Bravo awards and recognition...Moderators Please Read
 

Dear Members and Moderators,

Before starting up Oceanic Corals, I was a hobbyist (and still am) and have gained invaluable information through this community.

I have learned a lot over the years and many of you have provided me with advice that I still revert to. Thank you.

Without your support, I could not be where I am now so I would like to give back to this community of ever learning hobbyist.

This is a proposal for Titus and moderators to see if there is a way to award "Bravo Stars" to members that have given advice, time, lending of equipment; basically anything that the receiving person feels that the member deserves to be recognized for publicly.

If there is way to attach stars to a members name so that a tally could be totaled every month and the person with the most amount of stars is given a $100 credit to Oceanic Corals.

This is not a marketing ploy:wink: but rather a way to reward members who go out of their way to help a fellow hobbyist, whether with advice or otherwise.

We all have something to contribute to this community whether you are a noob or 20 years experience and I welcome other vendors to join me in this idea if it could be made possible.

Thanks,

Ian

+1

Very good idea, this would really help in visualizing which members of the site contribute to the community other than post count and as we all know, post count isnt everything.

And your offer of a store credit is very generous and gives further reinforcment to a great idea.

Ian, as I just said in the moderators forum, my preference would be for you to select a recepient of your award based on past participation, not participation by someone in hopes of gaining an award. Reward members who have been helpful for the sake of being helpful, not in quest of a store credit.
And if you find my answer helpful, you can credit my account :) Thx

:lol:

The concept of the idea is to award and recognize the person who is most helpful based on votes by peers and members. If I did it and assigned the award, it could seem biased and preferential. By having the votes cast by members, I remain neutral and unbiased and the award to presented to someone that most deserves it.

I hope that this idea will not end up with people helping people for the sake of gaining something in return from us. Even if it does end up that way, I don't see the harm in adding a bit of an incentive for members to help fellow members. There are other members who do not do it for incentives but rather to just help a fellow reefer come one step closer to succeeding in keeping fish and corals. All too many times, these go unnoticed and I would like to publicly applaud these people as they deserve recognition for their time and knowledge.

So to clarify, the award is to be given to the person with the most amount of votes or stars in each given month. The votes/stars are appointed by anyone who thinks that that member should be recognized for.

For example:

If reefer A helps reefer B then reefer B can vote as well as reefers CDEFG etc... At the end of the month, the person who has obtained the most amount of stars will be given the credit. Everyone and anyone can vote but only once to a member. You cannot repeatedly cast a vote to member. Only one vote per person for that person.

I hope this concept makes sense? :redface:

I welcome anyone else's with ideas as well.

The bottom line is, that I think we shoulld acknowledge a fellow members who take time in lending a hand, experience or advice to a fellow reefer. We all have busy lives and some of us take extra time out to help someone. They need to be applauded.

thanks,

Ian.

WOW...amazing offer by you Ian...this is a great idea and i hope that it can be refined into a working plan.....hats off to you Ian for putting this forward....my vote is that the newb that shares your name gets the 1st months award.....but I'm a tad biased:biggrin:

We have a system like this on another forum in which I participate. It's called Karma, every time you help someone they can give you karma if they so wish. No rewards though.

I liked the customer rating idea much better LOL

Great idea! I think even if people do help out just in hopes of gaining a store credit is still good because hey they're helping out, and that's good no matter what, right?

I think this is a good idea to create positive discussions.

Nice idea....still sounds like a marketing ploy though...

I do not see this as a marketing ploy, he asked other sponsers to contribute as well. I think post #1
And personally I think it is a good idea. I have gotten a lot of advice/knowledge from this site. I would not be able to get the award, don't have enough knowledge,yet I think its a very good idea. I think it would enable more people to actively give more advice, which is benefical.

Ya, great idea, we wish Ian the best of luck in his new endeavor :)

Now, if any vendor wants to give away money for sarcastic posts, I'm all in for that :)

Seriously, the staff were not consulted prior to this post, and really, none fo us are crazy about it. If Ian wants to offer a reward to good Canreef citizens, that's his choice, but we don't feel a popularity contest is in the best interest of the board. And I'm sorry, that is what it would become.

Honesty, I would hope that this board is helpful all on it's own, without having to provide monetary incentive to "up" the help level. If it isn't, we need to address that as a core issue, not have a Nice Contest.

You're probably right. Do you have a better idea? I wonder if Ian's idea could be altered a bit to make it a bit more "fair" (for lack of being able to think of a better word right now).

vBulletin has a built in system for User Reputation. There's other rep/karma systems out there but they're a little overkill imo. http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/reputation

As Aquattro said, I don't think it would be a good idea to have any monetary value to being a helpful member. You either want to help or you don't :smile:

Anything offered as a reward should be done after the fact of a thoughtless act of helping someone else. At work we have a reward system where I can nominate a coworker for a reward, and if approved by management, they get a check. I suppose Ian could ask for nominations from others for people that stand out in our community, either for their help here, or something they've done for the hobby. Rewarding members for an amount of stars or points will turn into a nightmare. People will expect stars, wonder why they didn't get one for doing something they think is helpful, etc. In the end, it will likely create more animosity than helpfulness.

"Why did Myka get a reward, my help was way better. And I helped someone three times, not only two like you, I deserve the reward, not you, this whole thing isn't fair, I'm going to RC instead."

I see the above happening a month in :)

I already know I am a god among men :p :lol:

I see that happening too. Except I don't think it will be me getting any rewards...I stir up too much "detritus". :p

Ya, sorry, I just used you as an example :)

Hummmm.... Did some one say something about a popularity contest :humble: I'd like to thank all of my supporters in advance...... :lol: J/K

Seriously though, I absolutely agree with what Brad is saying. Although it's a nice idea I really think it would turn into a nightmare.

:pound: I love your use of the word detritus.

Something can be a marketing thing and be good for the community, it doesn't have to be either or.

I dunno, seems to me like the idea of stars/ karama is going to lead not just to a popularity contest but also reinforce a bit of group think. You see it a bit of that anyway but I'd hate to see somebody hesitate to speak up with a contrary opinion on something just because they don't want to get voted down. Yes it's silly for somebody to do that just because of a disagreement about something but it does happen.

I can also think of about 10 ways to abuse or rig it, too much like slashdot and k5 back in the day.

Ian, it's cool that you want to do this. You just need to find a better way, have people nominate peeps in your vendor forum at the end of the period and pick a name out of a hat or something.

No apology needed! I was just pointing out the obvious! :p

Hehehehe... :D

So far the responses have been exactly what I have been looking for, I simply had an idea and decided to communicate my thoughts. I am very open to ideas and will continue to read what opinions everybody is bringing to the table. I can see that a "star" or "karma" system may not work. I will think about a way that we as a community can nominate someone without making this too complicated. I would hope that some of the other vendors can chime in.

I don't want this to be a competition and agree that everyone should naturally focus on being selfless; however, we all know this isn't always the case. Maybe something will arise from everyone's ideas that would allow this to work.

I think the idea of getting members to pm you or starting a thread (as your mailbox may fill up to quick) may work for you. One problem that my occur though is time commitment on your part. Being that you are offering the credit you should be able to pick who you believe deserves it. You could even do it like a scolarship, members can nominate someone or themself and say why the did, and you decide from there. Once again it would become time consuming though.

While I respect Ian and Oceanic Corals for the great vendor he is and his great products, all of my vendor purchased frags have been from him, I must express my concern with this proposal.

My concern is that one vendor gets an edge over the others and the tool for that edge is our public boards here an canreef. I know you state this is not a marketing ploy Ian and I believe you honestly think that but the reality is you get one new customer every month that other vendors do not.

I applaud the fact you want to reward the fine folk here that contribute but I just think the execution is a little biased. It needs to be rethinked is all. Perhaps a monthly reward that all vendors can contribute too?

Snaz/Keith

Sorry, I totally have to disagree with you on this one. If Ian wants to provide $100.00 per month to the person he believes is contributing the most to the development and expansion of reef knowledge here on on forum then I really don't care what the other vendors think. To say No, you can't give out free credit for your company when he clearly pays the vendor fee's is absurd! If other vendors feel that this is unfair competition then learn to compete, I'm more than positive there is no clause when you sign up for a vendor slot that says "You may not give out free product to customers".
Levi

I could see this idea working better. Maybe give out you e-mail for people to use to send their nominations and reasons why to. Keeping the list private so as not to cause disputes amongst members is better then having stars were everyone can see and possibly get upset over not getting one etc.