an excellent solution can be found here: http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=465309[^] :)

Your reasoning doesn't match the description given on CP, as I can give 10 others that have been longer on codeproject, have more articles, more posts and have a higher average article rating that this user and are at a mere silver level.

So it should be silver at best, but bronze more likely, right?

Could someone explain why this member is deemed to be a "Gold Member" :confused: http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Profiles.aspx?mid=3956886[^]

I wouldn't take her list too seriously as its probably just her time of the month again.... :laugh:

Its probably her time of the month again... :laugh:

hey you're the one mentioning gold members here in that context ... ;P

nothing in this context makes their opinion any less valid. In fact the observation had nothing to do with opinions or validity, but rather the potential "fear" some may have of loosing their oh so prized/cherished/important "Gold member" status. :-D

I used the word bug in the subject to attract attention to the issue. I was really after the community's view of whether or not its fair and is representative of what a CP gold member is ment to represent. How many gold members would be happy to be in the same category as the person mentioned? btw I'm not trying to start a flame-war.

I wonder how many of the people that have voted this post at 1, are Gold members that may have their status affected by these hypothetical changes. :laugh:

I have just been informed by _Chris_my higher being not to reveal any secrets on this forum. :laugh:

I wasn't trying to be religious, just making the point that people in history after talking to mythical beings would begin preaching a whole new set of rules, the comment made from the previous poster implied i should be around the community a bit more before making such far reaching comments, he does have a point. :)

oh come on, if the DB tables are setup nicely/properly it shouldn't be more than a few sql statements to get this thing going... :-D

True, but don't prophets of relgions start preeching on the second day of their prophethood? :laugh:

Chris Maunder wrote:

The value of someone's contribution can be more than just answering a question.

I totally agree, and I believe a person's contributions should be effectively reflected, but in-lieu of either human intervention on every forum posting or some form of natural language processing one must retire to statistics and the mean for comments in the lounge and soap-box does not always correlate to usefulness or applicability in the underlying principles of CP. granted CP is also about building a community and some such around topics of interest, one must remember that the only reason why people gathered in the first place was because of the perceived quality/caliber of the community and its output - not the ability to "hang-out".

Chris Maunder wrote:

I've thought about this a lot and I'm still of two minds as to whether this improved conciseness will result in an improvement in accuracy. Will someone vote correctly in 1 of the 3 categories? 2/3? Will be get less votes overall?

I don't believe the categories should be equally weighted, as things like applicability are subjective eg: it took us 2000 years to find a good reason to use GCD. Its a complex little problem that I believe can be solved by opening it up to the community.

Chris Maunder wrote:

Adding a 'watch' capability is on the cards. I do like the note idea. Mind if I steal it?

Feel free. I just wish you would reconsider stealing point 1 as that would be of greater value. Just out of interest, if you were to apply point 1, what would be the difference in the number of gold members?

Is it fair though?

There are a lot more examples out there, need only look at posters from the last couple of hours to find them. In any case the changes needed in the system to bring it up to scratch are very simple and can be accomplished without much hassle. :)

Point 2 Its not that complicated, you're a GM you have articles in the ASP and C# area, you can't approve or disapprove an article in the c++ section etc. Or you're a GM you have articles in the C++ section such that when their rating is averaged its below 3.75 you don't get to approve or disapprove articles in the C++ section, simple as pie. Its not about helping out CP staff, its about creating a real meritocracy, people and their real technical peers interacting with each other in a fair and equal manner. This wont in anyway hinder new comers. Point 3 The break down voting is optional, in that you can either vote 1 to 5 or vote on all 3. eg: an article is really novel and had great applicability but the author has done a crap job explaining it. The grading system will help the author better understand where the problems lie within their article, as most people that vote don't comment. Point 4 This was more about forgiveness. eg: you find a crappy article, 2 years later the author cleans it up and is now really good and informative, what are the chances you'll see that article again and take the time to re-vote, if there is a system in place informing you of an update and giving you a note you provided 2 years ago about what was wrong with the article you may decide to change your opinion about it and vote it up. this would in-turn be a positive for the author. In fact CP could provide information about vote changes etc, which again as in Point 3 would be helpful to the author of the article. None of the above require anything more that intermediate sql skills to implement - they are very easy to do.

Look if you want to hang-out and chat thats fine, but that shouldn't entitle you to a status that could imply you are proficient in a particular technology or have been helpful to the CP community. By all means comment, opinionate etc but don't expect them to account for much unless they really have value and worth. Let look at this problem like this: 1. Community building - getting people together 2. Defining the value of the community. I think point 1 is well and truely here, but point 2 currently seems a bit ambigious don't you think?

point 3 is clearly NOT being applied, eg: member for only a few months, no valuable posts whatsoever: http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Profiles.aspx?mid=4578085[^] :confused: