A suggestion about identifying trolls on here. Probably rubbish but just a thought

ooh i haven't had a star since I was in primary school

niiiice

And some crimpelene slacks...

I worked in McDonald's and I didn't get a single star - I only ever had a newbie, green star-less badge. Mind you, I barely lasted two weeks I had a nice baseball cap...

haha, thanks for that.
so relieved it wasn't the bat.

For those that don't know, a troll is someone who posts delibarately to cause offence, wind people up, start an argument or generally be a complete PITA!

I think the idea of profile pages saying when you joined is good. It doesn't have to mean that everyone has to have a profile, just that everyone has a clipboard icon and if they don't want a profile it just says something like, 'Mo has not made her profile public, but has been a member since 2005.'

That would a least give people a chance to see if a suspected troll had just signed up for a fight.

excuse my ignorance, but can you tell me what Troll means? I'm serious, I don't know. I suspect if you think I do know but am pretending not to, I'm being a troll???

what on earth is a troll?

lol at this lot. some fantastic suggestions

pmsl @ like macdonalds

its a nice idea but don't think it would work. Alot of MN'ers like the drama a troll brings as well.

Here you go, DragonButter

maybe a simpler version of the stars would be to colour code chat names, eg newbies in green, after 6 months name turns yellow, after a year turns orange and so on. colour coding remains as is even during name changes. mn is large enough to allow people to name change for personal reasons and the colour of the name not give them away, but like skulls says, someone who had joined just to troll would be instantly identifiable from a regular trolling with a name change.

colour just refers to time been registered rather than number of posts etc, to take away the competitive angle

And would the person with the most stars at the end of the month get a big bar of chocolate or somehing too. If so, I'm in.

sorry did someone say something?

Yeah we could leave feedback
"Helped me find non-ladderable tights.Thanks"
Speed of response SSSSS
Helpfulness SSSSS
Readability of answer SSSSS
Courtesy of response SSSSS
(can't do stars on here )

It would be like eBay, but with slightly more arguments.
Can we rate other posters?

That's a nice thought dragonbutter, but if you have ever expressed a certain thought in a post and been ignored, then a more well known poster comes along and says exactly the same thing, but gets all the bravo's. You will know it's not true.

i don't think mumsnet has a formal heirarchy, it's a percieved one. everyone's opinion is valid here. if a new mumsnetter chooses to be intimidated by their own thoughts that everyone/someone else is more important than them, then it's their own issue.
yes, there are the oldies who've been here since the dawn of time, but if everyone bares in mind that the opinions of mn royalty are no more right/wrong than anyone elses it fine. it thought that was what MN was about, the Mumocracy.
(it said so in the times )

I quite like the stars idea - it'd be like the MacDonalds Stars of Honour And within the stars, we could have sub-stars (so - what, comets?) for flippancy, belligerence, pedantry etc.

But some trolls have posted loads and take time to create a credible persona particularly sinister ones. So not sure a star system would help with that.

Personally i believe that its more about us as individuals taking responsibility for what we post. If you're happy to share lots of info/photos that make you identifiable thats up to you. But people need to be aware that any message board on the internet is viewable by everyone and anyone.

Yeah I know RustyBear but the most hysterical people will have exploded by then

Not four weeks wmmc - by then it'll be another full moon....

Why not have EVERYONEs profile page say Member since It stays with you thru name changes, there is no hierarchy of i posted 200 times more than you in July 2006 or whatever, no tickers, no stars, no post count.

So to be clear on this: we all use a service which is free to us, and which we use because we are allowed to post our views, for which we are inviting responses.

Part of the value of this site is that people can take steps to protect their anonymity but some people choose to waive that.

Ergo, it's a club. Anyone can join and if you are naughty, you will be shunned socially or if it's bad enough, unceremoniously evicted by the bouncers (sorry MNHQ folks, I know you aren't (all) burly blokes in badly fitting suits ).

It's actually that simple. If you accept that's how it is and post accordingly we don't need badge schemes, vouchsafing or any other such protocols which would only put Mumsnet's costs up to the point that it may not be worth them continuing.

I've administrated large sites - you need full time staff to deal with the problems when you get into complicated membership schemes. I'm not convinced this site is broken, so why are people so keen to tinker.

Go away for four weeks, come back, it'll have simmered down.