Private Forum for Regulars?

My inside source says you need 400 Posts and 25 Rep Points.. but shh you didnt hear from me

 

Quality or thoughtful posts. Many post aren't worth reading, so I don't see how they can be rewarded.

 

So basically base it on reputation?

 

once i see sumone around my site being cool...posting helpful posts...and always active...i promote them to a superuser..which is the same as a regular member only with a custom user title..then they can go into their own section.

 

No, base it on merit. Reputation would be rewarding someone because of what someone else thinks.

 

That doesn't really allow useful members in there then.

See below.

That's exactly what I do.

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This setup currently is making me post crap. I actually want to discuss my websites, and ask questions, but don't want them all live. I want to join in the community and the regulars get to know me so I can connect well. I wouldn't want to post that sort of stuff in the main forums. Nor will I post my problems.

If it was 400 posts and 25 reputation points, it isn't going to catch those you REALLY want to be in there. Just people who have lots of time on their hands, or have been here for ages.

I'd like to see a group that you personally add people to after getting to know them a bit. Knowing then that only those in there are the ones YOU have hand picked for either being knowledgeable, or as they have an issue they want to ask, but don't want to in the usual public forums.

You can have a hundred forums that you hit at various stages as you post more, so 20+, 100+, 1000+ posts etc etc, but what good is that? Who would want to be in there knowing your competitors will be in there when they hit those post counts too, and knowing it's only based on post count.

Anyway. It's left with you.

But I for one and not posting crap to get the figure. And I'm not posting what I want due to the forum setup. That's all I meant when asking this. I don't care about merit, reputation, post count or anything like that. I just care about being able to post what I want to, and not publicly.

 

Reading Dan's idea and he does have a point but what about something like this: make a board like the 'contact the staff' but where a certain usergroup like the 'vBulletin Mentor' etc.. and stuff for only those people can reply to the topic then you have people who are knowledgeable. but as for the idea of only allowing certain people to view general ideas and thoughts you have i dont think is a good idea, the reason for this community is to share with others and use other's ideas in your own way. Thats my 5 cents.

Cheers.

 

They have a program based on helpfulness as well. It is called Mentors. So be helpful with your software and you might get picked.

 

yea...thas what im talkin bout!!

 

The difficulty of keeping a secret is proportional to the square of the number of people who know it.

 

I never liked the idea of "private forums for better members" it creates a rift between newbies and established people, as well as keeps what could be useful and good information closed up and behind locked doors.

Let the information be publically available and free for all to see and learn from, and most communities will grow better because of it and you won't have knuckleheads posting just to post (or those who post the same answer someone did already just to "confirm" it...).

The furthest I'd ever go with such a forum, is simply having it not visible to guests so search engines didn't get the content, but anyone who is a registered member could benefit from it.

 

Nah, I agree with forums being viewable to all, and we need search engines to see the main of the content. I'm just saying I want to ask lots of my own questions, but only to those I know will be able to help me, and out of the eyes of my competitors.

If I don't ask the question in the first place, there's no content to read by viewer or search engine. And it just leaves me posting lots of 'crap' and attempting to help others, which I don't have much time for as I have so many forums I *should* be on (lol).

No rant here. Just saying, if it was mine, I'd be doing it my way as explained above. As it's not I'll mention my way, but clearly it's not for me to do anything but suggest, so I did, have and will.

 

Well I'm sorry that so many people seem disappointed with the setup we have. The forum was supposed to be a well-kept secret that nobody knew about until they gained access. It would be a nice surprise to members when they see that forum pop out of nowhere.

The forum is meant to be whatever those who have access want it to be. So far, it's been all about having fun and messing around. It's like an additional Miscellaneous forum, but only for a select crowd. In no way do we encourage the privatization of resourceful material; it belongs in the public forum for all to see, in my opinion.

It looks like the best solution is to just close it down, and please everybody, and add a new one for Premium Members only. I'll consider it.

 

NEIN!

Nick, you leave it just the way it is and people who do not like the way you run your forum can run theirs differently.

That's the whole spirit of this entire forum.

If new forums become available to us, like a gleeful little Easter Egg hunt, it seems really fun to me.

Just my opinion.

:handcuffs: <----------- i just wanted to use this.

 

LOL.

It seems I have access to this forum and didnt even know until I read this thread and went looking for it (and obviously found it ). Anyway, leave it as is I would say.

 

I don't think anyone should just post "crap" to raise a post count. To me "crap" is holding hands with "spam".