New Member <--> Full Member Transitions

[Admin]

Greetings;

Below is the procedure that we follow for when / how to go about upgrading someone from New Member to Full Member status (and give them access to the private forum). It comes down to a balance between protecting the privacy of our existing 'family' and trying to bring in 'good matches' for our group, while at the same time not being overly draconian and restrictive.

• New board members will go through -- what we hope will be -- a relatively short period of time as a New Member, during which they get to introduce themselves and get to know us, while we get to know them. When the current forum Staff (Administrator and Global Moderators) thinks that the person is a good fit for us, we will conduct a Staff vote to to decide whether or not to bring the person in as a Full Member, with a 2/3 vote requirement for acceptance (and a 2 out of 3 quorum necessary to be present). Any of the current Staff can call for a vote, when they think that the New Member has presented themselves to the group as a whole adequately.
  
• If someone does not post to the forum for over a period of one year, but does log on from time to time, their member group will be changed to New Member, granting them access to the public areas only, until such time as they begin to participate again.
  
• If someone does not post to the forum or even log on for over a period of one year, their membership in the forum will be removed; that is, their account will be deleted as being inactive. They can easily rejoin the forum again by going through the account activation steps and beginning again as a New Member.
  
• In either case, a moderator will attempt to contact the person via email (the one used to activate the account) to invite their return to active status on the forum again, *prior* to taking action on that person's account. If the email address is invalid, or a reasonable amount of time (at least two weeks) passes and the person has not responded to the correspondence, this will be taken as a negative response and the moderator will proceed with the account demotion/deactivation action.
  
• In the instance where a person writes just a few one-line posts each year to keep their Full Member status, thereby meeting the 'letter of the law' but not our intended 'spirit' of active forum participation, the moderators have the ability to vote that person back to New Member status, in the same way that have the ability to grant each person Full Member status now. This will give us some case-by-case flexibility.
  
• Violations of the Forum Usage Policy or other disruptions of our ability to foster and maintain a safe and enjoyable board posting environment will result in a Staff vote to decide whether or not to demote the person back to New Member status, with a 2/3 vote requirement for acceptance (and a 2 out of 3 quorum necessary to be present). Any of the current Staff can call for such a vote if they deem it necessary. Following such a demotion, the person in question can -- at a later time -- be reconsidered for promotion once again when the situation leading to the demotion appears to be corrected.
  

Best regards,

-- Bagheera