Badges!

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I like the badges concept for Discourse -- start with 10-15 basic ones, maybe add some/most of the StackExchange ones, and have flexibility for admins. This is from Jeff Atwood's initial post:

What should the 10 initial auto-awarded badges be?

And more importantly what positive community behavior do they encourage?

Filled out your user profile completely including an avatar. Why? A community full of avatars and useful profile information makes it easier to see who you're talking to.
**Read the community guidelines **(/faq) completely. Why? The community guidelines are everyone's recipe for civilized discourse.
**Cast a like. **Why? Learning to give your fellow community members a hearty pat on the back -- and avoiding meaningless "+1" and "me too" posts --
Quoted a post. Why? Quoting is crucial for flat discussions, learning to select text in another post (or use the quote button in the toolbar) helps keep discussions on topic and readable.
Replied as new topic. Why? The best way to keep topics on topic is to learn when to take your discussion to a related topic rather than replying directly.
Visited multiple days, read multiple topics. Why? Showing up regularly and reading a bunch of stuff the community is posting is the baseline of meaningful activity on any forum.
Read a long topic, every post, all the way to the end. Why? Endurance! And yes @sam we will check that you didn't just mindlessly scroll as fast as you could to get to the end, either. Read Time Matters.
Shared a topic that got clicked on. Why? Sharing topics with the outside world (using the share button and the URL that has your username on it) is how we attract new blood to any community.
Flagged a topic or post. Why? We put a trashcan on every street corner so the city can stay clean. Everyone has to pitch in.
Edited one of your posts. Why? We want people to be unafraid to edit their stuff to make corrections or improvements.

meetdilip

I would like to see custom / default titles than badges. Something that is wrapped around the circle. For Eg. if we see the topic, we should be able to know that @psychobunny is admin. Badges are old school. Ribbons are more effective in my opinion.

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@meetdilip said:
Badges are old school. Ribbons are more effective in my opinion.

Totally agree. As a user in such a forum I would not be interested to collect badges. More important for me is information with whom I am talking. Role of user - admin, dev, expert in specific field etc...

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This post is deleted!

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@marcos2

What if there are no defined roles other than user and moderator?

Badges encourage constructive participation in the forum (such as a badge for editing your post, upvoting good posts, etc), and I'm not sure if titles can duplicate that granularity.

Not to mention that StackExchange was pretty much built on badges!

meetdilip

I have a VIP group on my forum. But I cannot display it. It can be a custom / default title. User / admin can put whatever they want.

? Offline

@Kamal-Patel ...in my opinion everybody should have the right upvote or downvote a post by default and permission to edit/improve post is the only feature I think is interesting in badges. But I am not an expert in forums so maybe there are some more good features.
And editing/updating a post can be maybe added in category permission and user can be automatically moved to specific user group if he has let say more then x reputation or so.
But of course it depends on the size of users, type of forum, admin need to have control etc ...

alt

psychobunny

I think the title part is doable at this point, the API is there so somebody just needs to make a plugin for it

meetdilip

@psychobunny said:

I think the title part is doable at this point, the API is there so somebody just needs to make a plugin for it

Waiting for someone to make it real. I really like the cards.

? Offline

Any rumbles on the badge front @psychobunny ?

Even 5-10 very basic badges would be totally awesome.

I'll chip in $20 more when this feature is developed.

Baerrus

While we wait for the badge could not similar functionality be achieved with groups? Like I see admins on this forum have a small button under their profile picture. That is the same as badge for all practical purposes.

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@Baerrus

Most were thinking of stackexchange-style badges, being rewarded automatically for getting upvotes and the like.

Rather than only manually awarded badges that is.

Dave Jensen

I'd like both automatic as well as manually awarded badges. For instance, if you look at BoardGameGeek (a hideous but wildly popular forum), users can and do buy badges. I do something similar on my forum but I manually add the "purchased" badge.

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@djensen47

Wow. BoardGameGeek has the worst aesthetic of any forum I've ever seen, which is saying a lot.

But yes, manual and automatic would be great. You don't have a NodeBB forum do you?

PitaJ

@psychobunny said:

You've been awarded a badge! Congrats you've earned a badge for earning a badge! Congrats! you've earned a badge for earning a badge for earning your first badge! Congrats!...

@BDHarrington7 said:

Idea that hasn't been done before in the world of badges: a badge for getting your first badge... Or 10th badge...

Sounds like some kind of terrible endless loop.

esiao

Any news on that subject ?

psychobunny

It's one of those things I really really want to do, but never got the time to finish. Lately, entities interested in using NodeBB have led us to put more time and effort into other directions, and thus I've stalled on all the fun stuff that I've been wanting to do!

julian

@psychobunny You and me both, buddy.

wistfully reminesces about reply-by-email

esiao

@psychobunny, @julian no problem this is a side feature and developping NodeBB is more important. I understand easily that a lot of time is used to solve issues and grow the solution.
And I'm sure you'll do it when some free time points out

jolly4real

Any update on Forum Titles??