Suggestion for long time members

[EJB]

So this site in some shape and form has been around for more than 12 years. It has grown, you see radioreference on international news when their are feeds from incidents. This site has exploded and is THE site for scanning.

Take this into consideration, I know that Lindsay is a generous person and his mods are generally good people. They do a darn good job of keeping this site growing and dealing with agitators like myself when we step out of line.

So I suggest: Maybe anyone who has been on this site for 5, 10 yrs, whatever, maybe they can be rewarded for "belonging" and maybe posters who provide information for the DB or who help others out can get a month of premium membership or anything that can be offered.

On the record, I am not asking for anything for myself, I have been punished a few times and deserved or not I had to take my lumps (and for the record I deserved it). I cannot complain nor will I ask for any favours here, I have had a few and they were very much appreciated.

If you want to bash me or take this seriously or explain why or why not please do but I would like to see a few of my friends here get a "hugg" so to speak.

Thanks

Eric

 

[gewecke]

Good idea eric, but I don't qualify for any gold stars on here either.
wayneh, keeps throttling me like the common riffraff that I am!
Not a bad suggestion though.

73,
n9zas

 

[burner50]

As it stands, we have the mentors program in place. Members who are recognized as being extra helpful and knowledgeable.

As far as a free subscription for submissions, I see this as a way to destroy the data contained. People would be submitting any information, real, fake, verified, made up, nonsense, and everything in between to qualify for the free premium membership. I see it as extremelg detrimental to the site as a whole because a submitter would attain a quasi employment status, and that also would invalidate the credibility of the database that our volunteers have spent a decade maintaining.

 

[phoenix]

As it stands, we have the monitors program in place. Members who are recognized as being extra helpful and knowledgeable.

As far as a free subscription for submissions, I see this as a way to destroy the data contained. People would be submitting any information, real, fake, verified, made up, nonsense, and everything in between to qualify for the free premium membership. I see it as extremelg detrimental to the site as a whole because a submitter would attain a quasi employment status, and that also would invalidate the credibility of the database that our volunteers have spent a decade maintaining.

I couldn't agree more.....People (not all of course) will "make-up" info for their jobs (wish I had one) just to get something out of it. RR relies on accurate and timely information.

 

[Jimru]

Hey guys,

I think it's a good idea, but it would obviously have to be implemented in a fashion that prevented that kind of false posting you speak of.

It may not be possible to implement, but still, it seems to me that folks that have donated so much over the years ought to get SOME kind of recognition for their efforts.

Like the OP said about himself, I would not qualify, since over the years I have not contributed much, besides money. I think RR is well worth the do-re-mi I shell out every year!

Best,
Jim

 

[zerg901]

Harrods Casinos use "loyalty cards".

This is the story that I heard from WBUR FM in Boston yesterday 4 Aug 2012 around 340 PM EDT (in case anyone wants to dig it up - I dont remember the name of the show). I thought it was fascinating.

Harrods (?sp) Casinos use a system based on 'loyalty cards'. Customers can sign up for a free card, and they swipe it everytime that they make a bet. Harrods computers keep track of all winnings and losses. The computers know how much each guest will lose before they get mad and go home. (based on previous visits). When the computer system sees that a customer is reaching the "give up and leave point", Harrods will send out a customer rep to give the customer some perks - maybe free chips or free show passes or whatever.

There is deep psychological reasoning behind this. People feel losses twice as strongly as wins apparently. Everyone has their own "give up" point. The casinos, by law, cannot change the odds at the games. But the casinos can manage the feeling that the customer gets when in the casino, including their feeling about losses.

Lets apply this to Radio Reference. When you get fed up with all of the rif raf, and you are about to take your ball and go home, Radio Reference can flash a new freq or battery on your screen. Just to manage that "loss experience".

 

[GTR8000]

Nice idea, but it's a huge can of worms.

Like Jason said, if you start giving out perks for submissions, you're going to get people taking advantage of it and submitting junk. Just the same way there are some audio feeds that are garbage and have no business being broadcast, simply because someone wanted a free premium membership and that was the easiest way to get it. I'd rather have submissions coming in from people who are contributing for the sole purpose of making the database more accurate, not because we dangle a carrot in front of them.

Giving out perks based on length of membership or amount of posts or whatever is a slippery slope as well. Someone will inevitably feel snubbed, overlooked, left out, etc. As was noted, that's part of the idea behind the Mentors program.

I don't mean to put Lindsay on the spot here, but I have discussed this idea with him fairly recently, and the sense I got is that it's not likely to happen.

 

[KC4RAF]

+1 with Chauffeur6.

There would be problems that he posted, and that would not set will with most of the members.

 

[EJB]

As it stands, we have the monitors program in place. Members who are recognized as being extra helpful and knowledgeable.

As far as a free subscription for submissions, I see this as a way to destroy the data contained. People would be submitting any information, real, fake, verified, made up, nonsense, and everything in between to qualify for the free premium membership. I see it as extremelg detrimental to the site as a whole because a submitter would attain a quasi employment status, and that also would invalidate the credibility of the database that our volunteers have spent a decade maintaining.

The free subscription was just one of a few ideas, recognition would probably suffice. I already have recieved recognition for my input here, this isnt about myself.

Burner: Dont take the wrong way but you keyed on one of the suggestions, it seems that you have a low view of the members here if you think that people would lie and cheat.

Then again you would know better than me about the characters we have here. And perhaps you guys could internally, in some way recognize loyalty and dedication in some formula that only you DB's and Mods would know.

 

[N1XDS]

The thing I do some what miss is the Senior Member status from a year ago or couple of years ago not sure why the Senior Member status was taken away from the forum members who signed up a long time ago. I would like to see this back.

 

[JoeyC]

I'm not positive, but I think that status came after X number of posts, and some post hogs had senior member status in weeks. It should have happened only after a join date of many years, but not sure if the software is customizable like that. I think they wanted all the non-staff to appear equal and having a status such as senior, or junior just gave some members a perceived status that they really didn't have.

 

[Jimru]

I think the OP wasn't speaking necessarily about added perks (although I did!), but maybe at least a kind of "employee of the month" type of thing for folks who have really given the effort over the years, whether it's for submissions to the DB or moderating various forums.
I don't know that these dedicated folks are even feeling left out at all, you would do what you do regardless of any perceived perks, I reckon.
Whether a perks program would create a whole lot of junk submissions, I don't know, I would like to think not, but then it's entirely possible.

Hence, the non-perk recognition suggestion.

Regards,
Jim

 

[BoxAlarm187]

I wonder how many of us were here when it was still trunkedradio.net?

 

[EJB]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9360; en) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.353 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

I think the OP wasn't speaking necessarily about added perks (although I did!), but maybe at least a kind of "employee of the month" type of thing for folks who have really given the effort over the years, whether it's for submissions to the DB or moderating various forums.
I don't know that these dedicated folks are even feeling left out at all, you would do what you do regardless of any perceived perks, I reckon.
Whether a perks program would create a whole lot of junk submissions, I don't know, I would like to think not, but then it's entirely possible.

Hence, the non-perk recognition suggestion.

Regards,
Jim

As Jim said I made it very clear that this isn't about me. I am not looking for anything but I have been a member here for 10 years, as long as I have been with my wife.

It would be a nice gesture for people who go to any lengths to help out this site.

The better that this site gets the better it is for all of us, you are going to have about 8 million people in S.C. Ontario that are going to lose intrest here quickly after all of our radio systems switch to unscannable. This is an example that will prob play out in other areas as well.

Burner: if you focus on the worst negative vibes that's your DNA. I don't know you.

Let the higher ups see this and decide. Lindsay is a good man and I think he values his members.

 

[RDGDigital]

I do see the risk in rewarding members for contributing to the DB. I don't necessarily see it as lying or cheating but more likely over enthusiastic submissions which may muddle the information in the DB.

However I do have a suggestion for members that are helpful. Why not turn on vBulletin's "Thanks" button? Or course this would apply to all members and not just the senior members. Most vBulletin forums I've been a member of have this feature turned on and I've never seen it used in a negative way. The only negative I can see is that it does add one more database query to every post on the forum so in that way it may be a drain on the server's resources.

I'm fairly new to this forum but I've already had a couple of members help me with my questions and while I did say thanks it would be nice to see their thanks count right on their posts. Another thing I like about the Thanks button is that it is only a one way post, e.g. you can only thank a member for helping, you can't give them a thumbs down for not being helpful.

Anyway that is just my suggestion.

 

[Thayne]

Good idea eric, but I don't qualify for any gold stars on here either.
wayneh, keeps throttling me like the common riffraff that I am!
Not a bad suggestion though.

73,
n9zas

I agree 100%, I too tend to stray off the straight path that some like, but I like the fact that there are lots of different types on here, so no hugs needed
There are a few old guys like Frank (Fmon, rest in peace) that no one could ever find any fault with--one time he called me long distance to give me a few suggestions after I thought I ruined someone else's Pro-2052 while doing a Disc tap. Guys like that deserve to get the Kudos.

 

[burner50]

Burner: Dont take the wrong way but you keyed on one of the suggestions, it seems that you have a low view of the members here if you think that people would lie and cheat.

It is not a direct reflection of the membership as a whole, but this IS the internet after all.
I have found people who post nonsense just to increase their post count like they will win an award for being the next person to break 10,000 posts.

I believe that when you set a goal like this, people will work towards that goal because they want it, not because they necessarily deserve it. That's not to say the people who would get it don't deserve it. Many people are goal oriented and I just don't want to see people who are only helping because we set a goal for them.

The people who deserve the kudos are the ones who don't ask for or try to get any recognition at all but spend their time and expertise here to help others just because they like doing so. Not because they want to save $30/ yr.

 

[burner50]

However I do have a suggestion for members that are helpful. Why not turn on vBulletin's "Thanks" button? Or course this would apply to all members and not just the senior members. Most vBulletin forums I've been a member of have this feature turned on and I've never seen it used in a negative way. The only negative I can see is that it does add one more database query to every post on the forum so in that way it may be a drain on the server's resources.

I'm fairly new to this forum but I've already had a couple of members help me with my questions and while I did say thanks it would be nice to see their thanks count right on their posts. Another thing I like about the Thanks button is that it is only a one way post, e.g. you can only thank a member for helping, you can't give them a thumbs down for not being helpful.

I have found forums where the 'thanks' button has been enabled.

Two things I noticed: The signal to noise ratio is fairly low. There is many posts, not necessarily appropriate or on topic, but the more you post, the more chances that somebody will hit that thanks button.

Another is that the ''thanks' whores' come out. These people beg for thanks with every post.

Another huge website that I frequent eliminated their public thanks program because it just fed trolls and fueled the flames of conflicts.

So, I don't put much faith in a thanks system either.

 

[Rt169Radio]

I have to ask,what do you mean by this?

"Another is that the ''thanks' whores' come out. These people beg for thanks with every post."

 

[gewecke]

I have found forums where the 'thanks' button has been enabled.

Two things I noticed: The signal to noise ratio is fairly low. There is many posts, not necessarily appropriate or on topic, but the more you post, the more chances that somebody will hit that thanks button.

Another is that the ''thanks' whores' come out. These people beg for thanks with every post.

Another huge website that I frequent eliminated their public thanks program because it just fed trolls and fueled the flames of conflicts.


So, I don't put much faith in a thanks system either.

I have never seen any such thing on here so please explain?

73,
n9zas