Who or what are *fsme ?

On some mod avatars they are labelled with
*fsme

Can we please have information on what this stands for or means ? Thanks

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

Its a "forum Subject Expert"

Honestly its not really used anymore but if there was a member who was say known to have expertise in say aviation they would become a FSME and it would give them the ability to give out applauses in that particular forum. I think the idea was that ATS would have a small cadre of experts in specific topics. Really though its kind of died off, can't remember the last time anyone was made a FSME and lets face, lots of people would still disagree with the choices of who was given the badge.

So yeah thats it.

Doesn't really mean anything anymore.

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

Forum Subject Matter Expert

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

Not sure mate but FSME comes up with a number of results in a quick check - I am using Ecosia so maybe google or bing will turn up more but the one that caught my attention was Finite State Machine Editor so perhaps some of them are actually AI's testing routine's of some sort honing there communication simulation skill's.

Edit - OtherSideOfTheCoin and David64 have nailed it, or have they - cue creepy electronic music.

Fast responses , many thanks . They're forum subject matter experts
It's kind of nice to know that ArMaP is a computer expert .

There seems to be hierarchy with super moderators etc ,

does anyone know how many mods there actually are or how this supposed hierarchy operates ?

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

If you click of the forums tab it shows you all of the mods on a list at the side.

It goes form ATS-Staff, to Super-mod to mod.

I don know how many there are right now because quite a few of them on the list don't post as much as they used to and it seems to change every now and then I guess you could do a count if you wanted to for yourself.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Ah yes , so there is a list

There are 48 of them all with anonymous names excluding the founder Simon Gray

Assuming they dont all work at once my guess is they run on a skeleton staff of about 10 or 12 max at any given time .

I'll look up Simon's bio and post anything interesting or ask another question

It is an odd observation that many of the staffers are FSME’s for various forums. But that is actually a side effect of time. Most FSME’s were not on staff when they were made, but over the years...

a reply to: Ahabstar

So they were bestowed the title , and then were absorbed into the organisation , interesting . They were trusted accounts and then were hired . It's good if people know each other well . Can we please ask what qualifies for expertise in any given subject matter , and who bestows such an honor ?

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

I have seen new ones pop up, but never been part of the process that makes them, since there have been no new FSME’s in many years. But I can say they are fairly knowledgeable on the subject. Semperfortis is the one for the Survival forum (my membership predate the creation of that forum).

I have zero problem with him holding that title over me as we both know enough that despite living it with those skills in play, we know that we don’t know everything. Semper being a Marine (once a Marine, always a Marine) is the one I would defer to in making a judgement call in a situation.

And here is why. My solution may have worked or even been the right course of action, but took too much time and resources to complete and we still would get by on his plan. Conversely mine might have only worked if and only if there was full commitment to the plan and wasted resources if we failed. Or if I failed to explain the process fully.

So more than just raw knowledge. And for those reading this and scratching their heads because I would ask “the dumb questions” on the Survival Radio Shows. I often did so for audience members that could not because we didn’t take many callers.

One other thing to note, not all forums have FSME’s and some have or had more than one. Also as mentioned, it is pretty much a remnant of the past. As a FSME did have the ability to applaud posts within their own forum.

You will also notice that some have Writer, Fighter and/or Scholar instead of Member as their status. Those still exist, Writer being the most currently used.

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

Those are the proverbial jocks of the 'high school' here. They're issued Varsity jackets, and if you're a female you dont want to go out into the woods with three or more of them just before sundown.

a reply to: Ahabstar

Oorah ! Except that it's "Oo-arr!" when you're a farmer from England !
Very interesting thankyou .

I've found that the site is not listed by wikipedia and that Simon Gray is a hardly discernable figure head . With this in mind I'm guessing that it's run by some form of SOC and that protection for said runs to the top echelons . As for me I'm cool with that , if that's anywhere near the mark anyway . I'll not ask too many difficult questions, considering you guys give us the freedom to do so on so many other topics

also and

The FSME tag is used to denote particularly knowledgeable members of a particular subject.

For me, it's weapons. A few years ago FSMEs would be responsible for keeping their neck of the woods clean from clutter, would alert inappropriate posts, and provide information in particular discussions.

That role is no longer supported on ATS, though I believe it served a useful purpose.

Well you know what they say about experts?

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

It did used to be on Wiki but the page was taken down.

If I had to guess I would say it was because as I recall, the "Criticism" heading was massive, turned basically into a entire page of ATS banned me because..... so understandably who ever the powers that be from ATS staff form that page shut it down.

Wasn't all that interesting anyway.

Thanks for the further replies . We will treat the mods as friendlies

And the experts as experts



a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Its more interesting that it's gone , but hey ho . Worcestershire won the 20-20

originally posted by: DoctorBluechip
So they were bestowed the title , and then were absorbed into the organisation , interesting .

In my case I was made a FSME in July 2008 (maybe, I couldn't find the exact date) and a moderator in October 2009.
(how time flies when we're having fun)

They were trusted accounts and then were hired .

I wouldn't use the word "hired", as it appears to imply that there's a payment involved, which is not the case.

Can we please ask what qualifies for expertise in any given subject matter , and who bestows such an honor ?

I suppose any person that has shown any kind of above average knowledge about something qualifies as a possible FSME, and I know that at least in some cases members were made FSMEs by suggestions of other members. As for who bestows those honours I suppose that would be either the super-moderators, the owners or a mix of those.