How to determine when someone became a member?

The best of the New Year to all. I figured I would turn the soil on this planting of looking for a way to determine the date a membership started.

I like using this feature before making suggestions on posts. If an individual is new i.e. membership check. I like to provide input to improve their chance of a response. I'm reluctant to do this before checking membership date.

The best of the New Year to all. I figured I would turn the soil on this planting of looking for a way to determine the date a membership started.

I like using this feature before making suggestions on posts. If an individual is new i.e. membership check. I like to provide input to improve their chance of a response. I'm reluctant to do this before checking membership date.

I don't really plan on making information like this public, to me it could be an account security issue. 

Well that is unfortunate but not surprising.

As a former IT Security specialist I find the reasoning timeworn. I can see the date you become a RoadTester but not the date you became a member?

Let's be honest, based on the functionality regression with the new site, I suspect it is more a design issue than security. I speculate the data is stored with other more sensitive data. Making one available risks making the other available. "Oh we can't do it because of security" when it actual fact the poor data storage model doesn't make the data available.

I felt it was important for the community to police itself and provide assistance where possible. Determining a person is new to the site has enabled me to make some recommendations on posts or content. I will step back from offering newbie suggestions if I can't determine the audience.

I will just add this to the growing list of other regressions the site has delivered that negatively impact the user experience.

colporteur said:

I can see the date you become a RoadTester but not the date you became a member?

I find that being visible, weird, personally, and I'm not sure why that's also visible, but I'm also not the only one who makes decisions affecting the Community

colporteur said:

Let's be honest, based on the functionality regression with the new site, I suspect it is more a design issue than security. I speculate the data is stored with other more sensitive data. Making one available risks making the other available. "Oh we can't do it because of security" when it actual fact the poor data storage model doesn't make the data available.

I can totally see that being the case.

colporteur said:

I will step back from offering newbie suggestions if I can't determine the audience.

C'mon, this isn't too different to when you meet someone in person, right? You can never really know if the advice you're offering is truly falling on deaf ears or if the person never knew the information in the first place.

I can respect your stance on this, and my approach is to offer the help anyway, worst case is that they already knew it, and may learn something anyway, and if they are hostile to rejecting someone coming from an approach of being helpful, well perhaps they don't deserve to be helped further and that'll be clear and tarnish their reputation.

I'm sure knowing account age was helpful to determine this to steer your decision in the first place, though I disagree that it should be the only deciding factor and hope you continue to help out as we all do, it's appreciated.

I would argue the queues from social media and the queues received from personal interaction are different. When they are interchanged it becomes acceptable to terminate someone from a position with an email message.

For me, how communication is established using social media or interaction is different. Being an introvert the personal interaction offers more challenges. The social media technique I have used for this site was a developed skill. "How to change behaviour (i.e. improve success in getting a response or making the message more appealing to other members), make the individual feel welcomed and that the message is valued, yet not piss them off with elitism. 

"I can see by your membership date that you are a new member. Welcome to our community. You will find people on this site are very helpful but can be busy. It is important in a message, especially looking for an asnwer, to provide as much detail as possible. This gives you the greatest chances of success. Some members don't visit the site often. When they do stop by, you want to make sure all the information is in the message, so they can provide the answer if they have it."

Removing the queue of membership, changes the introduction. As the decision gavel is banged, we loose some things and we gain some things. I credit this feature set, being able to confirm membership date, as a loss and move on.

I think we can both agree: it's difficult.