I’ve been rummaging through old threads and have questions about the user title under usernames. Firstly, have I got these right?
Perfect Master - obviously!
Administrator, Moderator, Banned - self-evident
SDSAB - people who write the columns that aren’t Cecil
Charter Member (with post-count and location) - continuous membership since before pay-to-post
Charter Member (no post-count) - pre pay-to-post members who paid up but have since lapsed
Member - Either noobs like me or Charter members who were late in renewing
Guest - Old members who never paid, or people who are/were on 30-day trial.
This seems to cover most of what is around, but one I can’t figure out is “Registered User” - example. What’s that one for?
“Registered User” is the title that pops up on initial registration. It changes to “Guest” either after the confirmation email is triggered or the first post is made.
All the rest is pretty spot on, except that not all SDSAB members write special reports. I wish they did! It is a courtesy extended to former staffers who have retired. We also have some true advisory members – it is the Straight Dope Science and Advisory Board, after all.
There was also ‘Asshat’ (granted to someone or other temporarily on request); ‘Boomerang’ (in the case of a returning troll), and I think ‘Too stupid to live’ (although I might be misremembering the context of that comment - maybe it wasn’t a user title).
“Too stupid to live” (which my fingers Freudianly keep trying to type “Too stupid to love”) was a bona fide title handed out by, IIRC, Lynn to someone whose jerkitude was outstandingly egregious. It got changed to Banned the last time we discussed these things.
As I’ve pointed out, the chief difference between the titles “Banned” and “BANNED” is in how severely the member in question pissed off the staff.
I think I hold the record for the most different user titles, at 7:
Member
Guest
Charter Member
Straight Dope Staff Science Advisory Board (for about 1 day)
SDSAB
BANNED (mistake)
On Sabbatical (for about a month)
Coal Goddess (changed by TubaDiva for 1 day)
Truly, my whole life was moving towards this moment.
I wanted to be on sabbatical for a while due to a person stalking me (not a past or present SDMB member) who was trying to collect information to “get me” IRL because I had “stolen” their girlfriend and “converted” her to my “evil ways”. To try to make them think I was no longer posting here at all, an Admin was kind enough to post a fake “BANNED” title to throw them off the track and make them think I wasn’t here any more. The intent was I would stop posting for several months and then maybe come back under a new name; that was never decided firmly at the time. However, that backfired because the SDMB got a small flood of e-mails from people (back when people noticed I was even here…) asking why I had been banned, some of them actually very rude and harsh to the Staff - who absolutely did not deserve any of it, as they were trying to help me out. So that experiment ended fairly quickly, and I had to rely instead on the tried and true method of speed-dialing the lawyers and writing checks to make things stop.
Which goes to show you, the Staff here will go out of their way to help members if you ask them, even if it causes them some pain. I know they’ve done a lot to help other people with odd situations as well.
I didn’t realise that; I thought I’d read that it was just a coincidental; difference due to the user title being amended by hand by different admins/mods without a definitive standard.
I think I’m right in saying that at least on some previous version of the board software (if not the current one), the change of user title had to be made by hand when a member is banished.
I think you’re right. This is how I remember seeing it.
I also believe you’re right about this. Most recently banned members whose title hasn’t reverted to “Guest” yet seem to have it written in all capitals now, so I guess that’s now the standard.
