First a little background. I was once a very active member on Microsoft’s Xbox support forums. They have an entire community program of “Ambassadors” that act as triage for the official support agents. We could either answer forum questions or take real-time chat inquiries to help with any number of issues that didn’t require account access.
After reaching specific milestones we were awarded level badges that were displayed on the forums as well as other badges that couldn’t be deciphered by non members of the program. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t about bragging rights.
What I saw was those looking for help not only assumed we were employees of Microsoft but valued the information coming from those of us with more flair. In some cases that was good because some of the newer program members gave terrible advice. Other times their quality advice was ignored in favor of one of the senior members terrible advice on a subject outside of his/her comfort zone.Not the greatest example but I thought I’d throw my two pennies in.
I never really had a problem with badges and I honestly don’t see it breaking these forums. To sweeten the pot maybe add specific milestones to earn a badge or two. Also make the badges click able so they aren’t mysterious.
If you wouldn’t mind I’d like a sonic screwdriver badge as I’m just a mad man with a box
First two disclaimers: One is that I am very new to this forum, only a member for a few short months, other is that I understand that JoJo is proposing this as a fully moderator controlled system, so my following comment might not apply at this time. But as they say ‘once burned, twice shy’… and I was a member of a forum where this sort of thing went very wrong. Crowd sourced systems can be “gamed”. I believe the reciepe side of this forum had exactly that happen when an “outside” group from facebook trashed the rating system.
‘Crowd Sourced’ hierarchy systems. Particularly if automated by the forum software, can be very destructive to the quality of the forum. I was once a member of a tech forum that did that sort of thing and because it was based on number of posts and length of time the person had been a member it created a very select few at the top and it destroyed most new input postings by anyone other than the select few as others became increasingly annoyed, intimidated or otherwise felt “not a part of the whole”
It created a handful of “Senior Members” that posted constantly in every subject area of a very large forum with the same over and over again boiler plate posts. Most of these few people were responsible for 20% of the posts on the entire forum. Apparently these were people with nothing else to do in their lives as some of them posted at rates of 10 or more an hour. They did that to maintain their position “at the top of the hill” . Old members, that read a lot but seldom made posts, and new members that were confused or otherwise put off by the onslaught of low quality incessant posting by only a handful of Senior Members with Big Badges eventually drifted off. I know I did…
On a brighter note, Kudos for tightening up on the Rules !! Excellent move !!
Lolly knows badge peoples will have bad days and outbursts on occasion, just like the unbadged peoples. Because we are all peoples!
Lolly isn’t bothered about badges either way so long as everybody gets on with each other as best they can (even if that means ignoring sometimes or venting via pm/chats).
Lolly is happy about the new moderators who can help the existing ones.
Lolly doesn’t want ELR to become a sad and unhappy forum.
It’s not always that way. Sometimes, a relatively new person has great insights and sometimes a mixer with years of experience becomes set in their ways to the point where they can’t help as much as they think.
Yes, I think the semantics may be off-putting to some, but the point is, it seems, not to actually elevate anyone in the general community, just to point out that these folks are long-timers and have shown themselves to uphold the values of the forum itself. In that respect I understand the intent 100%.
And if it goes sideways i WANT, nay, NEED people to be open with me about it.
Despite the breakdown last night i have kept everyone’s concerns in my head and in a notepad file. Everyone’s voice was heard by me, i dont want any to thing i was just blowing them off. There were a LOT of PMs i was getting hit with so in some instances i had to keep it short, i apologize for that but i didnt expect that kind of backlash.
I am thankful for that backlash, i truly am. It will keep me even more vigilant to keep an eye on things.
Seriously though… Its a little orange badge on their avatar, I can’t see it making any difference to how the forum runs, I see it as more of a recognition thing, showing the “old timers” some love.
