Does your forum have any special user groups, in addition to staff user groups? Maybe for VIPs, people who made X number of posts, gold members, etc. What do you call them? What benefits do you offer to the members?
General members are just called Members with a regular Pokeball icon.
Next we have, in order:
Great Member/Great Ball - for making 500 posts.
Ultra Member/Ultra Ball - for making 1000 posts.
Master Member / Master Ball - not post count-based, given at the discretion of the staff team for significant contributions to the forum.
Back when I actually owned a forum, we only had one special group and that was the Contributors group. Members of the community could gain access to this group through three methods; posting a great deal and keeping the community active, retiring from a staff position after contributing a lot of their own time towards the community and finally by winning the title from competitions. 😛
They gained benefits such as a colored username, access to private forums, given details about potential new changes, etc.
I normally implement a Special member type user group into my board. This gives such a user some privileges like:
- Access to a special board
- Can lock, edit and delete all own topics/posts
- A coloured (normally medium blue) name
- A special rank image and signature user-bar.
Depending on the amount of staff groups, I might incorporate a peacekeeper rank onto the board. These member are basically mini moderators and can lock and move/merge posts to stop small flames. They can't issue a sanction though, like a ban or warning, full moderators and senior staff reserve this right.