when the forum gets bigger, karma will be a weapon for trolls (speaks the voice of experience), clicking the negative on anyone who doesn't agree with you, is too tempting for your average muppet...

The community may need to re-visit the user ranks in future. As is common on forums, a high volume of posts are generally made by a relatively small number of enthusiastic individuals. Those members will always sweep up the ranks quickly and I don't think there's much to worry about with that as the majority of members are unlikely to post zillions of times. People come, get excited, will post a few comments, then we might not see them for a good while before they return. Alongside those members they'll be others who wish to keep up the conversation over the long haul.

My take on this is that ranks therefore need to be attainable by the average member - rather than judging the rank's effectiveness based on the I'm-a-hyper-can't-get-enough-about-talking-space member The lower ranks should be relatively easy to move through, but perhaps the higher ranks might be more challenging to reach. As with any reward system, we have to get the frequency of reward just right for them to maintain motivational relevance. Just a thought.

Mike, again I agree with you. There are currently only 6 ranks and the post count for the highest was only 320. It needed some tweaking, and can always be changed again at a later date. First couple of ranks will still be very low, with a slightly wider gap to the 3rd, another slightly bigger gap to the 4th etc, and hopefully another couple of levels added. Nothing drastic

Stavy, I've been demoted which is fine of course as I write quite a lot but i presume one must reach 200 posts before I am to be promoted? I think I may have retired before then!

that would be telling, but i have no doubt you'll probably get there before you 'retire'.

Hmm that might be possible!