Community Hero (contributed 50 reviews and 300 grades)
If this sounds like a good idea, feel free to add your suggestions. Tiered badges (bronze, silver, gold) would be great for incentivizing users to read or contribute.
Iâm indifferent towards achievements in general, but I donât think streak achievements are a good idea. The others like number of books read or reviews given are fine because you canât âloseâ progress. But with streak achievements if you miss a day (or whatever interval) you go back to zero, which I find discouraging.
I thought that was already an existing feature suggestion (I remember discussing it in the main feature discussion thread) but I guess it never made it to a full request?
Agreed, streaks feel punitive for no reason. They also push people to do meaningless stuff (e.g., connecting to the website without other purpose than keeping the streak).
I do agree with the streak counter that could be punitive. Also it will increase workload of people trying to get their streaks restored. On the other side a non-strict control of a streak makes it useless.
Itâs not up to me, but I would be disappointed to see this personally. One of the things I love about this site is that it doesnât âwantâ anything from me. It doesnât care whether I read every day, or I donât read anything for a month/year. It doesnât matter whether I log Days Read, time spent, etc. The site has zero expectations, and it isnât trying to influence or âincentivizeâ me to behave in a certain way. Itâs also not trying to elevate anyone over anyone else. The closest it gets to trying to influence my behavior is asking if I want to grade things.
If someone wants to celebrate that theyâve achieved any of the things you mentioned, they can just put that on their profile, or make a forum post, imo. On the same token, if someoneâs not interested in those things they shouldnât have the site making them conscious of it. While it might be motivating for some, it might be demotivating or intimidating (or just annoying) for others.
So what do you want to do with this PR? Speculative? Leave it pending?
Iâd say this in case this is implemented, to make it optional opt-in and part of the on-board process. If you donât opt-in, you wonât see anybodyâs badges.
No the thing I had in mind was for âachievementsâ. I just found the message (and it was from me, thatâs probably why I remembered it⊠just not writing it )
I meant it as part of the onboarding experience, guiding new users to try using the features of the site.
Right. Yeah everytime one of these âgameficationâ feature requests comes up, everyone chimes in (rightly!) that they would not want this as default . I do agree that the âstreaksâ badge maybe should live in a âchallengeâ feature that is opted into rather than a badge.
I also am not personally motivated by these sorts of features⊠However, like you say, I think it can be done in a way which makes itâs unobserved by users who donât opt in. And there are a lot of users who do find a lot value in these features that we should support. Just look at all the learners doing the Tadoku challenge or read every day challenges.
But yes, it would be opt in
Approved.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of the discourse badges? Personally, I just ignore them and it makes zero impact on me. I think itâs different than Duolingo where itâs actively in your face all the time as something you should be chasing, if that makes sense.
I find them a bit silly/charming, but otherwise tune them out. I think theyâre probably positive overall though. I think forums are a place where incentivizing makes sense, since they require communal participation to function. Also, forums are a bit intimidating when you havenât posted before (or even when you have). I think the badges lighten some of that by giving you light, positive reinforcement.
One thing thatâs kinda cool about the Discourse badges is that when you click the notification, it contains the link to the original post. A nice moment of reminiscence.
Yes, definitely agree. Tbh I never even noticed before that you can see the Discourse badges on peopleâs forum profiles, since Iâm only ever looking for someoneâs Natively profile link, when I click on their icon. And I (happily) have no idea what badges are even available.
The regular badge has a huge impact, as it grants to right to make wiki posts.
I donât think I have used that here, but I made a few wikis on the WK forum.
The regular badge is the only really important one.
It also gives the users some powers, so you donât really want to give it to everyone, but just the people invested in the forum.
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. I do agree that the âstreaksâ badge maybe should live in a âchallengeâ feature that is opted into rather than a badge.
