Great! I fixed the typo, thanks for letting us know.
5 Likes
Okay I’ve made it so that staff likes on a post are worth 2.0 (the same as TL4).
Also changed:
- added a safeguard in case the job fires twice in one month (this happened on meta for some reason, possibly redis reset)
- you require at least 2 likes to receive the badge
- You now only need to post twice in two topics to be eligible
9 Likes
This is a nifty feature that has snuck up on some of us. Thanks for continuing to develop and evolve discourse! 
I’m not sure yet how I feel about the feature, but my inclination is to let it run on my site for a while to see what happens. It seems interesting, but it may feel a bit random to the person who receives it - especially if (as in the case of the first badge awarded on my site) nobody even replied to their post that triggered the award. They might be wondering… if my post is so great, how come nobody replied to it? 
Maybe you could also require that posts have at least one reply before the badge is awarded?
Also, and this is obviously an audacious idea, but could the functionality to send badge-triggered PMs be exposed somehow in the admin UI? It would be interesting to be able to send more of these types of emails but also to control it ourselves as admins. I can imagine some site will be happy with displaying the badge but not want to send the email, or vice versa.
3 Likes
Some feedback from my community:
I like the feature - but I agree that it will seem quite random/artificial if it’s not based on actual interest in somebody’s post. Especially the formulation “everyone is really enjoying your posts” can seem a little comical. If it is possible to develop the feature so that it only comes up if someone’s post has been liked by at least two people, or if the formulation can be changed so it doesn’t say “everyone…” that would be good.
In particular the weight given to moderators or higher TL users might not be well placed - on our site moderators often add a like just because we’re happy someone posted, not necessarily because we especially like their contribution.
That is already how it works. The highest “score” wins, if that is what you see, your site has low volume of likes on new users in general. Read through the criteria again.
2 Likes
New doubt about this., when we said “new user” we refer to user joined at last month, don’t we?
We do not refer to TL0 or TL1, or Trust levels at all… ? 
Correct joined in last month.
1 Like
If I disable this badge, that will also disable the PMs, being sent, correct?
Some feedback on the title — when it says “New User of the Month award for ______” I would think that month should be for the previous month, that it’s actually being awarded for. My Discourse just sent out a message for “May 2017”, but instead it would make more sense, if they were the new user of the month for April, since that’s the month of where their stats were used to award this.
10 Likes
SitePoint used to have a Member of the Month award.
There were Staff nomination and voting threads where there was discussion and a decision was made.
But it was not simply an award given, after contacting the member and getting an “interview” (pending the members acceptance and agreement) there were Announcement threads where other members had the opportunity to comment and congratulate the award recipient.
Perhaps this badge should have some type of similar auto generated Announcement topic?
It seems to me that as long as the topic did not go ignored it could be a positive thing for the community.
3 Likes
Hmm… would you or @eviltrout mind updating the OP with the latest criteria? It’s scattered throughout this topic right now and has been updated along the way. I think I get it and am happy with it, but am not certain.
One thing I really like about this feature is that it forces staff to be on top of gardening discussions on an ongoing basis. There should be no topics that we are not happy to have on the site and also no topics without replies.
Look forward to seeing what happens at the end of this month! 
I like what you’re describing here alot but think that perhaps it might be best to handle such a process manually rather than hope that discourse can do it automagically. The badge is a start though and can perhaps be used as a basis for identifying people to honor in a public announcement.
1 Like
Here’s my understanding of the criteria, as shared with my moderators. Let me know if I’m close. 
To get the badge, a user has to meet the following criteria. If the criteria are not met by any user in the given month, no badge is awarded.
- joined last month
- posted at least twice
- has received at least 2 likes
- has a like score in the top 2, calculated based on trust level of the people liking your posts
If I remember rightly doesn’t the new @discobot give a like and receive one…
… perhaps the system users should be excluded from both receiving this badge and being counted in the award of the badge if not already.
Also are there other badges that need updating to avoid @discobot / system user influence?
4 Likes
The user has to post in two different topics as I recall.
Also @eviltrout we should make sure system user likes are excluded in this query as pointed out above.
2 Likes
This should fix it:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/bd0bb879e5489bf761bee8dbb890f63865d50c48
4 Likes
The second bullet point above can be problematic. If I joined the day before the selection, that means I am at a disadvantage. I will have no chance to win ever because I only had one day to demonstrate how valuable I am, AND I won’t be treated as new user next month.Somebody who was liked 10,000 times during the first 32 days since joining the forum would be beaten by somebody who received 50 likes during his/her first 31 days (and this is because of the timing of the selection).
So the ones who join the forum immediately after the selection day will have better chances of winning the award, because they will have longer period of time to post and to be liked.
I suggest the following to make the counting accurate and fair:
-
Candidates for “Best New User” badge are those who joined from 31 to 60 days ago.
-
Likes and replies/post will be counted independently for each candidate. Only count the replies and likes received within the next 30 days from date of joining.
4 Likes
Ah - that’s a valuable point. Given this, I wonder if there is any benefit to limiting how many of these monthly badges are awarded to new users. Why not just give it out to all new users who meet the criteria within 30 days of signing up?
1 Like
New User of the Month award for June 2017 was granted on June 16.
I was expecting it to be granted in July.
Is there something I need to configure?
4 Likes