ExReps Forums Membership Levels

The forums area of ExReps was added so that everyone in the ExReps community will be able to contribute as much or as little to the system as they choose to. As a registered member of ExReps Forums you have some special powers:

• You can post replies to any messages put up on the board, or you can set new topics and start new discussions. As part of this you can also upload pictures, or other files, as attachments to your messages. Great for letting folks know what is going on.

• You can add events to the ExReps Calendar, and post additional information about your events in the discussion area, the two areas are linked so if someone clicks on the event in the ExReps Calendar they will be taken to your information in the Events Discussion board.

• You can update your profile by adding additional information, or a picture, or if you are not photogenic you can select an Avatar that will be added to your posts in the message boards.

• You can upload your pictures to the ExReps Gallery to share with others

The new Forums software makes it possible for you to do all of this, and more, without waiting for the tired old guy in Las Vegas to get around to it.

The software we are using, Simple Machines, has a built in way of keeping a, very, rough track of how much individual members are participating in the system, it keeps track of how many times you post something in the message boards, and based on the head count changes your membership level. Other than changing level associated with your account, nothing else happens, as far as access to the system goes, all membership levels have exactly the same amount of access.

When you sign up for a Forums Membership you are automatically assigned the level of Newbie, and a couple of people what have been around since Hector had pups, have asked about that.

We are using an open-source software package called Simple Machine Forums, out of the box it is configured to assign a membership level based on the number of posts that you make in the message boards, the levels are currently sent for:

• Newbie Members have made 0 (zero) to 2 posts in the message boards

• Jr. Members have made 3 to 4 posts in the message boards

• Regular Members have made 5 to 9 posts in the message board

• Sr. Members have made 10 to 99 posts in the message board

• Hero Members have made more than 100 posts in the message board