Second title ~ Aspirants

Erin al'Denael

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Since Accepted and Soldiers (generally) cannot be Directors, it could use the same spot and formatting as the Director titles.
Those (the "Director of Marketing," etc.) are actually coded in titles. They're not on the fly or random. It's not a matter of substituting one thing for another in the same space at all.

It would require writing code for more banner template types as it's not a simple drop down to add more than we have now. We then would have to create new user groups and permissions on all forums for those groups. At this point it's a No from a technology perspective.

Once all the other major projects related to this software move are closed out then the execs can review it as a group and if operationally it's wanted we can create a project for the technology and design work respectively.
Thank you, Mendo!
 

Alora Sionn

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I'm not asking for a special banner (I get the technical issues with that). All I want is literally just what I quoted above, in plain text, preferably below where it says Accepted / Soldier. As someone else pointed out, we have silly special titles, so why is it a problem to have ones that actually reflect a useful fact?
This is pretty much what I was thinking, I have a hard time understanding it as being something difficult since I literally got Super Cool Kid added to mine within minutes of me posting it in a thread :cheeseeni: the hardest thing would be to pay attention to who aspires where and this can easily be seen via Gatekeepers posts, or a quick PM from a HOA or CC.
I'm never going to aspire anywhere else so it's not for my benefit, just as Ninya said it is a useful thing to see at a glance whether someone has aspired and if so, where; in general but also for the purpose of getting a head count for live events, if you are a returnee to the Tower and want to see who the new younglings are etc.
Yes they can put a banner in their sig but so could Aes Sedai and Gaidin and yet we were really wanting something else to denote that since not everyone did. I just am really not understanding where the difficulty is :look:
 

Sarramy Valtiele

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I don't consider myself as an "in between status" but it would be nice to be acknowledged for the group I have chosen as well. Personally I think a white banner with a small stripe the color of the aspiration would be perfect, but aside from that (since I understand the technical difficulties involved in that) just a title stating "XXX Aspirant" would be a really nice touch.
 

Sarramy Valtiele

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Me? No. I'm an Yellow Aspirant. That's what I meant... a white banner (since novices and accepted wear white, and a rainbow banner for accepted sounds really *busy*) with a small stripe denoting the group we aspired too. So in my case it would be a Yellow stripe. I understand adding in all those banner though sounds like a nightmare, so just a second title would be a wonderful acknowledgement.
 

Rixla Katash

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I know I'm new and a citizen, so not even a Tower member, but fwiw I would like to see some sort of designation for those who have Aspired on the side. I've worked with forum software before and I really think a mountain is being made out of a molehill :cheeseeni: Personally, I do not want to sift through all the random inside jokes in people's signatures to find out which group they belong to.

Don't get me wrong, I love beautiful siggies and whatnot but sometimes I want just the facts, which is what the side profile should be for.
 

Dnae Ila

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I know I'm new and a citizen, so not even a Tower member,
You may not be inside the Tower proper, but a Citizen is no less a member of this community than an Aes Sedai. :tug
 

Kelgan al'Moranwin

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You may not be inside the Tower proper, but a Citizen is no less a member of this community than an Aes Sedai. :tug
This is very true :)
 

Polegnyn Nemeara

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Have been lurking this conversation but had a thought. Maybe the current aspirants can vote if they would like a banner?

Yes, but there's a White Ajah, and we have a white banner.

As for coloring, why not aspiration colored but with vertical Accepted stripes at each (or one) end? Will the style sheet allow for a background-image on that particular class?
 

Sarramy Valtiele

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^ This.


Yes, but there's a White Ajah, and we have a white banner.
Yeah, and I'm not entirely sure how to get around that. Maybe leave novices and accepted with no banner until they aspire and then have a white banner with a colored stripe? Though that would again be a problem with those that aspire white. It just seems there should be a way around that.

Have been lurking this conversation but had a thought. Maybe the current aspirants can vote if they would like a banner?



As for coloring, why not aspiration colored but with vertical Accepted stripes at each (or one) end? Will the style sheet allow for a background-image on that particular class?
My only worry about that is that some people in the Ajah's and Company's don't see aspirants as being included in that group yet. I worry that having something with *too much* of the group color might step on their toes.

Which again comes back to having a second title. Although not as fancy and pretty as a banner it would still provide the information for easy reference but not cause problems with figuring out banner colors.
 

Kassina Tendar

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I like the idea of a title over a banner. The banner being only for SMs I think would make it then more special when you're raised and get a banner. Besides, figuring out a color for the banner would be a pain because the White Ajah exists. :p

I don't think it's necessary, but I certainly wouldn't be against having a title saying where someone's aspired to.
 

Elania al'Manir

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I tend to think of Aspies as Senior-members-in-waiting so don't see the problem with having titles.
That's not correct, though. Accepted/Soldiers can aspire after 6 weeks, and the group they're aspiring to technically doesn't have a say in the matter.
Aspiring lets the Head/Company Commander of that group know that you plan on becoming a full member of that group, and this in turn allows them to start examining you with regards to becoming a full member.
Someone can aspire without having completed their raising contribution. Someone can aspire asap just to say they're part of a group. Just because they've chosen a membership group doesn't mean they're part of the family.

That being said, I know there are many aspirants that are considered part of their group's family. For example, we have several aspirants in Yellow whom we love very much and would hate to lose.

But I'm not comfortable making a blanket statement that aspirants are somehow at a higher level than other Accepted/Soldiers. They're no more "senior members in waiting" than anyone else at their membership level, and shouldn't get special treatment.

I'd be okay with a plain title that says "Yellow Accepted" or "Soldier of DM", but I wouldn't be okay with banners. Plus, as mentioned, those would be difficult to implement.
 

Eluial Aldaran

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I think it's weird that people are so often concerned with the incredibly rare-to-nonexistent cases of abusing such things rather than the positive effects of it.

Yes, people could abuse it, but as a matter of fact, people don't right now, and I can't figure out why anyone would suddenly start to just because they get a title under their name that says "aspirant of ___". Given this site is (ostensibly) about community, having an aspirant get to show off their potential/probable new home seems like it would be an awesome way to create a sense of belonging and ownership.

I understand there is drama sometimes. But the whole analyzing every potential change under the lens of possible drama is incredibly tiresome and IMO why it's so difficult and headache-causing to try to change anything around here.

As for the technology side, for sure please correct me if I'm wrong, but lots of people already have "vanity" titles. Why can't these go in those slots? It's not like we get so many aspirants at a time that it would be a huge burden to go in and hand change each one, would it? And we already have process for aspiring, so we can add to that process and say the HoA needs to send an email/ticket/whatever to technology any time someone aspires to their group, so it's not on technology to find that information out.
 

Elanda Tonil

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I'm not sure why Accepted who have aspired would get a banner while other Accepted have a "regular" title. I thought the banners were basically signifying SM status with colors to make it easy to tell who's what at a glance. I think it would be nice to have some way to show aspiration on the left somehow though.
 

Leo Kian

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That's not correct, though. Accepted/Soldiers can aspire after 6 weeks, and the group they're aspiring to technically doesn't have a say in the matter.

Someone can aspire without having completed their raising contribution. Someone can aspire asap just to say they're part of a group. Just because they've chosen a membership group doesn't mean they're part of the family.

That being said, I know there are many aspirants that are considered part of their group's family. For example, we have several aspirants in Yellow whom we love very much and would hate to lose.

But I'm not comfortable making a blanket statement that aspirants are somehow at a higher level than other Accepted/Soldiers. They're no more "senior members in waiting" than anyone else at their membership level, and shouldn't get special treatment.

I'd be okay with a plain title that says "Yellow Accepted" or "Soldier of DM", but I wouldn't be okay with banners. Plus, as mentioned, those would be difficult to implement.

Just for the record I wasn't saying that Aspired are Senior members in waiting, that's just how I think of them. I know they may not be ready to be raised because of other requirements when they aspire. I am not advocating that they get any form of special treatment either.
 

Eluial Aldaran

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IDK why people keep bringing up the banner thing? Like, it wasn't part of the OP's question/request, and it seems like its feasibility has been pretty thoroughly shot down anyway from multiple perspectives.

Having an aspirant title seems like a really cool idea though, and hey, maybe someone who is an accepted and maybe a bit newer to the site doesn't feel as comfortable advocating for it as strongly as they might want to.

@Mendo Cath could you please comment on the possibility of using the "vanity title" slot that's directly under the person's name as a slot for announcing where an accepted has aspired to? basically, just a title that would read "Aspirant of ____". Initial entry of all current aspirants might take a little bit more time, but going forward, the process could be something like the HoA/CC emailing you/technology letting you know that X person has aspired, and then you or a minion can change their title. When a person is raised, you can add removing that title as part of the whole backend changing of permissions/adding banner etc stuff.

Thoughts?
 

Mendo Cath

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I will add it to the addenda on the next meeting with the rest of the Admin/Exec team where we can discuss this change and the methods it can be implemented.
 
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