Draft for membership on Academic members

Encouraging people...that is a good idea. Maybe what we need is a small group of people who will nominate others

I don't want to do this myself because, as the person processing the applications, it will be seen as favoritism if I get to choose those who should get the title.

But maybe I can organize a group of people to submit threads for members that they consider worthy... that sounds good.

I will pursue this in the near future. :) Thanks, Act of Oblivion!

Hmmm...do you really think that "the posts must have included sources" is that much of a wunderbar idea? I mean, look at it this way - many members such as Justinian, Shakkurin and others who know their stuff don't always include sources in their posts, but frankly, they display enough ingenuity and historical debate in their answers to deserve merit. 

Shouldn't the quality of the article on the site be in question (I don't mean to sound snobby, but there are many that are just reports without any method or research being done, which doesn't neccesarily merit them as historians), as the fruits of their labours rather than the posts on the forum? The forum is surely for quick discussions being based on your historical knowledge right at the computer- the real source analysis and stuff like that should go into the articles.

If you editorial and moderator guys want to encourage people to do more in the way of serious history on the site and forum, then the rewards should be for the corner stone of the site- the articles section. All empires was origionally built to create a site with online history articles - considering that there aren't that many for a community this large, I think that my point carries some weight - I think that too many people use their considerable historical knowledge and abilities on the forum rather than putting it into articles. If we encourage time on the articles rather than time on the forum, then the origional point of this entire community would be considerably enriched.

When I and many others come to AE, we don't expect (apart from on some occasions) to dig out our Livys and Appians (in my case)- we expect to save those for the articles and speak lightly and fluidly (at least for us history geeks LOL!) about our subject of passion and save our real energies for the purpose of this community - the articles!

It pains me to see all of these great historians with loads of potential to simply put it into brilliant threads that could be stirred up into a nice article to enrich the community rather than end up on page #20 of a board and remain unopened in the deep dark depths of the server's .CGI bin.

I mean, for example - the Iron age of Meroe by the ingenius Tobodei - It's brilliant! He, like most people should, has spent his energies on the thing that this site was made by Cyrus to do! ...And that's to write articles! Under these criteria that you are stating, he wouldn't get a reward for this work, and he, as a historian would be based on the discussions that he has on forum threads rather than the full fruits of his labours - constructed essays which is the true output of the historian and is how any university would judge him.

Edited by Aster Thrax Eupator - 01-Aug-2007 at 16:58

Precisely! You're actually doing what this entire community was made to do, and you wouldn't be rewarded for it by some of the clauses for this "AE acedemic" title.

Yes - I think so, Act of Oblivion. For something this large to be implemented, many measures need to be considered, but I still think that this should be used to encourage people to write more for the main site. There really isn't enough material on it for something that's been going this long because people spend all their time chatting on the forum.

This sounds like an interesting idea

If it's not too late, I'd like to apply.  Haven't written an article yet (although there are certainly essays that I could dig up) but I can and am willing to. Unless it depends on already having done so.

Then again, maybe I'm being overconfident or ignorant. But hey, I'll give it a shot.


Edited by TheARRGH - 05-Jan-2009 at 06:00

Fair enough. I'll wait with bated breath. :D