Ok, what do you guys think about this?

Instead of the ranks being like they are can we have a rank team that goes through an rates the animations them selves - They then give that animation a set rank.

Those ranks can be out of.

Terrible, Bad, Normal, Good, Sick, Insane.
What do you guys think?

The idea is not bad.
Though I still want the community to rate movies. I'm quite interested in what 'others' have to say about anims.

We could however make a 'final rating', or something.
It would come in handy, if you were searching for animations.
(once you can search on ratings that is)

Members can still rate, but there will just be a secondary rating by the SB Team.

I like ratings but i don't like ranks. If you have a Bad animator's rank. You could discourage the animator and that's not what we like.

We want the animators to animate their best and yet open for C&C, having the will to improve.

Yes, but we would also encourage our members to adleast take abit of tough criticism.
If any member wants to become a great animator they would need to be able to take criticism.

If the staff can make less 'down rating' ranks if they wish.
But I just think this is a good idea.

We can criticize their work but i refuse to put them under the category that they suck.

Just like what I said.
Make the ranks less down rating.

Lol sounds good I guess...

We should have a final rating thingy >:D

Just have an animation team.
They can decide the final ranks.

Lol, you two should stop talking now. (Joseph, Zackie)
We understand what your points of view are.
For chat, use MSN.

I'll leave this open for a few other members, so I can see what the rest of the community thinks.

Definitely reflects the site's elitist nature. Sounds very decent, in terms of ranking.

Here is my idea

Ranking up: as you rank up, more forums should be unlocked to you. (Kind of like what we have already, but for each level, a forum is spared so you can talk among your own level of animators)

To rank up, your animations are judged by a team of respected criticists who have a good understanding of animation concepts, as they discuss a 'trial' animation submitted by a user who wishes to rank up. A small amount of XP is awarded for posts over a large word count. Perhaps 50 words? This will give a more ambitious approach and boost to longer posts, not amount of posts, reducing spam posts and increasing discussion depth.

A trial animation is a massive boost of XP. If the animation is beleived to be a worthy example of an animators skills they can be automatically raised to a new level.

Building on a present idea:

As your idea has been well presented, we need to modify it. Have a team/crew section who deals with rankings (or in turn hire more mods) and judges animation trials. You are limited to trialing 3 times a month. You can submit animations to the portal and if a moderator or judge stumbles across it you may be awarded XP points.

Rewards

A forum should be provided for each 'level'. The levels are not recorded in numbers, but in status. New, Basic, Moderate, Experienced, Veteran. Less levels mean more practice and ambition. On top of the rewarded forum for skill levels of your own, you are awarded a title and a badge underneath your avatar. You should also have more access to different IRC rooms among the more experienced animators. Like

#sbmoderate

#sbexperienced

Noobs can be in moderate. The channel name will be revealed to you once you reach the appropriate level.

Ok. Thats my idea. I hope you like the additions I have stated above ontop of the already apparent 'XP' system.

Holyshit you're so full of ideas lol.

I'm not sure if we're going to make forums for each level, since it goes up all way to lvl 20.
Also, we already have the 5+ thing.

I do think however, it might be nice to give out some extra XP, if your post is, lets say, over 200 words. Or whatever.
Things like that.

Just so we can encourage members to make nice, valid posts. Instead of the usual "Very nice lol, keep it up".
Cause I'm getting a bit sick and tired of that. (Yeah I know, I sometimes do it as well).

But lets look at 'Dark-M' for a moment.
He's making great posts so far, if you ask me. (though I hate reading lol)

But yeah, I'll discuss it with Bas!

Thank you.
Do you guys have a team already set?

Yea, i've seen that ranking systems at some forums before. Well...i don't prefer too many lvls, maybe like Basics, Intermediate, Expert. Too many lvls will results in too many subforums.

I'm not too sure about IRC rooms. I don't participate much in IRC chat

There is no team yet.
IRC will probably be created. Or a 'chat' like that.
The fact that you personally don't attend to chats, Zackie, doesn't mean others don't attend as well.
I'm sure allot of users would join.

Isn't this already slightly covered by the xp system, so when you have more xp you have more voteing power?

Although I didn't post in this topic yet, I really like the ideas

Currently SB has an IRC channel (#sb, irc.adelais.net)
However it's not really used.

I probably gonna make a web based chat soon, which is much better I think.
I think XP boost could be a good motivator, however we should keep in mind that we don't want users to do something just for XP. XP should be a 'reward' rather than a payment!

Currently you can technically get XP for 'awards' you 'win' in the portal e.g. 100+ votes, however we haven't really implemented this yet.
or not the part where it checks if the content should get an reward, and if so if the author should get XP.

Once again Dark-M I really appreciate your input :D, it's a really cool idea.
But I think it's really important to have a solid plan, with all the pros and cons so it's clear what it stands for. This is also to prevents 'noobs' from getting the same rank as lets say Adam Philips (one of the best animators on NG, fact period.) so yeah I really like the basics of this idea, but we should make turn it into a good concept and keep everything in mind! =]

Well Dark-m's idea is exactly the same as darkdemon, so that would be sorta plagiarizing. In my opinion the XP rewards and final ratings sound cool, aslong as it isn't disencouraging.

If anyone can come up with some ranks that would be a big help for me to keep this suggestion going..