how are we doing? - complaints most welcome

While I cant comment on specific users getting banned such as agold, I do sometimes feel that when someone offers a negative(perceived) perspective that does not dovetail with what a typical MBA grad/aspirant thinks of either the degree or the motivations of the people earning it, people often react rudely rather than taking an opinion for what its worth. In other words, by negatively reinforcing some behaviors and welcoming others, the club seems to encourage uni-dimensional thinking more than in the past. Non-conformist opinions need to be welcomed and valued.

I apologize I cant dig up specific posts as examples for our mob mentality, but I have formed this opinion cumulatively based on several instances and from talking to other GC members in chat sessions and PM conversations.

I greatly appreciate the distinction between GC and BW. The policy at GC is evidently working and is well worth the negatives.


Love this idea.

Love this idea.

I hadn't realized that he had gone after individual people. Personal attacks are a totally different ballgame than say criticizing a school and if that's the case I change my stance. But I just hope things don't get to the point where people are afraid to bring up something negative about a school(for example, what if a professor that got talked up a lot ended up being a real jerk in person etc) that could legitimately better inform someone who has to make a $100K plus decision about where to spend 2 years of his/her life.

Speaking of elitism and policy, what is the deal with the Trusted Members Group? As I post my 70-somethingth post right now, I'm obviously biased, but is the 100 post minimum really the best way to define 'trusted'? I especially urge you to reconsider given the discussion above regarding a member with lots of posts who was blacklisted from this forum.

As a non-traditional applicant who was pretty successful in the application process, I feel I have a lot to offer to this type of discussion. There are surely others here too who would add more to the discussion than they would take from it this late in the cycle.

I understand you want people to contribute to the community before they take from the community, but I think you could look at additional factors. You might consider looking at other metrics such as (quality) posts/week for new members and kudos. You might also have a nomination process that would allow for more qualitative factors.

I don't wanna go off topic in this thread but to quickly address the issue above....

Trusted Members Group (100+ posts) privilege only grants you two specific privileges. (at least from what I can tell)

1) Access to Feedback Sub-Forum - This is where (rarely btw) admins post certain topics for site improvement and suggestions. IMO - this sub-forum is rarely used. It is just used in order to prevent going off topic while discussing certain issues. You are really not missing out much here. also, admins in the site is trying to get everyone's opinion recently. That's why they added Suggestion/Update News feature in the Support Sub-forum.

2) Access to Member Profiles Sub-Forum - This is where members provide very detailed info about themselves. Because the information is sensitive, it does make sense to limit public from having access to this sub-forum. (for example, if one looks at my profile, they can tell which school I went to as undergrad, my GPA, my employer etc etc.... I certainly wouldn't want EVERYONE to have access to this info. )

In my opinion, active participation in the forum will allow you to achieve minimum requirement for access to these sub forums. (in no time!!) I really didn't find it difficult to get approved for this access when I first started out in this forum.

Many people access info in this forum without registering. Also, Google/Yahoo bots search through the publicly available sub-forums. If any sensitive information needs to be posted or discussed, it does make sense to limit access to certain sub-forums.

BigBad, we know you are a valuable contributor to this forum (not to mention, your bschool admit record this year is impressive). We definitely want to hear from you while you are in bschool!
So please understand why this rule in effect.

Well, I am nearly not as successful (or ambitious) applicant as you are, but I've been here for over a year, have almost 350 posts, have had over 100 kudos for awhile thanks to my contributions to the GMAT section, have asked for Members access twice, and still don't have it.
Not complaining here, I don't feel entitled to anything, just trying to make you feel better. Patience is a virtue..

Aha. That explains what was in front of me all along. People who have higher post counts tend to accumulate them in the GMAT forum. If people start contributing only to the B-School application forum, they tend to have a lower post count (even though they may open up and contribute high quality material). Trust should not be equivalent to post count. Answering "D" or "E" to 100 threads should not allow someone to be considered "trusted".

This is not meant as a slam to you, chineseburned. Just wanted to point it out. Your contributions to both forums are very helpful and I've found your posts to be high quality.

Ha, I think I just got access. I guess reminders can pay off sometimes.

DK, it's not just post counts. I'm guessing it's a combination of that, kudos and longevity on the board. The natural progression of contribution though I think should start from the GMAT section and then transfer over to the B-school application.

Back on topic, on a second thought elitism is fine with me as long as the elite are nice and friendly and remember their fellow clubbers a few years from now when they land the big jobs

A few thoughts about some of the points raised in the previous posts, and ideas:

1) Are we elitist? No I don't think so. Like others have pointed out, many use this forum as a tool to help them get into their target/reach schools. And many of the posters tend to fall in that category. So we end up with lots of posts about the UE/E schools, and few about the 15-25 ranked schools. Anecdotally, I've heard that's how the BSchool Application forum evolved - the first year was primarily posts about the top 5 schools and then it grew from there. (can anyone speak to the truth of that or is that "gmatclub legend"?) Also, I'd encourage lurkers to post in the threads representing their schools - that's how information bases get built!!

2) Moderation of the forum/banning members/etc. I'm a huge fan of the three warning system. (I think nink described something like this above) First warning is just a message to the offender, explaining the offense and recourse of action. Second warning is another warning as well as a three-day "probation" where the offender can view the forum but can't post. Third warning is a 10-day full ban. After that, the user is banned. I think for any system like this to work, we need a set of guidelines that lay out what is "good" behavior, what is "bad" behavior. The chat guidelines are really great- I think having a similar set of "forum etiquette" rules would be great. If these already exist but are buried somewhere, let's get them on every forum as the first stickied post.

3) Current Students. I think riverripper's idea of having someone to easily identify current students is great. Since colors are often used to denote mods, can we instead have a symbol of some kind that always appears by the student's name? That would help easily identify the current students, as well as the mods.

4) I think it would be great if we had an additional field for "Work Experience" in the member detail. I'd love to see at a glance if someone posting about PE, for instance, actually has experience there or if they've just researched the area.

5) Trusted members: I think a lot of us post more detailed profiles in that section. I certainly wouldn't want random trolls or adcom poking around finding it. I'm okay with the 100 post rule.

6) Admission Consultants - the good: I think it's been really intriguing having AlexMBAApply on the forum. He has a very interesting perspective on the application process as well as various MBA/bschool life issues. Kudos!

7) Admission Consultants - the bad: It seems as though a lot of random folks have been posting in the threads directed to the various Admission consultants. Can we establish some moderation guidelines for those threads? As in, if a random poster starts offering unsolicited/qualified advice on a thread directed to the admissions.com folks, what's the protocol for removing or moving those posts?

8) Career Threads: Is there a way we can have a table of contents in the Career Forum to more easily find threads about specific industries? I know that some threads cross industries, but there are quite a few that are consulting or banking or pe/vc specific. Having an easy spot to find those would be pretty helpful.

Just some thoughts!
cheers,
isa.

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The negative kudos is a good idea - but if left unchecked some people might end up misusing them. I used to be a silent spectator on an immigration website where I saw this happen quite often. People would ask genuine questions and someone who felt that the question was very basic would give a negative kudos.

Point to note over here is that for a person who has been on a site for quite a while may feel some of the questions (eg: can you help me in ..... OR whre can I find....) are very basic but for a person who is starting on the journey it is important info.

Kinda reminds me of Spiderman "With great power comes great responsibility".

I was thinking maybe something like this might work for some of the issues around who people were: eg "Current Student", "Trusted Member", "Mod", etc.

https://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=257985

The little images below indicate a lot of 'interesting' stuff ... They have icons for things
Mod, Senior Mod, Donor, Life Member, 5+ Year Member, 2+ Year Member... I don't know how much of an issue it is for us here, but if people are looking for ways to identify current students (now that the community is getting quite large, it seems likely next year there will be many) that might be a neat way to go about it.

Also fair warning, that thread can be a real time vortex if you start reading it.

oh man, that thread is hilarious! Way to knock this thread off-topic I think the pictures are a great idea, especially if we could get logos for schools...

BTW, my $0.02...

I think the elitism is present, and, quite frankly, it's inescapable. The sort of people that are going to seek this board out, especially given its GMAT roots, are overachievers. That's just the way it is, and I don't think there's much that can be done about it. That said, a master-listing of all threads for all schools on the first page would probably bump up traffic for lower-ranked schools. As it is now lower-traffic schools are on page 2 or 3 - i.e. invisible to newcomers. Make an alphabetical listing like this (I'm using W because it's an easy example and applicable to me)...

Washington
Wharton
Wisconsin

...where clicking on each name will jump you to that school's "Calling..." thread. I bet this would increase traffic a fair amount to the schools that usually slide off the front page, which will have the added effect of making new visitors who are applying to such schools feel welcome.

I have no problem with threads going off-topic, and would prefer you be too strict than not strict enough. A clear escalation policy sounds good, as well as a board of senior members to make decisions about long-term members.

Finally, I do wonder if there is a better way to recognize trusted members. I didn't join this board until I'd already taken the GMAT and submitted my R1 apps; beyond that, I don't like to post frequently unless I have something to say. I think that's why my kudos-to-post ratio is fairly high even though I've only ever posted in this forum. That said, according to the rules, I'm shut out of the trusted member forums and whatnot. I think 100 posts is a fine general rule, but there should be moderator discretion.

One final note - I remember you were talking about changing the name awhile back - don't. You have a good URL and are building a brand. So what if it's not entirely accurate. Being worried about that is like being annoyed that several commenters on my Facebook status made jokes about breakfast cereal this morning...

I think there's a de facto regularly scheduled chat date/time every weekday from about 11am-6pm EST.

Not sure how the negative kudos used to work but I think it should be a separate independent feature and even called differently, say "warning" or "karma". Everyone starts at 0 (the highest) and for every misconduct a negative point is awarded. That way it will be easier for the mods to track offenders. And when someone has collected, say -3, they get a temporary ban, -5 ban forever. Every 100 kudos (yes they have to work that hard) will offset just one or two negative points.

I echo similar sentiments regarding the need for subforums for some schools (maybe the M7 schools? UEs/Es/Top25?) I think this will help with the organization/structure of the forum.

Since I do find the signal to noise ratio here pretty good, I think whatever the moderators are doing or whatever the discipline rules are, you should keep it. It's obviously working.

I would like to suggest adding a few forums. I think it's not a bad idea to have a school specific forum. I envisage something different from the earlier suggestion about adding subforums for school specific applications. I think a forum where current students, recent admits, and even alums can post about campus life would be a nice addition and make for a great way to retain GC "alums" as well. What do you think of this class with this prof? What's the best place to dine around the school? Should we have an ad-hoc GC meet-up this Friday? That's the kind of topics that would be discussed in that school specific forum. I would also add that only recent admits, current students, and alums should be allowed to post there, although it should be readable to everyone. But that's just a personal suggestion, I don't think opening the access to everyone will be a bad idea either (I'm sure GC members local to that area will have much to contribute even if they don't/didn't attend that school)

Any possibility of changing the website name from GMATClub? I didn't get to be part of this forum till very late (almost at the end of the application season) - hence missing out on tons of useful resources and advice, and being part of a supportive group though the grueling app season.

I'm sure I have stumbled on this site early on but never paid much attention to it because I incorrectly assumed it was focused solely on GMAT prep for which I was self-studying. I'm sure there are many others like me.

This has been done

Moderators can now edit the first post of the discussion and check the box that says: "Show on top of every page"
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ah, cool. I will try it out on a couple of calling all applicants threads.
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