New golden stars to acknowledge long term membership ('Canceled')

Finally, there are some bugs:

• The month of becoming a member does not seem to be taken into account properly. I could see members who joined ProZ.com in May and December 2005, and for whom "4 years" is displayed when the mouse is moved over the star.
  
• Corporate members do not get the star, even if they are long-standing members (e.g., no start next to "Member (2002)").
  

Ralf Lemster wrote:

Corporate members do not get the star, even if they are long-standing members.
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Best, Ralf

Alicia Casal wrote:


I DO LIKE IT!

ALICIA

Attila Piróth wrote:

Finally, there are some bugs:

• The month of becoming a member does not seem to be taken into account properly. I could see members who joined ProZ.com in May and December 2005, and for whom "4 years" is displayed when the mouse is moved over the star.
  
• Corporate members do not get the star, even if they are long-standing members (e.g., no start next to "Member (2002)").
  

Kind regards,
Attila

ICL wrote:

Hi,

I agree with all the others that think that this new feature is not really necessary and it may be confusing, even "classist".

I can understand that Proz.com has chosen a known/recent translation standard (the EN 15038) as a *reference* to recognize a translator's fulfillment of some minimum professional requirements (the PRO icon), but a star recognizing long-standing paying membership definitely sounds like a mere marketing scheme.

Furthermore, obviously some people contribute/have contributed to the success/support of this website without necessarily having always (or ever) paid as members, so it also sounds rather discriminatory to recognize long-standing support of the website only in the case of those who pay.

Saluditos,

Ivette

Michele Johnson wrote:

This seems like a classic distraction measure to me - look at the beautiful shiny things! - to draw attention away from stuff like the Google Analytics fiasco, obtrusive/offensive advertising, heavy-handed forum locking, massive moderator resignation, to say nothing of the multitude of unattended bugs/suggestions that need processing, e.g. http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_suggestions-13.html

This just seems so out of touch with users - I mean, stars? What? You actually wasted programmers' time with this? Honestly, the combination of these things makes me reconsider my upcoming membership renewal. But I had better hurry and send this off before the thread is locked.

Monika Coulson wrote:

What would be the difference between the ones who have been supporting the site for 3 years and a day and those who have been here for 8-9-10 yrs and so on?

Ray_S wrote:
when these non-paying users have decided to acutally fork out some cold hard cash, they will be given a star... after a year or so.

Like many others, I don't see a utility of this new feature, as it does not carry extra information. Moreover, it can be misleading, giving an impression of higher quality. It might also influence the decision of inexperienced outsourcers when looking for translators, which is probably unfortunate, as I don't know of any proven correlation between quality and long-standing membership (and even if there is one, I have serious doubts about whether such a correlation should be used in such a way).