"Testers" user group

[Doublestrike]

With my UI work I've noticed a lot of testers coming out of the woodwork (@Jaedyr and @slowe come to mind immediately). As Braids said a while back, "I like our testers and I want to be nice to them". These guys (and gals) are great, and definitely needed.

What do the site admin and users think about a new "Testers" user group? Brainstorming:

• As a new developer on the Forge team, I know it would be useful to see who these people are.
• It's a nod of thanks for the contribution, and gives a feeling of solidarity to this important team
• It will incentivize other people who are "on the fence" to help contribute
• It shows regular users that there's a middle ground between development and release
• It adds a note of professionalism to the entire Forge team and site

[jeffwadsworth]

The current set up here works just fine for me. All Forge users are testers in my opinion.

[Jaedayr]

The current setup is fine with me also. I enjoy breaking, err testing software and providing feedback to help make the project better. After all, every bug that gets squashed makes my play experience more fun as well. So I see my testing as a win/win situation.

[slowe]

I don't think of myself as a tester... My apparent emergence from the woodwork has more to do with me having some time and you specifically requesting feedback than with anything else. Unfortunately, most of the time I'm too busy or lazy to submit proper bug reports. Instead, bug notes pile up in a text file so I don't have to interrupt my quest to test reproducibility or get more data.
So, maybe you've guilt-tripped me into being more disciplined about feedback -- mission accomplished, without a tester group. Having such a group couldn't hurt, but I think directly encouraging feedback will get you further.
Anyway, the most stable releases Forge has are betas: as jeff says, everyone's a tester.

[WompWomp]

While I personally don't care one way or the other, anything that incentivises giving useful reports can't hurt.