Isn't the ID numbers a way of determining an "Old Hat" ita?

There's also backchannel. It's all so familiar. At the Bronze, people used shout out lists as a way to sort of announce how long they've been there. Status. Or announcing that they've been around forever, frequently.

I'm sorry that he doesn't talk about death-by-obsolescence as well as death-by-flameout, though.

Isn't the ID numbers a way of determining an "Old Hat" ita?

Unreliably. Is Joy an Old Hat? Margaret T? Jim Perry? They all have IDs under 50.

They all have IDs under 50.

In a year, they will be ancient. When member numbers hit 2000, they will be as the mighty redwood shading the struggling sapling. Why do we have member numbers? I think I missed out why.

Why do we have member numbers?

Technically, we don't. People started looking at the URLs for their profiles and noting the numbers there.

They could be any randomly generated unique identifier, but the one the database does by itself (and therefore faster than any other method) is sequential numbering.

Please, I beg of you all, can we not call longtime users here "Old Hats?" Please?

For what it's worth, the original OH list was whipped up by the owner of the newsgroup archive from memory, and left off a whole bunch of regular posters he'd plumb forgot about.

And using user numbers doesn't work to establish involvement here -- I'm 200-something, and I helped build the damn thing.

Fair nuff. I've been clear about my elitist leanings, so you all know where I fall in opinion on the matter, I suppose.

Not to get all meta, but for me supporting voting was me trying to compromise between the people with elitist leanings and the people with populist leanings, and yet still get us some closure on issues. And these two groups BOTH contained peopled who are part of the "core group" in my opinion, so it was very hard to think of a solution that imposed some rules without imposing too many. Of course, since some of the people with libertarian leanings now neither vote nor read this thread, I don't know how successful it was.

Please, I beg of you all, can we not call longtime users here "Old Hats?"

There are no old hats in the Buffistas.

There are, for a Buffista, those who came before and those who came after one joined. Some who came before are no longer here, some that came after are more involved than you. And from before and after you there are similar levels of participation.

Buffistas do not have a true hirearchy. Each Buffista builds and molds his or her online presence as if molding a life. Want to participate in Bureaucracy? Participate. Ready for Bitches? Go for it. But you don't have to go full tilt into everything. It's OK. Buffista rise and fall in posting as they see fit. Others either let them or band together to persuade them otherwise.

Buffistas are almost an anarchy, in the literal sense of the word. Everyone participates, or doesn't to his or her own comfort level. Anarchy, however, is not chaos. We have agreed upon certain things and certain codes.

No one here is a god, although some are thought of as gods by words and deeds and personalities. Some have gradually become elevated to stompie footism, but it is not a foregone conclusion based on tenure.

We are Buffistas, and we are a group and individuals all at once.

To recap: those who came before, and those who came after you, have their own before and afters. Do not fear "Old Hat" groupings, as they are unlikely.

We are Buffistas, eternal.

Buffistas do not have a true hirearchy

That's completely untrue. We just don't talk about it in our polite society.

I don't know how successful it was.

I think it's been successful in different ways. But I agree with the article in that there's a difference between being a registered user and a member of the community, and that the core has greater rights, because they by definition care more about the community.

And I'm in the minority on that. It's just where I stand, and it's a cold and lonely corner, but still, I'm totally right.