But how the "activity" is calculated?
Have a look here:
FAQ: Everything you need to know about forum 'activity, account ranks and meritI've described the activity bit below (from that link).
The other thing that determines your rank is merit. You see the link in the top right of each post? When someone thinks you've written a good post, they can award you merit. For each 2 points of merit you receive, you get 1 point of sendable merit 'sMerit' that you can then use to merit other people's posts.
You need to get both your merit and your activity above the threshold in order to rank up. That's it, nothing more than that.
I for example have 882 activity, which is enough for Hero (or maybe even Legendary). However I only have 288 merit, so this is why I am a Senior Member. You will likely find that whilst it is easy to increase your activity, it can be quite difficult to accumulate merit. It is frowned upon to ask for merit, but if you can make some well thought out, informative and helpful posts, then merit should start to accrue naturally. The best advice I can offer is don't go looking for merit, just concentrate on post quality, and don't get disheartened if it takes a while to build up - we have all experienced that.
Please also check out the
Beginners and Help board, where you'll find a huge amount of useful information.
The way activity is calculated is complicated to understand, but simply put you can only get 14 activity points every two week period. This is basically all you need to know but I will explain the intricacies and technicalities of the system below to avoid any confusion:
★ You can only get 14 activity points every fortnightly period.
★ The fortnightly periods are fixed and do not start when you sign up.
★ A list of all the dates of the activity periods can be found on this spreadsheet (credit goes to jambola2 for compiling it).
★ You can technically get more than 14 activity in two weeks if you sign up between periods.
★ You only need to make at least one post in each activity period to be able to collect the activity at a later date. For instance, you could make one post in three different periods and you would then have 3 posts and 3 activity, but a potential activity of 42. Once you made the 42 posts you would then have 42 activity but no more. If you made one post in 35 different periods you would then have 35 posts and 35 activity but a potential activity of 480. That means you would be a Junior Member but if you made the full 480 posts you would instantly become a Hero Member.
★ If your post count eclipses your activity by 14 or more then you will only need to make one post in the new period to get the full 14 activity. For instance, your post count is 200 but your activity is only 28. To get another 14 activity you will only need to make one post in the new period and you will then have a total of 42 activity.
Ranks and activity:
Brand New: 0 posts
Newbie: 1-29 activity
Jr. Member: 30-59 activity
Member: 60-119 activity
Full Member: 120-239 activity
Sr. Member: 240-479 activity
Hero Member: 480 activity
Legendary: Somewhere between 775 and 1030 activity
Merit:
In addition to Activity you now need Merit to achieve each rank. The required merit is detailed below:
Brand new: 0
Newbie: 0
Jr Member: 1
Member: 10
Full Member: 100
Sr. Member: 250
Hero Member: 500
Legendary: 1000
