How Are Physics Forums Mentors Selected?

[Math Is Hard]

I was just curious... how did the different PF mentors become mentors? Did Greg just start picking them out over time as new categories developed and people with expertise in the subjects emerged on the boards? How many mentors were there to begin with?

 

[chroot]

I can't tell you how many mentors the site started with, but your suspicions are correct about how mentors are found. Members who are active, helpful, and consistent are often chosen for promotions. We actually have so many active, helpful, and consistent members here that we often are in a quandary: the site wouldn't necessarily benefit from having a hundred mentors, but we still want to reward those folks who help us so very much. We've thought about some kind of not-quite-mentor user class, like PF Advisor, to recognize those people.

- Warren

 

[Janus]

Well, first a mommy and daddy PF mentor have to love each other really,really alot. Then if things go just right, nine months later, the mommy PF mentor goes to the hospital...

 

[chroot]

Well, it looks like Kerrie's taken, so that leaves Monique... :P

- Warren

 

[marcus]

For shame!

everybody knows that Greg finds mentors under a cabbage leaf

 

[Math Is Hard]

Thanks, Chroot. I wondered about how this all came about since the mentors seemed to be in very different geographic locations. (well, except for that little cluster of Oregon mentors).

Janus and Marcus, awwwrrr! Little baby mentors - that's so cute! Those explanations were very sweet. :shy:

 

[quantumdude]

I was plucked off a Mentor tree.

 

[Entropy]

Well, first a mommy and daddy PF mentor have to love each other really,really alot. Then if things go just right, nine months later, the mommy PF mentor goes to the hospital...

I'm confused... Can you elaborate?

 

[chroot]

Then the mommy and daddy PF mentors get naked and hug.

- Warren

 

[Evo]

Members who are active, helpful, and consistent are often chosen for promotions. - Warren

Well, if you're going to be *that* picky, I guess I won't ever be selected.

Unfortunately my field of expertise is long haul fiber optic networks (as in the Internet backbone) which isn't discussed here.

 

[chroot]

Unfortunately my field of expertise is long haul fiber optic networks (as in the Internet backbone) which isn't discussed here.

Yet..

When PF takes over the world (any day now by my reckoning), you can pick whatever continent you want to own, and you can be our long-haul fiber optic network mentor.

- Warren

 

[Evo]

Yet..

When PF takes over the world (any day now by my reckoning), you can pick whatever continent you want to own, and you can be our long-haul fiber optic network mentor.

- Warren

WOOT!

 

[Entropy]

Then the mommy and daddy PF mentors get naked and hug.

:surprise: WHAT?! You're lying! Ahh! You've warpped my fragle little mind!

 

[zoobyshoe]

All the little mentor-origin fictions above were amusing, but the fact is mentors are the result of electro-biological experiments personally carried out by Greg Bernhardt in his basement. He performs these experiments with several tesla coils, van de Graaf generators, and jacob's ladders running, and when he's finished, enjoys shouting "Its ALIIIIVVVE! IT'S AAALLLLIIIIIVVVVEEEE!"

 

[The Bob]

No, the stork brings the baby mentors when the parents love each other a lot. The storks pick them from the rare mentor tree (Menotrous Hazardousien).

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I don't know how I got here. Where are we?

 

[Monique]

Well, it looks like Kerrie's taken, so that leaves Monique... :P

- Warren

uhh..

We're like a giant ant hill with tunnels and different chambers, Greg is hidden somewhere in the middle orchastrating all the action.. once in a while a worker ant finds it's way through all the tunnels and reaches Greg, he will then rub off some special powers and a mentor is born

 

[Monique]

I don't know how I got here. Where are we?

I haven't seen daylight since I came in, do you know the way out?

 

[Hurkyl]

Some of us just appeared out of thin air.

 

[Monique]

Ahh you THINK so, do you still remember what you did before you came here? Ahh, SEE? You don't :surprise:

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Legend has it that some mentors are really the mystical Tokoloshe.

Originally a water sprite, the tokoloshe is nowadays often a domestic spirit in the households of witches and warlocks. Usually described as a brown, hairy dwarf, it is virtually identical, in habits and appearance, to the brownie of European folklore. The tokolosh is said to speak with a lisp. It is usually naked, but sometimes wears a cloak. In European folklore, a naked brownie often "helps" around the house until it is "paid" with clothing, after which it may disappear. The tokolosh has a single buttock. (Interestingly, in European folklore, demons are also supposed to lack human buttocks, Satan supposedly being frustrated in his attempts to replicate this uniquely human feature. When he felt oppressed by devils, Martin Luther is said to have bared his buttocks to frighten them away.)

http://www.vanhunks.com/tokoloshe1.html

 

[Math Is Hard]

so... if one is promoted to mentor, is one required to forfeit a butt cheek, and throw away all their Victoria's Secret thongs?

 

[Tsu]

Yes. You should see the collection of Ivan's thongs in the garbage. It's pitiful. We won't talk about the butt cheek thing, tho.

 

[Evo]

Yes. You should see the collection of Ivan's thongs in the garbage. It's pitiful. We won't talk about the butt cheek thing, tho.

SNORT SNORT heheh sorry

 

[quantumdude]

so... if one is promoted to mentor, is one required to forfeit a butt cheek, and throw away all their Victoria's Secret thongs?

You are being quite smug, for someone who is doing so well in math. We just might come for your cheek and thongs, if you keep up the good work.

 

[The Bob]

You are being quite smug, for someone who is doing so well in math. We just might come for your cheek and thongs, if you keep up the good work.

Oh no. Oh no. Get out while you can Maths.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Math Is Hard]

thikoloshes

You are being quite smug, for someone who is doing so well in math. We just might come for your cheek and thongs, if you keep up the good work.

YIKES! :surprise: You're cracking me up, Tom.

I just recently took a break from math to get some other required subjects out of the way, one of them being anthropology. Last night I was reading one of the assigned books for the class, Kaffir Boy, which is a story about a young black man growing up in South Africa during Apartheid. In the story, the mother tries to stop her starving son from begging scraps of food from the neighbors by telling him that the neighbors are witches who "at the dead of night, stripped themselves naked and rode on baboons and thikoloshes on various voodoo missions."
What a weird coincidence, to happen upon this twice in one day when I have never heard of these mythical creatures ever before in my life.
There is a footnote describing the thikoloshes at the bottom of the page: "Small hairy beasts with faces squashed up like baboons and penises so long they had to be carried over the shoulders."
wow!

 

[Robert Zaleski]

I was just curious... how did the different PF mentors become mentors? Did Greg just start picking them out over time as new categories developed and people with expertise in the subjects emerged on the boards? How many mentors were there to begin with?

Some through blackmail, some by unabashed hienie kissing, and others, well, they were excreted from the deepest pits of Hell.

 

[Robert Zaleski]

...penises so long they had to be carried over the shoulders.wow!

How crude, I haul mine around in a Kevlar Viper leg holster.

 

[Math Is Hard]

How crude, I haul mine around in a Kevlar Viper leg holster.

Thanks a lot, Zaleski!
There went a perfectly good mouthful of Coca-cola C2 all over my monitor!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

IT seems these guys have many names: Tokoloshe, Tokolosh, Tokoloshi, Thokolosi, Tikaloshe, Africa's Brownie, PF Mentor. The same excerpt is found here.

The penis of the thokolosi is so long that it has to be slung over his shoulder. Thus sexually well-endowed, the duties of the tokolosh include making love to its witch mistress. In return, it is rewarded with milk and food. In common with European myths and legends concerning familiars, salt must not be added to food offerings for tokoloshes. The witch keeps the tokoloshe docile by cutting the fringe of hair that hangs over its eyes. Witches sometimes inherit these demon lovers from their mothers.

I just left that part out so as not to humiliate our male, human counterparts here.

 

[Math Is Hard]

...Tokoloshe, Tokolosh, Tokoloshi, Thokolosi, Tikaloshe...

I think whoever named was probably going for "Lack o' tooshie"
but he'd had just a little too much to drink. (which was probably why he saw 'em in the first place!)

 

[Robert Zaleski]

Thanks a lot, Zaleski!
There went a perfectly good mouthful of Coca-cola C2 all over my monitor!

I'm wheel-lee, wheel-lee sow-we!

 

[Evo]

IT seems these guys have many names: Tokoloshe, Tokolosh, Tokoloshi, Thokolosi, Tikaloshe, Africa's Brownie, PF Mentor. The same excerpt is found here.

ROFL! I just noticed PF Mentor.

Yeah, I'm a bit slow.

 

[Janitor]

If you plan on starting a room dedicated to America-bashing and/or to the praise of North Korea and of Islamic theocracies, may I be the first to nominate Adam for the mentor job?

 

[loseyourname]

If you plan on starting a room dedicated to America-bashing and/or to the praise of North Korea and of Islamic theocracies, may I be the first to nominate Adam for the mentor job?

I second that nomination. I'm ashamed to have the same name as that kid.

 

[jimmy p]

When I grow up I want to be a mentor just like Ivan Seeking.

 

[quantumdude]

When I grow up I want to be a mentor just like Ivan Seeking.

You'll have to apply for citizenship on Planet X, then.

 

[Gokul43201]

You'll have to apply for citizenship on Planet X, then.

Planet X ? I thought it was Eroticon 6 !

 

[zoobyshoe]

Planet X ? I thought it was Eroticon 6 !

It is, but cut Tom some slack. He doesn't have time to keep up with the latest literature on the Seeking phenomenon. (It may not seem that way to you or me, but some issues may be more pressing.)

 

[jimmy p]

I'd prefer Eroticon 6 to Planet X, but I suppose I better book a cruise to both planets, just to be on the safe side.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It is, but cut Tom some slack. He doesn't have time to keep up with the latest literature on the Seeking phenomenon. (It may not seem that way to you or me, but some issues may be more pressing.)

That's true. Since showing up on X [aka Eroticon 6] Tom has spent most of his time at the Kevlar Viper leg holster fitting shop.

 

[jimmy p]

Actually, I think after Eroticon 6, you should go the Planet X's triplet, Planet XXX