i have seen a number of posts pinging the 'ranks' we receive in the forums. and i have a thought that might help improve the quality of the tags... here goes:

forget the tags given due to post counts.

maybe we can do a digg like concept where each member can 'digg' a poster up or down. this rating will allow users to gauge a users perception within the community. the same member could change their mind... but the up/down vote only counts as 1. if the member goes inactive for like 3-6 months, their votes go away (keeps the fake members from skewing the results too much... maybe also void their ability to thumb until they have 10 or so posts)

taking it one step further... we could have a couple of categories under the user's avatar, each one able to be given an thumb up or down by each member.
ie:

experience: --- (+/-)
mood: --- (+/-)
knowledgeable: --- (+/-)
troll: --- (+/-)

we could also make levels to each category.
ie:
experience: ultra noob, basic noob, L33t, godlike
knowledgeable: tool, no clue, noob, enlightened, supah smaht

i would put it on a sliding percentage scale and show the count.
ie:

Keyclone
[ pic ]
experience: godlike (+/-) (1,005)
mood: barely contained excitement (+/-) (1,005)
knowledgeable: supah smaht (+/-) (1,005)
troll: angelic (+/-) (1,005)

(and yes... i deliberately made that crap up)

thoughts? categories? levels for each?