Ranks and Firepower

[griffin]

I'm communicating this in stages, according to how it is received at each stage. I'll see how that works as a policy for all future important and/or sensitive matters that I have the time to process and disseminate.

1st - Staff
2nd - Deluxe Members in VS (if no issues raised by staff)
3rd - All members in the Intro section (if no issues raised by DMs)


Ranks and Firepower

A long time matter raised has been a donations scheme, which I haven't wanted to implement without it being fair (doesn't become elitist or discriminate against those who don't/can't donate), and trackable (to keep me accountable and not just use it for myself). The more recent idea was to create a membership structure, with donations buying Membership points - which will give us the bonus ability of creating/commissioning exclusive stuff under the banner of a club instead of as a business.

So the suggestion is to have the user-titles modified to incorporate their paid membership level, as well as their interactive/staff membership level. Because I didn't want to risk having people buying their way into the upper hierarchy of the community, or demand it based on how much they've paid.

Splitting the two, I was thinking of calling the interactive/staff membership status as 'Rank', and the paid/donated status as 'Firepower'. A nod to the Techspecs.

Rank as the primary user-title, would be re-adjusted to:

Rank 1 - New/Inactive (was Protoform)
Rank 2 - Distant Member
Rank 3 - Basic Member (was Legends)
Rank 4 - Special Guest
Rank 5 - Active Member (was Scout)
Rank 6 - Deluxe Member
Rank 7 - Section Mod
Rank 8 - Multi-Section Mod
Rank 9 - Global Mod
Rank 10 - Admin

Firepower as the secondary user-title, would be in the following format:

Firepower - x

Where 'x' is a number up to 10, with each number equalling $10. The limit of 10 is to make sure I don't have anyone trying to out-do others with their 'Firepower' status... and I wouldn't be comfortable having people sending in that much anyway.

Each 'Firepower' point is then a membership point for the purchase of future exclusive items, and/or a $10 per year donation to the running of the club/site if the person nominates it at the time of payment. As such, people can top up their Membership 'account' at any time. (the annual donation concept would be phased out if ever in the future we had sponsorship or advertising to cover the running costs)

This will take a fair bit of administrating/time to process on my part, as I will need to make sure all payments and club purchases are well recorded and the user-titles are individually updated, not just for my own tax records, but also in case anything happens to the forum and all the User-titles are erased/corrupted.
But the work is necessary if I am to allow people to contribute to the financial costs of this board. Plus it will build a war-chest for future exclusives, like toys and things people really want, that require significant up-front payments.

As I said, this concept has been floating around for quite a while and discussed on various parts of the board, so I'm hoping I have been able to finally formulate a concept structure that will work, and is manageable, and more importantly, appeals to the members here.

[griffin]

A couple of things.
It would be noted up front that all non-donated money is refundable if anything should happen to this board/club and/or the membership concept. (basically covering any unforeseen circumstances)

Donations could remain anonymous, if people think there might be an issue of resentment or superiority, as the Firepower number doesn't have to show who has donated. But if you feel that we aren't much of an elitist, snobbish bunch of people, I can add a + after the Firepower number to reflect who has donated (as a reminder to the person later, and makes it a little easier for me too).

[griffin]

Moving this to the VS area, now that it's had a few days without any suggested changes.

One of the additional changes with this, will be to the userguide (for new registrations).
I will detail the differences between the new Rankings, as well as how the Firepower concept works (including how to pay).

Something like this will be added to the Userguide...


Ranks

Rank 1 - New/Inactive
Was Protoform/Newbie. This is what new registrations that activate their account will automatically have as their Rank. Also, dormant accounts of more than 6-8 months will be reverted to this Rank to prevent them from being 'spammed' by our News Emails. Abandoned accounts of more than 12-18 months (especially if the person never came back after their registration day) may be deleted to free up character/common Usernames, and prevent any unwanted person hacking into an existing account.

Rank 2 - Distant Member
This is the Rank given to transfan members who reside outside of the Australasian region of the world. Since this forum is open to everyone, despite it's lack of appeal to long-distant fans, this Rank is reflects our 'open door' policy. But due to long-distant members never staying around for very long, this is the only Rank for them.

Rank 3 - Basic Member
Was Legends Class. This Rank is manually assigned to people who have started interacting here, so that we know that they are a fan who intends to use their account, and all the features (like PMs, saleyard access, meets, etc).

Rank 4 - Special Guest
This Rank is assigned to people of importance, who may or may not be fans, but work on Transformers in some official capacity.

Rank 5 - Active Member
Was Scout Class. When a member is seen to be here for the long haul, and interacts a decent amount, they may be manually assigned to this Rank, which earns them additional PM space as well as a higher status in the community to Newbies/Guests without needing to look at their post count.

Rank 6 - Deluxe Member
This Rank is manually assigned to active members who have been offered it and agreed to the terms, as it gains access to Private Sections of the board. Members will only be offered this Rank if they have been an asset to the running of this community, by way of posting Sightings, News, Creative stuff, being involved in discussion topics, and if possible, attending Meets. Members who have the majority of their interaction (posts) relating to buying and/or selling, are not eligible, as the private section of the board allows for sightings of limited release items... as well as other things aimed at giving back to members who have given to the community.
This Rank is also not offered to anyone under 16, due to more relaxed content in the Private Sections.

Rank 7 - Section Mod
This Rank is for Staff who are moderating an individual section of the board.

Rank 8 - Multi-Section Mod
This Rank is for Staff who are moderating more than one section of the board, but not the whole board.

Rank 9 - Global Mod
This Rank is for Staff who moderate the whole board, to deal with multi-section issues and banning people.

Rank 10 - Admin
For anyone responsible for the continued existence of this forum, in terms of hosting, finances, and allocation of Staff. (it won't always be me)

(The 'Probation', 'Banned' and 'Awaiting Confirmation', will all remain as Rank-less user titles)


Firepower

Members can donate to the running costs of this forum and community, and/or purchase membership points in the Ozformers Club.
Each Membership point and donation is worth AU$10, with a maximum of 10 points allowed to be purchased. Membership points are then used for any future exclusive Ozformers items you wish to pre-order/purchase.
Donations are not compulsory when purchasing Membership points, and a Donation is valid for a year. Once a donation has expired, or a purchase has been made, your Firepower points level will be adjusted.
All non-donation funds are refundable if any unforeseen circumstances arise to prevent their usage. But at this stage, it should help build a warchest for commissioning/acquiring exclusive items, while aiming to appease Hasbro who prefer we give away stuff free to 'Club Members' than selling items to the 'general public'.
The annual donation concept would be phased out if ever in the future we had sponsorship or advertising to cover the running costs.
Ranks are not related to the Membership (Firepower) points system in any way, so can't be 'purchased'.

To purchase Membership points...
(details to be confirmed later, but should include Direct Deposit and Paypal options)
Once payment has been made, you will need to email (address TBC) with:
- your username (and any payment reference name)
- your payment method
- your payment amount
- if the amount includes a donation, and if it is a one-off or annual donation


(all these details are subject to change before this is implemented)

[Autocon]

dont like the term distant member maybe world member? cybertron member?

also if these exclusive items are different to any other product out there around the world, u may get an increase in international people who join just to get the new toy

[liegeprime]

Erm Rank 8 and 9 have the same name/label...

[griffin]

dont like the term distant member maybe world member? cybertron member?

also if these exclusive items are different to any other product out there around the world, u may get an increase in international people who join just to get the new toy

I'll restrict the Membership (Firepower) to Rank 3 and above. I don't want to be encouraging long distant fans to join here just to buy stuff. I want people here to interact and generate a 'community'... something long distant fans don't have the time or interest in doing (due to global and/or closer communities being of more interest/relevance than an Australian one).

The 'Distant' is being used because people know what the word means. 'World' or 'Global' would then include everyone in our region as well, so makes that confusing.
And even though TFs terms are nifty to use in a TFs community, it can be confusing without explanation, especially when there is a scale involved. A bit like the different BotCon registration packages - each one uses a TFs term as its name, and every year there are lots of fans asking what each package has as its TFs name, and the order of 'hierarchy' of packages (from most stuff to least amount of stuff). There are four packages - Primus, Iacon, Minicon, Protoform... Primus may sound like it is best package, but would you know which is the non-attendee package or the attendee package that doesn't include toys? Even for veterans of BotCon, it is easier to describe the package, rather than referring to it by name (I always call the Primus package as 'Attendee', and the Iacon package as 'non-attendee', while Minicon is 'the kid's package with toys' and Protoform is 'Attendee without toys').
A simple Rank number as the TFs Homage to Biocards, and an actual description of that Usergroup (like Member, Active Member, Deluxe Member, Section Mod, etc) looks to be the easiest and least confusing way of incorporating a TFs theme into the Usergroup system. Numbers are much more 'Universal' than TFs terminology, especially after 27 years of varying series and terms.

Erm Rank 8 and 9 have the same name/label...

Yes, but the description says why there is a difference. I want to have more people as Global Mods, even if they don't log in very often... and this way I can help members know which Global Mods are more likely to be around to respond to a query or complaint. At the moment we have 5 Global Mods, but often only two are on here more than once a week. I still need the other three for their guidance/opinions/suggestions and their own personal experiences/skills from the real world... so the position doesn't require a minimum level of interaction, just a minimum standard of reliability and responsibility (which takes time for me to assess, especially if I haven't had much/any personal contact with members).
I would also like to eventually have other people as Admin/Owner (Rank 10) eventually, so that if anything happened to me, there won't be any problems with this place continuing as normal. As yet, the people I would trust to take over this community for the long-term, are ones who are too busy in the real world with careers and/or families... and I'd need to make sure that the members can rely on a new Admin being in it for the long-term, so that the Community doesn't suffer or die. (well, it won't die if this board ever closed down... but it would certainly be a turbulent time for fans to regroup or go their separate ways to existing boards - like other fan forums (not just TFs) that have had their Admin/owner too busy to attend to maintaining it).

To reassure members here though, we do have 2 back-up Admins here, if anything happened to me, but neither of them would be able to take on the burden for too long... so a long-term replacement is always on my mind and in my scanners.

[griffin]

I've changed Rank 9 to 'Active Global Mod' to see how that looks. I just don't want the Rank 8 Global Mods to feel pressured into being more active on here, or be seen as not earning their Staff status... so am hesitant on naming the two Ranks differently.

[Gutsman Heavy]

Sounding cool!

[Hursticon]

Yeah, the structure and thought behind this proposal all looks quite sound to me but I've only one thing I need clarification on:
So when you say 'x' Firepower point represents the amount donated, does that mean something like this?:

1 = $1
2 = $2
So on up to 10 = $10?

or,

1 = $10
2 = $20
So on up to 10 = $100?

You know what I mean?
Also, is there a cap on the maximum amount donatable?

Other than that, I'm all for having this implemented!
Perhaps a Poll may be useful too Griffin? - Just odd that more members haven't posted their thoughts IMO.

[1AZRAEL1]

Just odd that more members haven't posted their thoughts IMO.

I like the idea of being able to put some money back into the forum. And I'll glady do so when the time comes.