkley's kind of usage, but with both pieces of information you start to get a feel for where they're coming from.

Scruffy, you're one of my favorite posters, but I admit it took me a while to realize the depth of your experience. Who would ever suspect a computer guy of knowing diddly about tractors? /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

An exact number isn't necessary. If your profile just said "thousands" or "too many to count", we would get the idea.
I also realize there's nothing to stop people from lying on their profile or just leaving fields blank. The profile is just sort of a FYI, isn't it?

One last question, Muhammad -- on the "other" profile fields you were going to add, you listed <font color=blue>Total Hours (on tractor)</font color=blue>. Is that the hour meter reading from (one of) your tractors(s), the number of hours the member has logged on that tractor or his/her total hours on all the tractors they own or have owned. Wait! That sounds like "seat time" again.

Didn't mean to get so deep here, fellers. It was just a suggestion. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

 

[Rowski]

Personally I feel the forum takes care of this issue all on its own. If one posts a question on how to do something. The menbers will reply with answers. If an answer is a little "off" or "dangerous" usually one or more menbers will reply back to the stating what they feel about it. It truns into a discussion. I'm not saying that I don't want to know the number on hour behind the wheel. I think it would be neat to know. But I would not use the number of hours to judge what is right or wrong or better or worse. There are so many variables from east to west and north to south.

Just one Vermonter's opinion.

Derek


Derek

 

[Muhammad]

Harv,

I'll probably decide that Tuesday. I think I was thinking of the total hours on the tractor.

 

[glennmac]

I was intending to include all the Star Members who have 500 posts. How could I have omitted Thomas of Lebanon. I apologize.

Using yesterday's statistics, Thomas had 632 posts for 3.81% of the total. That means those six Star Members plus Muhammad have contributed 50.07% of the total historical posts on this board. That, asymptotically, approaches a phenomenon called a ... private conversation. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Muhammad, as long as we are going to have titles, I urge you to make them consistent. As long as they ARE based simply on the number of posts, there should be a common meaning. We now have people with the same number of posts with different titles, and vice versa. This is getting to be like a computer program with several versions. Or Kubota's confusing, inconsistent horsepower designations. We will need Maris-ian asterisks. Well, I am a Zirconium Member, unlike you who are a Zirconium* Member, unlike you who are a Zirconium************************** Member. The only function that titles have, post count, is itelf rendered meaningless if it is not consistent. I think you probably feel that you don't want to "demote" someone when you change the clip levels. Consistency is more important than that. No one "earned" these titles; they are just a device you are using, by arbitrary fiat, to denote post-count contribution, and you should change them and adjust the titles accordingly.

I also think you MUST have a special title for 1000 posts. A thousand anything in this universe gets special recognition. A thousand years is a millenium. A thousand and a thousandth have their own prefixes. A picture is what a thousand words is worth. Perhaps you could use Star Member to designate 1000. 2000 could be a Two Star Member, etc.--like army generals.

I think titles based on "quality" would be too subjective and judgmental and could lead to resentments.

Finally, I think we should have searchable profiles--so we could find out who owns a Big Bud, or lives in Florida, or who kayaks for a hobby, or has more than 500 posts. This would be voluntary and may require a new input form, but may be of interest to many of us.

Glenn

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by glennmac on 10/8/00 11:19 AM.</FONT></P>

 

[Bird]

Glenn, makes me think of the old saying "I don't care what you call me as long as you call me for supper."/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Heck, I'm confident that any title Muhammad gives me will be better than some of the things I've been called./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

 

[glennmac]

Bird, this whole title thing is a little silly in the grand scheme. You and the other current Star Members have earned our enormous respect, and have attracted us to and kept us in this forum, because of the consistent quality, wisdom and experience contained in your posts, not the quantity. The fact that you all can maintain this high quality along with a high output makes you ... well, as I said, semi-divine. That is, assuming you exist at all. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Bird]

I agree, Glenn. I figure the titles are more just for fun than anything, and I really wouldn't care whether we had them or not. Thanks for the kind words. And I just pinched myself to see, and yep, I really do exist./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

 

[Harv]

Just for the record --

Although I've done a little (maybe too much) thinking out load on the subject of titles here, I actually agree with Bird. I'm sure Muhammad created the title concept just for fun and perhaps to encourage more posts (probably not necessary now).

Fact is, as Glenn indicated, it's the content of the posts themselves that keeps us coming back. We can each decide who our own heros are by what we read. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif