Wow! I can't believe that it's been six years since I signed up for Goth.Net and became a member of the forums!
If I'm not mistaken, Prez has been hard at work: the site has changed -- it's been upgraded, updated and all other things beginning with "up"!
I still love this place! I had to visit after watching the not-so-subtle social commentary that is Addams Family Values!

To business: Perhaps "usergroups" existed way back when I was a regular user -- but I don't remember any groups of users, other than "Admins" and "Moderators".
I did a search and couldn't find anything. My question:
What are "usergroups" all about?
In a few moments I will specify my question.

Old geaser voice: "Why -- way back in mah day when I were a wee goth-ling, we didn' have no "usah-groups"!"
Image

*6 years here - you should no we no like images in posts.
~spiderlimbs*

I see that there are several levels for the masses of forum-citizens: Registered users, Members and Veterans.
I read the description -- but hardly understood it. It says:
"Usergroups enable board admins to better administer users. By default you will be placed in a specific group, this is your default group. This group defines how you may appear to other users, for example your username colouration, avatar, rank, etc. Depending on whether the administrator allows it you may be allowed to change your default group. You may also be placed in or allowed to join other groups. Some groups may give you additional permissions to view content or increase your capabilities in other areas."

Granted: being the member of a usergroup enables the board admins to better administer users. However I do not fully understand in what way the usergroups directly benefit the common forum member.

Questions:

How (precisely) does the classification of a member into a specific usergroup impact his/her participation of the Goth.Net forums?

What does one gain (or lose) by changing ones' usergroup?

It says that "[s]ome groups may give you additional permissions to view content or increase your capabilities in other areas". This makes me wonder: is this a reference to the usergroups named "Assistant Administrators" and "Moderators", or does it pertain to any other existing usergroup(s)?

Keep up the good work guys! I love the site! I'm truly impressed at the devotion and passion that the forum leaders have for this community!
Much (un-dying) love for Goth.Net & the goth sub-culture,

- Spidey

I see this as a solution to a spam/troll problem, so far there are not any here ...

Part of the usergroups thing is linked right from the get-go when you register on the forums. Brand spank-me new users are placed in a usergroup that will not allow them to post their own threads until they have hit 10 replies in other posts. This was originally done to keep the trolls at bay, and has worked for the most part.

Once past the first 10 posts, you are then placed into the member group and allowed to make you own threads - hence the "additional features/access".

As for the other member groups, I'll let PreZ or Lil explain those as I am not 100% sure how those work.

With mods, we also have groups that allow access to certain moderation tools depending on level. I'd prefer not to go in-depth into this as I would prefer to keep this information out of the hands of those who would abuse it.

~spidey

Clear away the shotguns! This topic ain't Zombified just yet!

I too have have been wondering about this. 50% of my curiousity has now resolved but that still leaves me with an annoying niggle of unfulfilled knowledge. I really want to know what the Veteran Group is all about. I'm in it but have Naff All idea what it means.

Please tell me its not so mundane as to donate that I've been in the forum for ages. Please?

Yes, it is THAT mundane. I think you get put into it if you have been on the forum more than 5 years.

~spidey

Thats properly Gutting. Sounds so cool as well. Almost Ally.

As spidey said, the 'Registered' user group exists to allow a user simply to register their name, and allows them to post replies, but not create new topics.

People are automatically promoted to the Members user group when they hit 10 posts, and this user group allows them to create new topics.

The Veterans user group kicks in at 100 posts, and the only real difference is it allows users to create polls. This is restricted this way because polls should be used rarely on these forums (some people create polls for everything under the sun). It seems people have trouble realizing what is an appropriate topic to create a poll for, and how to keep the number of poll options small (not have 9,000 options).

Most people don't create polls, so the difference between Members and Veterans makes little difference.

There is also the 'Political Exiles' group which is specifically designed to stop a user from posting in the Politics forum (some people just can't control themselves and turn everything into an all-out flame war). And there is the 'Bad Boys/Girls' group that users who hit 4 warning pips are automatically put into - this forces all posts from said user to have to be approved by a moderator.

Obviously the Assistant Administrator, Global Moderator and Moderator groups confer the appropriate privileges for those responsibilities as well. But I won't go into that, not because there is some great secrecy, but because it's really not of interest and it should be pretty obvious what those roles allow.

I knew there had to be somthing more to it! Well now that's cleared up lets get the polls flowing! Or not.

Some interesting statistics for you though:

Even though as I write this, the forums have more than 8300 members, only 1800 have attained Member (ie. 10+ posts) status, and only 350 Veteran.

I can understand that though. I like a good flame war as much as the next bod. Not a lot of that here though. Kinda refreshing. The statistic I'd really like to know is how many of those 8300 are the same people with duplicate profiles?

Will we ever know...? The true may not be out there.