I’d like to propose a different approach, something like a gentle push. For example, new users’ avatar would be blurred from the beginning, but as the user earns ‘community behavior’ badges his avatar will become less blurred. Say, 5 badges of that kind completely remove avatar’s blur. 5 more badges reveal basic title (such as ‘member’). Prior to revealing title might be covered like those strips on scratch cards.
So after user has joined a forum he will see that his avatar is blurred and there’s some scratch-card-like thing underneath. This may lead user to click on the profile (or avatar) to find out why it is like that. This is where ‘community behavior’ could be advised, like, bold or red text (or a link?) with small info regarding how to remove both avatar blur and scratch strip. Or this info could be added to the ‘Welcome’ text that is automatically received by anyone who has joined the forum.
Keep in mind … mucking with sidebar is not in phase 0… we will start dealing with that in phase 1 and I will make sure stuff is configurable, default will be very low amount of additional data in sidebar, or nothing if that is what you wish.
I really don’t think that it’s worth panicking about this and I doubt that this will happen on this forum (or mine for that matter). If others want to clutter their forum then that’s their decision but I don’t see that discourse vanilla would ever encourage that.
It’s quite clear from these discussions here that the intention is to create something that’s elegant and simple.
I’m just saying, this is the moment where Discourse can either continue to be awesome… or go down the road everybody else eventually did.
That moment wasn’t back when you guys started it, or launched it, or even last year. That moment is right now when you’re adding features copied from old-school forums that don’t contribute to civilized discourse whatsoever.
It seems to me that “configurable” is all fine and good, but do we really want to add a place where they can flip a switch like “ Enable Cluttered Forum 2000 phpBB Lookalike” when we don’t have to? I’m sure vBulletin didn’t start off trying to be crappy and awful either, but they kept just agreeing to every feature idea.
And some of the discussion in this topic has me worried.
Especially the lack of normal religious fervor from @codinghorror at adding things without properly figuring them out or making sure they make sense.
For some context, it took you how long to launch proper mobile support? How many times did I, and others, complain about various missing features just to get told that they would eventually come once they were properly figured out?
So why the rush? I mean, you don’t even know why this feature is going in yet, just that it is going in.
Anyway, I think I’ve made my points and I’ll let it rest.
As I said … version 0 as specified in Initial Discourse badge design spec has no controversy about it, … zero , ziltch … This is stuff we have intended to do for over a year, just never got around to.
I am leaving this topic open so we can figure out if, and what, we display next to posters and a bunch of other mechanics. It is getting rather huge so we may split out bits as we go.
Today you can write a plugin that makes Discourse look like PhpBB or whatever, nothing new there. You can muck with site settings and make your site a horror to use, you can amend your css right in the admin panel and make people vomit every time they visit your site.
Discourse is rainbows.
Markup wise this is probably where I would be OK to see optional per poster, probably default off for quite a while.
<div class="badge-count" title="Sam has 22 gold badges and 66 silver badges">88</div>
I would be extremely open to have certain badges “unlock” titles and allow users to select which title they want. UI is already in place for titles so this works extremely well with the current design and introduces zero new clutter.
Clearly autobiographer will not unlock a title, but other badges could, for example: “kick ass PR submitter”
We know why this feature is going on, we have had this planned for ages, just focused on other areas first:
Goal #1, grant badges to users so they learn how to use the system.
Goal #2, grant badges to users as recognition of users value to the community.
Now that is a great idea. It’s the perfect combination of function and simplicity.
I didn’t say anything about hidden motives, I said it isn’t being thought out and planned in a way that focuses on why exactly we need to display it on every post in the first place. I’m debating and disagreeing.
It was thought out, it’s the same set of reasons we had at Stack Overflow back in the day:
The badge system exists for two reasons:
to teach new users how Stack Exchange works
to encourage activities we view as positive to the community
It’s part one there that I am focusing on for V1. The manually awarded badges can be used for everything else.
The key observations:
I don’t feel that a single number displayed next to a user is that onerous of a design.
As I have said repeatedly I think @haiku’s suggestion of allowing one badge to show in the left gutter is appropriate and matches good patterns elsewhere (in that case, the Steam forums).
It’s also true that this does relate to user titles as @pakl observed. A “visible badge” could confer a title of your choice. We already show titles for some users, so…
Yeah, there are some goofy examples being proposed here, but that doesn’t mean we will use those examples out of the box or recommend them.
There are people always chase numbers, badges, or sort of things. When they reach end, they always needs more. If they cannot get more, they would start complaining about this to whole community. Funny thing is, these people’s activities are tend to be less helpful in consideration of their amount. Worst case, somwhat between spam and just meaningless regualr reply(topic). It can cause bad feeling about community SNR to new user and regular oldbies.
You can easly found this situation in any MMO leveling game. There are bunch of people only think about gathering numbers, badges, trophies, archivements, … Many of them don’t mind about abusing system or even other gamers for those numbers.
You can also find this situation in famous social service like facebook, twitter. Their numbers - “Likes”, “Followers” - were actually very important part of their big success. But, are they really helpful for long-term healthy community?
Many of abusers are doing things for real money(in game gold, advertisment fee). But even if there is no real money, they are still exist.
Most dangerous thing is anyone of us could be those people unconsciously. Someday we realize ourself doing those stupid behaviour. Then what? Blame that system. Abandon it.
In conclusion, badge system could be potential dangerous to community. But, there is no significant good effect in consideration of possible dangerous. Also it’s not practically possible remove badge system in use. Why? Imagine facebook or twitter decide to hide their numbers(likes, followers).
I don’t think badge system is essential for healthy and meaningful disscusion. It maybe more suitable for plugin.
If you build it, they will come.
I don’t like them and don’t want to be one of them.
“In conclusion, badge system could be potential dangerous to community. But, there is no significant good effect”
Well…in three years of moderating one of the StackExchange forums, a number of people wrote in saying that the community (bolstered by points and badges and notifications) felt like a second family to them. Three people in three years asked to be banned because of addiction to the forum, out of many thousand users. There were two big arguments in three years about badges. It was a health-related forum, and points/badges kept smart users around, and some of those smart users substantially helped the lives of some sick people looking for answers to tough questions.
So yes, a track record of significant good effect, and some possible danger.
I believe what @dontdieych and others to some degree are afraid of is what’s called overjustification. In short, external rewards tend to increase ones motivation (only) in short term but decrease ones intrinsic motivation to do something. E. g. give some a badge and their motivation shifts from contributing to the forum to collecting badges, which eventually (quickly) fades. This is a very real, studied and complex phenomenon.
Bottom line, it’s not easy to design these kinds of reward systems so that they actually work as intended. It’s easy to design them so that they end up working against you. Now, of course that’s up to the forum owner, but how do you design a system that helps him make the right decisions?
If that is not joke, I don’t think that is good signal. They are somewhat addicted. Probably that makes forum owner happy. But, how about themselves?
What I’m most afraid of is people leaving community because they think they are so addicted. Of course that is not only reason let them away from community. Like busy in real life, found more interesting community, or just losing interest. In these case, at least, they can come back any time without hesitation. But if they leave because realized so addicted, they don’t come back. Even they write about it on blog to tell another people. “Why I’m leaving YYYY after X years.”. Badges(Numbers) could be possible cause of this situation.
Orange line is what I’m calling “Product line” or “Service line”.
To be sure, the devil is in the details. But for the forum I was involved with, badges and points likely helped in the long run much more than they hurt.
Plus I trust Jeff and company to make good decisions with regards to gamification, especially having the advice of @frandallfarmer and other experienced people, plus the range of opinions here on meta.
