How important is a forum title?

[Peterexpatkiwi]

By forum titles I mean those that appear underneath our avatars : Newcomer, Active member, Veteran etc .

Some of course have their titles thrust upon them by the nature of their role: Moderator and Administrator.

Others are smart enough to choose them for themselves: Pilgrim, Camino Tortuga etc.

For the rest of us however it appears that we start as 'new' members, graduate to 'active' and eventually become 'veterans'.

And these artificial labels have nothing to do with how much camino experience we actually have or even how long we have been members, but rather how active we are on the forum.

I for example have been on the forum for less than two years, and yet because of the prolific nature of my posts I am a 'veteran'. Others who have been on here for 10 years or more but seldom posted, or who have already walked multiple caminos but only recently joined the forum, are still labelled 'newcomers' or at best 'active' members.

Worse still it is possible to become a 'veteran' without ever having walked the Camino.

Why am I even raising this, and is this is important?

Because when I first started reading the forum I was prone to give more weight to answers from 'veterans' as opposed to 'newcomers', especially when their opinions conflicted. Whilst some will be smart enough not to do this, I suspect that many will.

Perhaps (with the exception of official titles) the labeling system should be eliminated and we should all just become a 'member' ?

Or am I just making much out of nothing.

 

[CWBuff]

That is a common practice on many public forums and as noted it goes by the number of posts one makes on said forums.
So with 1 post you are a newcomer to THE FORUM and with 1K - a veteran of the same.
How can a webmaster determine how many Caminos you walked? Some folks don't provide that info at all or simply state: too many to mention...

 

[CarolamS]

How interesting, I wondered how the veteran title was applied. I might view it a little more cautiously in future...assuming I've noticed it in the first place

To be honest the content of the post is what's important and if you read a lot of posts you get used to who you always read, who you usually read and who you usually avoid Otherwise my content reading is time/topic dependent. I can't read everything, I'm much too slow a reader.

 

[SabsP]

How interesting, I wondered how the veteran title was applied. I might view it a little more cautiously in future...assuming I've noticed it in the first place

To be honest the content of the post is what's important and if you read a lot of posts you get used to who you always read, who you usually read and who you usually avoid Otherwise my content reading is time/topic dependent. I can't read everything, I'm much too slow a reader.

Exactly! Some of my favourite forummembers do not post that often but when they do it is always informative, interesting, written with mildness and to the point. I never notice what status they have.

 

[CWBuff]

Some of my favourite forummembers do not post that often....

....sigh...... so much for my status....