Would anyone agree that the system of badges and all the rest of it that has been introduced with the revamped forum is actually a huge mistake? Now that I have started reading the forum a little again (largely because I am experiencing some difficulties that I would like to sort out) I have noticed that the new system seems to actually invite responses so users can "up" their totals and "score" new badges and such. As a consequence the actual responses themselves sometimes leave something to be desired.
Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to cause offence to any individuals and I am also well aware that forums like this one have a social dimension in addition to a primary function of being a "help center". My point and/or question is more that the introduction/elaboration of a scoring system can undercut this primary function.
Perhaps we would be better off if we dumped the badges and just stuck to "likes"? What do you think?
Question
Badges and "scores"
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If you're referring to me, I'm not point scoring to win badges, I don't even know what they mean. They are pointless though, I agree with that, so NI wouldn't miss them at all. It wouldn't make any difference to how I post though I'm afraid.
Please, I am raising a general structural and design issue and am NOT talking about specific individuals. If I wanted to name and shame I would have done so, but that is not the issue here.
You can of course suppress the display of your own baubles, as you seem to have done. To reduce visual clutter I instruct AdBlock Plus to remove everyone else's.
I did not know you could, and it is good to know but it doesn't address the issue of designing a forum in such a way that mere answers allow one to score.
Believe me, the responses have nothing to do with "scoring" or "upping" anything. Most of us feel any badges or baubles we get to be more like targets painted on our backs.
PS - Didn't know about suppressing them. Going to do that now. Goodbye "Rock Star", hello just another poster!
PS - Didn't know about suppressing them. Going to do that now. Goodbye "Rock Star", hello just another poster!
Nice. Done!
Hey I just earned a badge! For completing my profile when I went in to suppress badges!
@Emile15 - glad you raised this but I hope and believe none of us is so sad as to give a **** about badges and the like.
@Emile15 - glad you raised this but I hope and believe none of us is so sad as to give a **** about badges and the like.
+17Oh no...no more rockstars..........i'll miss that grouping of the titans :8..it'll be that much harder to spot you all now ;)
I wear my enthusiast badge with pride 😳
I wear my enthusiast badge with pride 😳
I wear my enthusiast badge with pride :$
I would certainly be happier to be labelled an enthusiast (which I am) than a rock star, which I definitely am not. 🙂
Left to its own devices it would label me likewise. IIRC when I first turned the baubles off a year or so ago it thought I was a novice.
+22I don't take a blind bit of notice of my badges or the daft name they give to the posters as the post count. Neither is there a prize for posting more times.
The badges and the names are the prizes for posting. I think all it takes to get them is post counts, nothing more intelligent than that. I turned mine off on day 1.
Right now the spammers have "Almost Famous" badges. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Unbelievable that InSided is able to sell their pathetic forum software to anyone. I visit a lot of forums, have never encountered spam that wasn't immediately stopped. XenForo would never allow this.
Lol. Rock stars next, given the influence they have had here? It is a pathetic state of affairs that a billion dollar company has allowed to survive for a week now with no remedy.
The silly thing is that a relatively straightforward regex would identify virtually all such posts. A few minutes of play and I'd roughed one out with a 100% hit rate on phone numbers. The spammers can't obfuscate them beyond a certain point without it being self-defeating.
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