'Groups' on the Forum.

[Dan]

This has been posted before but I thought I'd do a decent job of explaining the different groups on the forum.

First we have the regular members marked with this:

Every member when they first register will start off with this 'tag'. And some of the members keep this status for whatever reason although they could actually belong in one of the other groups. So a training centre staff member or a retailer that doesn't make themselves known could stay with this.

A regular member will usually upgrade with time. In most cases to:

Though this states professional tiler, as most in the group are, we actually allow a member of any trade in this group so you'll find plumbers and electricians in 'The Tilers Forums Arms' too. Though it's not common these days, we used to accept people in that are going on a course, or say they are. But as some ended up not going on a course or contributing to the forum we thought we'd keep it strictly to regular contributors - and those in a trade. The logo or 'tag' will change as soon as we revert to our customer built forum which is in progress.

If you want to trust the contributions then the most trustworthy group is:

The Elite Member; those in this group have another forum for themselves just like the Tilers Forums Arms. But as those in this group have been hand picked due to their large percentage of extremely accurate (we all have our off days though) contributions (posts) then you can rest assured that the advice given in most cases is spot on. If you think you're worthy of this tag then make it known in Tile Chat or via PM to the Mods.

Another tag you may see is:

The Retailer Tag. Those in this group retail in the tile business somehow. Not all retailers are in this group though a few are. They'll normally have their location in their profile so if they're near you feel free to PM them and find out where they are and go see them perhaps. But a retailer can't advertise their products and / or services on the forum other than a link in their profile to their website, or perhaps their business name, address and tel. Which is enough right?

Then there's the Tiling Courses Staff members:

These guys run or work in a training centre or college of some sort. Always tile related if they're in this group. We do have other course companies registered that would stick with the 'regular member' logo/tag. The course staff may not always be the tutor, it could be a receptionist come administration person, so not all of their contribtuions may be the best for advice - or tile related. A tiling courses staff member will 'wear' other tags too if they're an ex-professional tiler or gain the 'elite' tag for example.

Then there are the sponsors:

The sponsors provide products and / or services to the community. They're allowed to respond to requests from members with links and prices in it etc. The sponsors usually have some kind of exclusive deal setup for the forum members. You'll get discounts perhaps or extra information or support somehow in many cases.

Then there are the guys that run the place, I say that but they actually just enforce the ways that the whole forum create - the members included:

There's Dave who's a super moderator. It's debatable whether he has any special powers offline, some have said they've seen him fly to an exhibition, others are said to have been brainwashed for their knowledge as Dave has so much of it but that could be just a rumour. A super mod has pretty much all the rights I have as the owner. On a sort of teir level we all have some rights actually. The members find common problems, then the elite members get involved in fidning a fix, the moderators included. Then Dave and I usually announce the fix and new system or process and the Moderators enforce it.

Keeping it YOUR forum. Not a sales one.

And finally my tags:
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I own the forum and all its related websites. And I administrate the forum. So any special requests or whatever come to me. Though I'll discuss them with the usergroup it concerns, and always the Moderators. I have different tags for them both as one day no doubt there will be more administrators. If we keep growing the way we do we could end up with a few. But I'll always own the website myself.

The tags will be changed slightly when the new forum is in place but for the time being I hope you excuse the couple of misleading titles. It's just the forum has shifted since its creation causing the Professional Tilers tag to be tagged to other trade members, and the Super Moderator still simply wears the Moderator tag.

USERGROUP MEMBERS: http://www.tilersforums.co.uk/showgroups.php

HOW TO REPORT A POST FOR WHATEVER REASON

Each contribution has it's own 'report post' button. It looks like this - click it if you want to report a post and within seconds all moderators have been reported and a new topic is created in the Moderators forum (hiddon of course) where we discuss our actions. We'll archive all suspect posts during our discussion and put it back if we there is no action taken. The member leaving the post and the member reporting it will be notified of the actions taken.

We take our moderation seriously and do ban members, though usually after warnings and such. We remove members fully that SPAM the forum. We hate spam just as much as you. Though those real humans (most spam's are automated bots) that simply get it wrong one time will be asked to edit their post. You can edit you post within 24 hours of making it, and after that time you'll need to click the report post icon or inform a moderator to get it changed - and give a reason too sometimes.

I hope you reply to this thread if you have any questions and I'll respond asap.

Thanks.
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In addition to this you can thank members for their good contributions to the community. There's a 'thank' button in every post just as there is a report post button.

Trust the members with lots of thanks. And be sure to thank each post in a topic that you thought was good or helped you.

You can also rate a topic by selecting the drop down 'Rate Thread' option at the top of a topic / thread. This marks the whole topic on a 1 - 5 thing and can be seen from the forum listing pages, the pages that list the actual topics in a said forum.

[Dan]

Elite member usernames now show up Pale Green and Bold.

Group Key: Administrator, Moderator, Trusted (Elite) Member Tiling Courses Staff, Paid Advertiser, Retailer, Professional Tiler, Registered Member.