squelchtone wrote:I don't think being a member for 3 months and having 40 "quality" posts that either help others or contribute to the forum, for the applicant to be of sound character and being able to handle advanced material as voted by the mods is too rigid. Maybe the first time he applied he didn't get in, or maybe he's never applied.
One has to apply, write a note saying why they need/want the access and then you wait a month or two. My application process took over 2 months, but I was very happy the day I got the saying I had been granted access.
Here are the official details; if they have not already been posted above:
http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2474Good luck to all qualified applicants!
Squelchtone
Well it is good that you enjoy being able to contribute to the advanced forums and all and back in 2006 when you were granted access it looked as if there was either much more interest in contributing to those forums or the pre-requisites for access were less intensive and have changed since then...
A quick look at the advanced forums membership listing shows:
in 2011 only ONE lucky member has been accepted to the advanced forums so far this year
in 2010 only 6 members were accepted into the advanced forums
in 2009 there were 23 members that were accepted
in 2008 there were 36 members that were accepted
in 2007 there were 68 members that were accepted
in 2006 there were 115 members that were accepted
in 2005 there were 106 members that were accepted
in 2004 there were 104 members that were accepted
in 2003 when the advanced section was created there were 30 members that were accepted and 2 group leaders
That is a total of 491 members with access to the advanced forums...
I don't know how many "active" members are around but the board indicates at the bottom of the main page that there are currently 53892 member accounts, without knowing how many are banned, abandoned/orphaned or inactive, it can be said that in each of those categories there MUST be more than 491 accounts of each of those types... Only 0.00911081422103466191 % of the registered accounts on this website have access to the advanced forums... Mathematically it does not appear that the odds are in one's favor when making that membership request...
I am just kind of curious as to why the interest in the advanced forums seems to have peaked and is in decline... When those forums were new many more people were accepted into them to contribute, but in the past five years very very few members in comparison have been accepted...
What is the rejection rate of people who have applied for access to those forums?
Are statistics on that even kept?
Perhaps there would be more interest in that particular aspect of the site if the process was more transparent and proceeded more rapidly than it has recently -- even if only 25% of applicants are accepted that would be only 28 people being considered in the past year and few months...
HOW DO I GET ACCESS TO THE ADVANCED FORUMS? READ HERE.It is stated in the thread about the qualifications and procedures to apply that it is not a club, however the relative small list of members who have gained access to those forums as well as the dwindling trend in recent successfully approved applications is tending to indicate that those statements might not be fully accurate...
I am fully aware that this is a site management issue, this inquiry is NOT intended to start a debate about the process and I hope it is not interpreted that way, it is just curiosity into an issue that seems to happen magically behind the scenes and I can't be the only one here that is curious about how it works... A more in-depth explanation of how it all works behind the scenes might make the process function more smoothly...
~~ Evan
