Membership Years Badge

[+bitmap]

Apologies if this topic has been already discussed; I searched the forum and didn't see anything.

 

I think it would be useful to show a badge or indicator of the number of years one has been a premium member next to the "premium member" tag currently shown by the avatar in each log. (Xbox Live does this in profile views showing the number of years of membership.) In conjunction with seeing how many finds somebody has, I think it also reflects a cacher's experience level as well. Perhaps it might even drive paid membership numbers as people take pride in the number of years they've been a premium member and want to show it off, which helps all the users of the website.

 

Thanks for the consideration,

Tony

[+cerberus1]

Premium membership (really) has little to do with "experience".

If hides/finds/years active were an indicator, they may be viewed by a simple click on one's profile/statistics.

"Premium Member" is applied to your avatar after becoming one. I just looked at my first find and it showed that.

I'm pretty sure many wouldn't want to see that change.

[+bitmap]

Premium membership (really) has little to do with "experience".

If hides/finds/years active were an indicator, they may be viewed by a simple click on one's profile/statistics.

"Premium Member" is applied to your avatar after becoming one. I just looked at my first find and it showed that.

I'm pretty sure many wouldn't want to see that change.

 

An interesting point, however, I like to use years of (premium) membership _in conjunction_ with the number of finds when reading logs. With the popularity of power trails, you can have first year premium members with thousands of nearly identical finds within their first few months. Would you consider them more "seasoned" than a 5 or 10 year premium member with the same number of finds? In your case, with 8 years of experience and almost 2500 finds, if you wrote a DNF I'd weigh that more heavily than a first year member with 2500 finds. By the way, this is not intended as a diss to new cachers at all!

 

Obviously I realize the wealth of information available on the cacher's profile page, but that's not the point. Why show "premium member" or their find count on each log next to their avatar? That information is just a "simple click" away as well. I think it is shown to give you a quick sense of the cacher that wrote the log, who they are and their experience level without having to dig for it.

 

Thanks for expressing your opinion!

 

-Tony

[+cerberus1]

I would like to see the "Joined" date, similar to what appears on these forums, added with our log's avatar, but leave the member/premium member/charter member tags as is.

 

Guess I still don't get what you're saying, "I like to use years of (premium) membership _in conjunction_ with the number of finds when reading logs."

- How would you know how many years someone has had premium membership?

On our profile, "premium member since..." is our start date, not when we became premium members. Even my account page doesn't show that information.

I know a couple of premium members, joined 2000-2001, who haven't cached in years. How could one know that with a "premium member since" tag?

- You'd need to go on the profile to find it.

 

I believe "premium member" is next to your avatar simply to show you coughed up the bucks to support the site.