I want to stop, but the voices tell me not to

This is probably going to get me into trouble (though that's never stopped me in the past) but...I think the ranks are fun and cool, but gaining a star is not my priority on the forum. It's just to chat, and sometimes it's random, and sometimes I do have a point, often I don't. I just like to keep in touch with my forum friends. But now, sometimes I'll start to post something and then stop and delete cos I'm afraid of (again) being accused of trying to bump up my status. Nothing could be further from my mind. I actually wouldn't mind doing away with the ranks if it meant that it gave us more freedom to post.

There, I said it.

I don't think doing away with the ranks would stop people from dragging things off topic and that's what people have issue with! I have no problems with people gabbling away in off topic or word association games, it's when it starts creeping into threads that people want to read for legitimate interest and not have to filter out pages of a few people's conversation! I was as bad as anyone and in fact argued for more leniency in off topic, but we're growing now and if every thread descends into 20 pages of chatter people aren't going to bother trawling through it for gig details!
I don't see people bumping their post count as an issue at all, if you think someone is deliberately posting one word or emoticons in order to gain stars, PM a mod, our inboxes are always open!

The ranks are here to stay. They are an important part of most forums, and keep people posting, thus keeping places active. It's fairly obvious when people are trying to bump their post count, and it's been jumped on in the past (mentioning no names).

I was tempted SG, after reading your post, to introduce a special rank of 'Rank Abstainer', but I think that misses the point. There is nothing but freedom to post on here, and you should never, ever censor your own post for that reason.

Let's be honest, if the Word Association thread isn't for post count hogs, I don't know what it's for!

Yeah, if you want to bump up your posts, word association and no topic are the place to be. I would try and bump my rank to the "Mystery rank (dum dum duuuummmm)", but I only usually post when I have something to say. Plus I don't know how many I need for the next rank

Can we have a "Switching Off" rank for the elderly?

'Not A Job' for the unemployed.

and...

'Forget Myself' for Alzheimer's sufferers.

What about Crawling with Idiot for truoblemakers?...

No, wait...on second thought....

....How could we deploy "The Everthere"?

That'll be me and Al, because between the two of us, we're always watching!

I have to admit that I tried to get the rank of leaders of the free world really quick (first answer on this thread ). But on someday, I stoped posting everytime on the Word Association thread. Yeah, from time to time, I join in. But at the moment I rather read the important stuff on this forum. And like I've wrote at the "New forum rules" thread it's a real pity that the mood around here changed so bad....

I think it's all getting back to normal again now.