I'd just like to say how much pleasure I've had from UMSF since I found it last year. It's simply without peer, and expresses the very best aspects of the WWW.

In particular, I'd like to express my thanks to Doug for all his hard work and his time, and to wish him as much success in any further ventures!

I hope to be around to mark another few milestones!

Onward!

Bob Shaw

Congrats on the milestone, and thanks for your favorable signal:noise ratio.

--Bill

Pah - 1000 - little league (said he on 3k+)

In honour of this - I've added a new member ranking - 'Senior Member' - 1000 posts or more - and it gets 4 pips under your name for it - I'm going to redistribute the others to more sensible names and levels.

Doug

That's a great idea Doug!

Click to view attachment
Nice new look Doug...
Old one was too light...
There is no more "Advanced memeber" also...

I noticed that too - guess we'll just have to post lots more. :-)

My personal goal is to have contributed a full 2 cents to this forum (2% of total forum posts). I was happy when I achieved half a cent a couple of months back. I've still got quite a way to go

Too bad there's no way for the pips to count quality vs. quantity of posts

There is a 'ranking' system in some forum software, a thread can get a thumbs up as it were - but it's a bit pointless and I'd rather not load the server with things like that.

I got bored at work today waiting for a DVD to burn so I made the new logo - not sure exactly how to finish it off though - I'm still thinking of perhaps a little line under the UMSF to say something - or a hit of some gfx, not sure what.

Making a new logo for this theme, seemed a lot easier than making a theme for the old logo

Doug

Emily:

Or negative pips - Doug could measure them on his ACME ™ ® Pipometer © and then we'd know what to read...

...damn, me pips just turned red.

Let me rephrase that...

Bob Shaw

One of the biggest problems I've seen, though it may not apply to this forum, with forums that had ranking systems, was that it often became a popularity or personality contest. This mostly became a problem for forums that allowed political discussions, and people gave users negative votes because they didn't like their political views, even if it was a fairly innocuous post.

I've seen the same. While I'd like to see a way to acknowledge really good posts I think the overall result would be detrimental as people would get annoyed if they didn't think they were getting acknowledged. We're better off leaving our words speak for themselves and people can make their own minds up on the merits of our contributions.

Increase post count? Count me in! (*ducks*)

This is probably going to sound incredibly dorky, but how about the member status be named after probes or such, like Pioneer, Ranger, Mariner, etc, based on AU distance or some such?

And good on ya, Bob, for your quality and quantity!

And as one who can only aspire to such great signal to noise,* I truly fear a rating system.

* see my above post

I could replaced 'banned' with 'polar lander'

I briefly thought about maing them Sojourner, MER, MSL....but that might be obscure for new people.

I'm open for suggestions.

Doug

Nice touch with the symbols from the Pioneer Plaque - though you should update them a bit by adding rings to Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, and making Pluto smaller while adding a few new larger circles to its right.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image006.gif

That would work!

I was also trying to think of a way to do the member levels like a mission timeline, noobs would be preflight or concept stage, then launch and cruise, etc, but I wasn't sure what to do when I got to "Orbital Insertion."

BTW, I do like the subtle logo change - very nice.

"I could replaced 'banned' with 'polar lander'"

Or Beagle....

Even if the names were a bit obscure to some people they could still count the pips on number of posts.

Where in the ratings would Beagle 2 fall (opps pun)

Reckless

Beat me to it
Reckless

Astonishingly (to me), this is my 2,000th post on UMSF!

Again, let me express my thanks to Doug for his selfless devotion to the cause (or was that 'foolish enthusiasm'? Hmmmmm...) of unmanned spaceflight and to all the other contributors for their, er, contributions.

Doug said a while back that at 5,000 posts you are considered 'in with the woodwork' - a nice comment, until you think about woodworm, termites and damp-related fungal infestations! I hope you are all about, and that I am too, when that day dawns and the pest exterminators are finally called in.

Onward!

Bob Shaw

Onward ... to Mars !