In the old groups we didnt' need level indicators, because everyone who was active on the groups, knew not only who the regular contributors were, but also their personalities and the kinds of things they posted. THose who were new, knew they were new and so did the regulars know they were new. I think that is preferable, actually. To have a community where people just get to know each other in the community, without having artificial level indicators.
I see the point of @Till & Jutta about how it is helpful for those asking a question to see the amount of experience of those answering, but the quality and thoughtfulness of answers is also indicative of the amount of experience, and I think that is actually preferable, to be able to gauge someone's experience level just by the content of their reply. In fact, it's better for someone to assess the value of a cerain reply, just by its content, not by the "level" of the person replying. It's not going to necessarily be true that someone with a higher "level" gives a better reply. And after all, one gains hosting experience and wisdom, by actual life experience, but with regard to the levels on these groups, you can gain levels just by posting stuff -- which may or may not be useful, or quality content. As @Helga astutely indicates, one could go up in "levels" here on the groups, but not actually be a host who has ever had any guests book your place. So the level indicator most definitely is not correlated with actual hosting experience, or really any real life experience at all-- it's solely a function of number of posts/replies/initial threads/likes etc.
I dont' know the details but I think the levels are calculated not only by one's number of posts, but also by the replies to one's posts and perhaps the "likes" on one's posts, etc. So, when a group user starts many threads, and thus has many replies to those threads, their "level" could potentially climb even when they are off on vacation somewhere, not doing any posting at all, because people are still replying to their posts.
I dont' exactly feel comfortable being the highest level person currently on here. IT attracts attention and perhaps envy and resentment. I like being helpful, but my motivation to be helpful, is to build hosting skills and knowledge among hosts, and to make certain bad experiences/learning mistakes that I had with renters in the past, be used for a good purpose now, to benefit others. My motivation to be helpful is not to "get stuff", and that is the sense that the level indicators introduce. Now, one can potentially be motivated to participate not to be helpful or to build community, but to rocket oneself to level stardom. Icky. Also I certainly don't like being a person others resent or envy, like Shannon so honestly and directly responding to the levels saying, "I'm 1 and you are 7 (or 8)....what's up with that???!"
. I think we should all have the option to make our level invisible, or hidden, so that others couldn't see it.
