I honestly don't see how a coloured user title imposes some sort of superiority to others. If someone is silly enough to think someone with an orange title is a demi god then so be it. I don't imagine things will change one bit if we loose them.
There have been some cases where the (former)staff and us admin. have spotted mild indications that some few isolated members in these rank groups have posed as somewhat better than the rest of the members becouse of their colored ranks. These cases have been rather rare, and usually just side-notes on something more important issue that has required us to supervice the discussions in here and in the IRC channel. Those instances have not been what we deem as "severe" to cause any diciplinary actions, rather more like amusment to us, but it has raised the issue to discussion.
I myself used to saw them as well as reward we gave to the good artist and long time members, so naturally If we would choose to loose them, means some sort of failure in our innocence and honest trust. The idea of premium-elite-FD master user groups has not been as a hierarchy to step into that would (have) ultimately lead in the (now gone) staff group, but I couldn't have helped to notice that some members have thougth it to be that way, sort of like Elite-membership would suffices as
"one of the people who are directly underneath the moderating team in rank"(sic)...
This has never been the case. The former idea of moderators and staff was completely tied to the Forum and its functionality purposes, where as the ranks basicly just told how "good or long timed" artist you were. Beeing elite member was never a requirment when we choose the mods, and some of the former moderators whom are now elite-members sort of just gained that title as reward from their services. When we choose the mods, usually the requirment was "sensible, responsiple adult with good sense of justice" ...So one of the reasons why I've now become to think we could loose the memberranks is to get people out of the thinking that there are some ladders in SB that you can rise into power. All power in community like this should rest with in the community. And the technical "power" -or more like responsibility in the forum and internet-domain name into those who paid them.
Also. I've been around in the bucket before the google-groups and the first forum, and looked around the proplems we have had in the community from the top spot for long... and vast majority of them seems to be focusing around using malice intentention from personal disputes disquised as "critisism" or "moderation". Usually some sort of artifical "Im better than you" type of hierarchy has been flawor of those wrong doings, and thus I feel that if equality can solve some of these proplems, then we should aim towards as much equality as we possibly can.
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Thank you Kim for the crest
And what I've observed, its usually the same 10 or so people who are anyways helping those in apparent need of helping, and they seem to spur from normal members to elite, and from 0-4 years of experience, and various level of (subjective)skill in drawing. So I don't see reason or even a purpose to place them into some cathegory, in just sake of cathegorising. My idea of SB (and what it used to be in the days I joined) was that everyone who wants, can help and participate, and that doesen't just mean help the newbies, but also help the SB in offering to work on uploads and so. What I don't want is people to think that they wouldn't be worthy of giving their input or idea that only some people can give that input.