Quote:Original post by Oluseyi
Just consolidating the good ideas I've read so far.

Not that I expect my suggestions to be implimented, but I just thought I'd mention a subtle element of the mockup I posted on page one because I think its a potentially important design element.

In my mockup the first row of the header was Poster information, while the second was reserved for information and tools related to the post itself. I don't know if that will work out given all the other technical and design considerations you have to account for, but mixing poster info willy-nilly (which is probably too strong a phrase, since I'm sure it will be well organized) with the post info across the header sections seems at least a little less intuitive than it could be.

I think I just had a brain haemorrage at the sheer usefulness of this idea.

A couple of my concerns:

• Should people be able to remove a nomination for a particular badge, that they have given, but before the badge is awarded to the member? And, if so, should the member of the receiving end of the nomination still be on the list for the mods to look at to get the badge?


• When it starts, will we all be starting from 0 (badges), or will there be a small period of 2-4 weeks where we can all nominate people for badges, but they aren't shown?


• Should badges just be placed in the same line as the "posted" time for a post, and be right-justified, so they are out of the way for people who don't care?


• Are we going to keep the current rating system as sort of an amalgamation of all the badges, and keep it viewable only in the member's profile, or will it be scrapped altogther?

These are not reccomendations, just things to think about.

Quote:Original post by jouley
Whatever the reason, though, it seems that the recipient should be able to refuse the badge. Since (I assume?) the badges will be awarded for solely positive attributes of the member, this could not serve to misrepresent them in any major way, as refusing negative ratings could. The current numerical ratings mechanism could still be used to that end.

Perhaps not refuse it as such, because otherwise, every time you'd get a badge, you'd have to manually accept it. It's probably better if they just PM a mod to have it removed.

Actually, that makes me think: is there going to be a single specific mod or staff member who will be the person at the head of this?

Also, when a person is nominated, it should be through the post that caused the nomination to ..... coalesce in the nominator's mind, and then a group of mods (or a single) can then look through each of the posts that the user was nominated for (in regards to a specific badge) and then the mod/s can then make the final decision if it is deserved or not.

Edit:: Actually, that may not be the best idea for the later "classes" of badges. I mean, for someone to get a "Platinum Polygon" badge, they'd probably need 100-200 really useful posts (as well as all the previous badges in this class), and who wants to look through all of them? Maybe a mod looking through all the posts should only be done for the first one or two levels of badges.

Also, should a person be able to get nominated for two different badges of the same class, using the same post? I mean if someone is nominated for the "Golden Polygon" badge and receives it, should the same post be able to be used to nominate the same member for the "Platinum Polygon" badge?

Quote:Original post by jouley
The current numerical ratings mechanism could still be used to that end.

I think that they might want to get rid of the numerical system. It's probably better to have only a single way of indicating how the public views a member.

Also, if you have a mod looking at posts to determine if someone deserves the nominations that the member is given, it follows that you are able to nominate someone to have a badge taken away if they consistently aren't helpful or make you cry. But, then again, I would assume that a badge given with the supervision of a mod or two wouldn't really be given erroneously.

Edit:: Should there be a restriction on how often a person can nominate someone for a badge? Not a specific badge, but if a member were to nominate someone for the "Platinum Plygon" badge, and then immediately nominate them again for the "Golden Pixel" badge, should there be a restriction, like one nominationg per day per member A nominating member B? Or would you just attempt to keep track of someone who is nominating other members (maybe nominating a single specific member) more than usual.

Also, there needs to be a check (or perhaps a waiting period after you join, or both) to make sure that someone can't just create a new member and then use it to nominate themselves.

P.S. Yes, I know I use the word "also" waaaay too often. [smile]

P.P.S Oooh, special/secret badges that you can't be nominated for, but the mods/staff can assign you. Like "Moderator's Pet". [grin] hee hee

[Edited by - Endar on March 30, 2007 3:25:39 AM]

First of all, lemme say this is a great idea. It will make the forums much cooler, and will show a lot of information that I think is vital for some people.
A few points (Ans some suggestion, I have to give my 2 cents, and then I could get the "Trump of Creation" awarded to people who noticed and commented on this thread)(<--Also I get dibs on the Trump Whore badge :)):

0. This idea is cool.
2. People already begun to worry about stuff like how many posts it takes to become a MMORPG Basher and such. I think there should be some "adjusting" period, where all those "meta" attributes will get changed a lot, and I think it's only natural that this would happen, so no need to think implementation in this thread IMHO.

3. Also you can think of letting people choose a few badges when they join, like choosing a class (i.e. a programmer can choose for himself the mighty python badge, or the C badge). Those won't be merit or award badges, but basic identification. This is debatable - but I think you can get a finite amount of those and thus no self boasting will happen.

9. There can be a lot of games, competitions and customizations with such a system. Think modularity when writing this, Even maybe make an API (hmmm, a python module would suffice :)) so that dedicated users can write games and tools. An example - A "party creator" in the help wanted forum that indexes people by badge, and if you are searching for a good Maya graphic guy, you can search it.

123. Did I mention that this idea rocks? I already see the next upgrade, as someone suggested, a second-life style GD MMORPG :)
In HTML.

Well, those were my ideas. I look forward to it.
Mikle <wonders how much time such an implementation will take>

Quote:Original post by Mikle3
3. Also you can think of letting people choose a few badges when they join, like choosing a class (i.e. a programmer can choose for himself the mighty python badge, or the C badge). Those won't be merit or award badges, but basic identification. This is debatable - but I think you can get a finite amount of those and thus no self boasting will happen.

Who cares about self boasting? I mean, if we make sure that the badges can be removed if people demonstrate that they don't know anything about a particular subject that they grabbed the badge for, well it really doesn't matter, they'll lose the badge.

And what about the people who are proficient in C, python, ruby, scheme, OCaml, C++, Java, etc, etc? Must they just choose 4 badges? Or however many are chosen?

Why not just be able to show all the badges (of this kind) that you have knowledge in? This badge system is really more for others than the member. I mean, there's fun in it, but a lot of these badges are going to be to show the other members what you know, what you can help them with.

[Edited by - Endar on April 1, 2007 5:51:11 AM]

Quote:Original post by Endar
...
And what about the people who are proficient in C, python, ruby, scheme, OCaml, C++, Java, etc, etc? Must they just choose 4 badges? Or however many are chosen?
...

Well, if he is honest and he can choose only the 2 top, and if he is really really good in 10+ languages, maybe there would be a badge for that ("Elite Code Monkey")...
Than again, as I said, just an idea...

Mikle

Quote:Original post by Mikle3
Well, if he is honest and he can choose only the 2 top, and if he is really really good in 10+ languages, maybe there would be a badge for that ("Elite Code Monkey")...

But then it would seem like we're just creating badges for the sake of having more badges, rather than to demonstrate that a person has a particular knowledge level for a subject. And having a single badge to show more than one aspect of a member (whether it be knowledge, skills, or post count) when the aspects are variable and subject to numerous change, will just get confusing.