User Input Badges

[Mystical]

The badges are a nice way to create a sense of achievement, which is good. I just feel like some badges are unnecessarily hard to obtain, while others are easy and obtainable almost immediately. I'd suggest a middle point, though I'll give more specific examples.


AMA badges:

Getting asked 500 questions in one's AMA requires people to ask 500 questions. It's hard unless you're very popular or people keep asking easy questions. I propose a midway where for 200 questions you get a 1-point badge and for 500 you get the 2-point badge.

Meanwhile, you only need to ask 100 questions for that other badge. And generally asking questions is easier than answering them (and generally getting peoole to ask you). So I propose to keep that badge for 1 point but to add a second badge for 300 questions which would be worth 2 points.


Literature badges:

It's funny how no one has earned these badges yet. 3 conpleted works on the library take effort. Meanwhile, you see the requirements for artistic badges is like 'create a portfolio' or 'have a shop open for a month'. I mean I know there are more artistic people than writers, but that's even more reason to lower the requirements a bit?

I propose:
1-point badge for one finished work that has more than five written posts (so for example if someone does a top 10 something) or for three that only consist of one post (though I haven't seen something like that being done ?)

2-point badge for three conpleted works.

Others can give their suggestions or give an opinion of mine.

 

[seaturtle]

I've actually been looking at badges a little bit lately and agree that some of them are unnecessarily hard to get. There's a difference between hard to get and nearly impossible to obtain, and I think that we need to think about the state of the site when deciding what the requirements for some of these badges are. For instance, without us ever having regular art contests winning 10 of them is an insane requirement for a badge. Even entering 10 of them would be a bit of a stretch right now.

Here's the ones I think we should look at/change:

Spoiler

Budding Writer: Change the requirement to be one completed work instead of three. As long as it's quality work and not some super short single poem or something I think this would be fine, especially considering the activity levels in the library right now.

Prompt prodigy: Change this to five prompts instead of ten. Ten takes literally ten months to complete, which is insane for a single badge. Maybe we could tier this one up and have them be one/three/seven or something but I don't think that ten months is realistic for a single badge.

Royal Ribbon: Change this to be three instead of five to reflect how many contests we regularly have.

Gorgeous Royal Ribbon: Change this to be five instead of ten to reflect how many contests we regularly have.

Club Member/Regular/Extreme Clubber: I feel like the scaling on these is too big, maybe doing 50/250/500 could work better?

Team Builder: Change this from ten to three, because right now even posting one RMT thread would be an accomplishment and ten is just plain unrealistic.

Team Rater: Change this from fifteen to five for the same reason as Team Builder.

Playthrough Regular: Change this to three because these will only be happening every once in a while now and completing five of them could easily take over a year now.

Playthrough Master: Change this to be five for the same reason as Playthrough Regular.

Trader/Frequent Trader/Trading Master: Considering the inactivity of the trading forum, I'd decrease these to 50/100/250, and maybe even consider scrapping/replacing them with something else.

I Love Questions: Add more tiers that go up to 250/500 questions.

Lord Helix: Add smaller tiers that go to 100/250 questions.

Greeter badges: Honestly I'd say scrap these entirely, I feel like they encourage people to make short/generic welcoming posts just to get the badges, which isn't something I think is good for the site. That's just my opinion though so if people wanna keep them we can :P

I also think adding new badges would be fun but don't have any ideas right now, so if anyone else has some thoughts please bring them up :D

 

[Mystical]

Budding Writer: Agreed.
Prompt Prodigy: well, you can do more than one prompt per month, but agree too.
I love questions + Lord Helix: definitely agree. I think AMAs are very fun to do, asking and answering questions, so it shouldn't be too hard to do.
Greeter badge: I don't really mind this one, but I completely see your point.
New badges: if people want to there could be badges for different non-staff events. Like SG's Nuzlocke games if he wants to make more. Or that one chess tourney we had if we ever do more. For now, though, I don't really think there's a need if people just do those for fun. Not everything has to have a badge, after all ^-^

 

[Varhii]

I think it'd be neat to have badges even if they are for just one time events if they are big enough. Badges for the winning team in Smash Camp, tournament winners, etc. could be really cool.

 

[Mystical]

Can I have an update please? Is this being looked into or was it put on hold due to not much discussion? Or are things just staying the way they are? Don't need an immediate reply, though, but I would just like to know where this stands.

 

[Thundawave]

I've been meaning to respond to this, but it's kept slipping my mind. I agree with the changes that Bubba proposed for the badges since we're starting on a new platform and no longer have, for example, monthly art contests.

For the ideas about event badges for things, I've been thinking of how we kind of have a "badge bloat" from a bunch of events that we may or may not even see again. What do you guys think of scrapping specific event winner badges and having a badge that can be given out for any kind of approved event? So basically merging every event-winner badge into the Gorgeous Ribbon line. The events that would count toward this badge would just need to have to be the types that qualify for being featured on our event page: community-oriented and of good quality.

 

[Mystical]

@Thundawave
You mean the Gorgeous Ribbon for any event-winner or something similar to it for any winner? Could there be a bit more diversification, though? Like one for art/creative competitions and maybe another for Pokemon-related competitions? If not, then I'm completely fine with merging all into one, to be honest. It just feels like maybe people could have more than just one of these.

Thank you for the answer, Regine.

 

[Typhlosion]

The Gorgeous Royal Ribbon badge is already set to be given out for winning a certain number of art contests. If we were to have it be split into earning the badges for different sorts of events, I think that would put us right back where we are now. Of course, having the badges encompass all forum events would be a good number, you're right. Perhaps we could just make additional tiers within that "family" of badges, so that people could eventually be recognized if they rack up a large number of event wins across many areas.

 

[Varhii]

Could have a situation like Smogon does if we can take away badges. Have a badge showing someone as the most recent winner of a certain type of event and one showing that they were a past winner. This way, someone will receive a reward for being the winner of an event (kind of like the situation with smash camp) and have it be unique, but also not clogging up the badges with too much stuff only one person has.

 

[Mystical]

@Typhlosion All right, that makes perfect Sense and I agree. Thank you for the answer.
@Varhii could work, but I don't think taking away a badge for not being the recent winner anymore would be very nice. I think if people wanted to, maybe they themselves could list what events they have won ^^ either way, thanks for taking an interest in this thread

 

[seaturtle]

Could have a situation like Smogon does if we can take away badges. Have a badge showing someone as the most recent winner of a certain type of event and one showing that they were a past winner. This way, someone will receive a reward for being the winner of an event (kind of like the situation with smash camp) and have it be unique, but also not clogging up the badges with too much stuff only one person has.

If we were to do this, I think a little banner (like the cabin 2 ones) would make the most sense instead of doing it via badges. Taking away a badge is clunky and doesn't make a lot of sense for Marripoints.

 

[Varhii]

@seaturtle That is true. Basically what I'm conceptualizing is some sort of reward on the site you can see whether it be attacked to your badges, on your profile, your sidebar, or whatever. If we have it just be the most recent winners for a sidebar thing, I doubt that it will get clogged up anywhere near the point of annoyance.

 

[Thundawave]

We’ve made our first round of badge updates. After that, we had a discussion in the Discord for more potential changes. Here’s a summary of what went on:

-There was a suggestion to make the point values of retired badges 0. Bubba tested this last night, and it would result in a reduction of Marripoints to users who have the retired badges if we did this. Is that something you guys would be fine with?

-People want to reduce the Club Leader line’s page requirement to be official/50/100 pages. This seems fair to adjust for the current activity levels and to allow for newer club leaders to reasonably obtain the badge.

-People want to bring back the Pre-Curse User badge to account for even more forum age distinction now that the regular age badges have reset for the purpose of automation.

-Creation of an event creator badge. How many events must a user host to achieve this? I’m currently thinking of making the requirement one event as long as it runs through the whole length.

-Creation of a Marriprom badge. People suggested that it should only count if you signed up for the actual prom and fully participated in at least one event, which I agree with. Azuriprom participation in 2018 would also count.

Lemme know if I missed some highlights, and discuss what you think of these suggestions!

 

[Varhii]

I'm fine with all of that except the changes to the clubs. I feel the tiers should still exist for club members as eventually someone will reach the higher tiers. I also dislike the club progression you suggested. Maybe only reducing the 500 page requirement to 250 could work.

I love the idea for Pre-Curse, Event Creator, and Marriprom badges though.

 

[~Kilza~]

Looking back at last night's discussion, the only thing that was sorta discussed and missed was having a badge for participating in a tournament, but everything else is in there. Everything that's been posted all sounds good. I don't have any issues with the proposed changes.

There's a few things I want to note for additional changes. First, Prompt Prodigy is still set at 10 prompts, even though Bubba mentioned lowering it to 5. Was this just missed? Since 10 is definitely too high for it with everything else being scaled down. If we did the monthly art prompts, they could get rolled into that badge as well.

Second, I do agree with Varhii that there should still be tiers for club members, since it feels weird for there to be 3 badges for being a club leader but only 1 badge for being a club member. Previous badges required 100 -> 500 -> 1000, but since everything's being scaled down, it should be something along the lines of 50 -> 150 -> 300 or 50 -> 100 -> 150. The latter's better since that'd match up with the proposed change to the club leader badges. Alternatively you just scrap the tiers for the club leader badges and only have one badge for them.

Lastly, this is minor, but shouldn't Frequent Trader just be 1 Marripoint instead of 2? I know, looking back, there were tiers for the trading forums post count, but those tiers don't exist anymore.

 

[Thundawave]

To be clear: Are there any objections to reducing retired badge point values to 0? Even if doing so will reduce your Marripoint count?

We decided that since it's possible for people to do 3-5 prompts a month if they really wanted to, 10 would remain a reasonable number. Once we get art prompts started, we could allow those to count for the badge as well.

Tournament participation could work as a badge as well. Would one tourney that the person finishes matches be enough, or should the requirement increase?

We decided to scrap tiers for Club Member because we wanted consistency across the post count badges (all for 50 posts in whatever forum). I feel as though it would probably be better to scrap tiers for leaders (only need club to become official for a badge) if we're worried about how equal the distribution would be. Considering the current rate that people create successful clubs, it still wouldn't be too common for people to get the badge in the first place.

Frequent Trader was an oversight on my part. Fixing momentarily. :P

 

[~Kilza~]

To be clear: Are there any objections to reducing retired badge point values to 0? Even if doing so will reduce your Marripoint count?

No, because the argument for why this should happen is basically the same thing that was brought up last night. In order to have fairness for current members as well as any new members that come on and want to collect badges, you can't have them get blocked from ascending to the top of the Marripoint count (even though it's meaningless!) because those who are at the top have points from retired badges. As well, you're basically having people with retired badges able to get double points from the events they won since they're able to claim for the Gorgeous Ribbon on top of their retired badge, which is obviously unfair to everybody else.

I feel as though it would probably be better to scrap tiers for leaders (only need club to become official for a badge) if we're worried about how equal the distribution would be. Considering the current rate that people create successful clubs, it still wouldn't be too common for people to get the badge in the first place.

Yeah, that's perfectly fine and it does reduce badge bloat. If we want the Club Leader badge to be slightly harder to get we could still have a page requirement although at a smaller number than what the proposed "Long Live the Club" is at (between 10-25 to ensure the club's been around for a few months).

Tournament participation could work as a badge as well. Would one tourney that the person finishes matches be enough, or should the requirement increase?

I think competing in and completing one tourney makes sense since that feels inline with the rest of the badges, and that was what Boss (who brought the idea up) suggested.

 

[Typhlosion]

I feel as though it would probably be better to scrap tiers for leaders (only need club to become official for a badge) if we're worried about how equal the distribution would be. Considering the current rate that people create successful clubs, it still wouldn't be too common for people to get the badge in the first place.

Yeah, that's perfectly fine and it does reduce badge bloat. If we want the Club Leader badge to be slightly harder to get we could still have a page requirement although at a smaller number than what the proposed "Long Live the Club" is at (between 10-25 to ensure the club's been around for a few months).

I agree with this point here, about having a small page requirement for Club Leader. Tbh, I don't think it's all that hard to make a club official, and we could see an increase in poorly-run and/or quickly-dying clubs because of this.

If monthly art prompts take off, we could have them be their own separate prompt badge. Might reduce the # requirement a bit, though, because while I don't have personal experience it seems to me like an artwork would be longer/harder to complete than a writing prompt.

Of course I'm down for a tournament badge. Since we're working on ways to make them more regular and frequent, we could potentially even do a scaling family here.

 

[seaturtle]

I feel like maybe the staff badges shouldn't give MarriPoints either but want to hear what other people say about that tbh.

Agreed on the new badges, and scrapping the tiers for club leaders is probably fine too but I'd definitely put a requirement for either 25 or 50 pages to claim it. As far as tournament badges go, I'd scale up like 1/3/5 or something and then require someone to need to participate until they're eliminated or win, meaning that dropping out or forfeiting doesn't give you the badge. I'd hold off on giving away badges for tourney winners, though.

 

[Varhii]

I think badges for individual events could be fine if we are not having the old ones count as points. Also, if you are stripping a lot of badges of their points, what is the point of the aforementioned points? Also, why not have the badges for sub-forums scale like the ones for post count do?