Right now, after reading all this, I'm wondering how many of these similar requests were turned down (and not replied to) during the past few weeks by Crooked, Swoop and myself...
We're sorry to say this, but we do feel rather 'annoyed' whenever we receive PMs asking for coloured titles. We haven't announced this in public, but the following people whom we're allowing coloured titles are:
- Forum moderators and up
- Award winners (i.e. Forum Award or GFX winners, WhiteAngel is the perfect example)
- People who are not of either of the above groups *but* considered to be helpful in someway
The last category is a rather twisted case. Part of the reason is that we've made it a policy to consider coloured titles as 'gifts' of contribution from us. Try to place yourself in our positions when you receive the following (purposely edited to make it more generic):
On AIM:
Random user currently not on AIM list pops up.....no idea who this is
User - Amantis?
Mant - Ya?
User - Can I have a coloured title?
Mant - May I ask why you want a coloured title?
--->Having no idea who this is...
Mant - Actually, may I ask who you are first?
User - It's [insert random name]
Mant - I see...
User - I wanna have a coloured title because...
User - Well...uh...
User - I think it looks cool
Somebody starts raising eyebrows on the other side
or maybe if you put it in an exaggerated PM format...:
Title: Coloured Title!
Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeee gimme a coloured title!!!! I want to have a rainbow saying [insert 'blah blah blah' here] or else I'm gonna die!!!
Thank you!!!
~Me
If these messages were sent once in several months, maybe we can still endure it and made the changes. But imagine receiving 5 similar messages each and every day is like 5 people demanding to be moderators in some way.
Don't get me wrong, I know colour changing is rather easy to do, but once one person starts asking for it, everybody else does and starts to ask where you got it. Of course, when that happens, who would you direct that person to PM/IM?
We have received requests for coloured titles in back in our earlier newbie admin days and did the changes, but after that, the more requests we've granted, the more people keep demanding for them, and the more annoying it can be (as well as the more ridiculous we felt for carrying them out). So yes, it is suggested not to ask for coloured titles because we're not accepting requests anymore (despite the fact that we've granted some of them earlier).
No, I'm not trying to be mean here Matrix and Dark Mage, but please understand that such titles are now 'earned'. Try helping out for the sake of the forums, and we might approach you then.
- Amantis
