@fern*wood wrote:
I'm aware that mentors are distinguished by having their IDs appear in bold, but what makes others qualify to be in bold? Certain posting levels?
Yes, community mentors have bold IDs, and so do eBay employees (blues), and the members with the highest ranks in the community (above Rockstar). So most members with bold IDs are mentors, but not all.
Community Mentors are always at least Rockstar rank, but not all Rockstars are mentors. If a member is chosen to be a Mentor, who does not have Rockstar rank yet, then they receive the Rockstar rank when they are made a Mentor.
Originally (around 5 years ago when the Mentor program started) the Mentors were chosen from among the members who had shown some level of activity in the community, and some measure of helpfulness, and had not demonstrated undesirable behavior. The criteria were never published or confirmed. This was before the rank system was started. Some members had multiple accounts that were created Mentors, but now only one account per person can be a Mentor.
Some of the chosen Mentors remained active, some didn't, and some were active on the boards where they had originally been posting, but didn't participate on the new Member to Member board (where only Mentors can post).
When the rank system was started, all the Mentors were automatically at least Rockstar status. Probably most of them met the (unpublished) requirements to be Rockstar, but some members who applied to the Mentor program after it was started were awarded Rockstar status when they became Mentors. Some of these are members who chose to join the Mentor program with different IDs than they had been using before they joined it.
There are 3 ranks that are higher than Rockstar: Legend, Visionary and Superstar. These are all bolded too, whether the member is a Mentor or not. "Visionary" was the first of these ranks, and can only be earned by Mentors (according to Alan) but Superstars are not necessarily Mentors. The Legend rank was added at the same time as Superstar, but so far, there don't appear to be any members with Legend rank. I think they wanted to have something that the higher ranks could strive for.
I was in the Mentor program when it started, and for a number of years after. I figured out what the bolding meant, and followed the creation of the new ranks as they were made. I asked for and got confirmation from Alan for the information about the ranks higher than Rockstar, which I posted above.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/About-the-Community/Community-Ranks-amp-Badges/td-p/26252971
What are the ranks?
- Legend
- Visionary
- Superstar
- Rockstar
- Guide
- Trailblazer
- Thrill-Seeker
- Scout
- Adventurer
- Rising Star
- Pathfinder
- Explorer
- Enthusiast
