how are we doing? - complaints most welcome

Definitely agree here. I think because lower ranked schools are relatively easier to get into, compared to upper tier schools, many people are indifferent about strategy, inside info, interview tips, and other important discussions found in upper tier threads.

However, some lower tiered school threads are badly managed because whoever started the thread for a given application year, decided to abandon the thread for various reasons. (maybe because few Gclub members are shooting for that specific school and generated inactivity in the thread.

Many Gclub members score 650 + GMAt score, and this allows us to shoot for upper ranked schools. That might be one of the main reasons why lower ranked school threads aren't as popular.



I definitely appreciate how fast moderation prevents trolls (like BW trolls) from roaming in the forum. However when it comes to penalizing a member, they probably fall into 3 categories:

1) Troll - from the very beginning, a member's action in the forum can easily idenity him/her as troll. These individuals should be banned indefinitely.

2) Newbies not Familiar w GClub Compliance for conduct - some new members are unfamiliar with the culture of GMAtclub. They are used to other forums where one can act however he/she wishes. These members can turn into potential contributors. Therefore, we should clearly maintain and apply some kind of "Warning - Probation - Re-evaluation" approach. Most people can see how to behave in the forum just by participating/observing for awhile. However, participating is the KEY. Probation without participation privilege is harsh and unproductive.

3) Huge Contributors on Probation - This might be tough. Although cases vary, long time contributors in the forum should be given similar "Warning - Probation - Re-evaluation" treatment described above. One can make a mistake or two. We are all humans. Unless, many members in the forum supports the permanent ban or etc, I definitely would like to see further contribution from these members.



I think this is little too extreme. This can be done in BW forums. And everyone can agree that BW forum is a joke.


I think Sub-Forum Specific mods are good way to reward members for their contribution. I think more and more members should be given this privilege first and then out of this pool, new global mods should be selected.

We've tried this before with some limited sucess, but might there be any interest in a regularly scheduled chat date/time?

Agold getting booted was not a travesty in my opinion, he was given every chance in the world thanks to his post count. Where I come from it just took one mistake to erase tons of goodwill you developed...agold did that repeatedly. He would be good for a short time then seemingly go out of his way to offend people. I mean any guy who bashes people who get admitted to a school when they were dinged doesnt fit the image of gmatclub...this place is about being supportive, not about saying a school made a mistake by admitting someone instead of you. You can think that but saying it does not belong here.

Mods, arent the ones banning people...you better believe that those making those decisions dont do it on a whim and try to right the ship so to speak.


I think this is just a matter of volume, people dont try to push these off the first page it just happens. Schools that get 1000's of applicants are going to dominate this place, and even some of those are more popular here than others. I think its the nature of the people applying to those schools searching out the information that is provided here. Making different areas for UE/Elite, and everything else would help keep the others from getting lost in the shuffle but at the same time it kind of makes it even more apparent there is a difference.
Easier said than done, if it would be possible to keep the first post at the top of each page that might help. Probably wouldnt want this on all threads since some the first post is huge and not that important to whats going on 100+ pages later.
I think that keeping a fairly heavy hand might turn off some people but it prevents this place from becoming like BW. A return of the negative kudo's might help. It would help gage how often someone offends people. We all make mistakes and say things that can be taken the wrong way. But if a person ends up getting a bunch they would notice that people were bothered by what they said and it might allow them to be a little more cautious when posting things like that again. Or they can proactively edit something so no one has to point it out to them. It can also provide thresholds for certain actions such as banning...it would be like survivor where you get voted off when you get a lot of people voting for it.


Someone mentioned mods for each school and it might not be a bad idea to have something along the lines of a Thread Captain for certain schools. The hard thing is most people who are mods are applicants not students and dont know where they are going to school yet. These people would only need the power to edit so they could update the first post. Personally I think any current student should have their name in a certain color to help identify them quickly. I know Steel is active here still and I am sure some new people reading his posts have no clue he is a Kellogg 1st year.

Of course if even a handful of people from this years applicants stick around next year then things will only get better and improve the transfer of information.

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

[/quote]

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".

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"

ah, cool. I will try it out on a couple of calling all applicants threads.