Call for Comment: User Medals & Awards

Which are good, which are crap, what should we add?

Published on August 27, 2007 By Zoomba In Virtual Communities

In our ongoing efforts to improve WinCustomize and make participating and contributing more fun and fulfilling for our skinners, we're looking at changing around how certain systems related to user reward work. The first one is the Medals system.

Currently automatically award Medals to users for hitting any number of milestones here on WinCustomize. We track who's the top skinner across the entire site, who is the best in any particular gallery, how many downloads are achieved etc. This information is mostly displayed on your personal page. It's a lot of data to sift through, and it's something we need to do a better job of presenting and highlighting.

To that end, we're looking for feedback on the current user medal system.

What do you like about the current system?
What do you dislike about the current system?
What are your favorite awards?
What are your least favorite awards?
What awards do you think we should add?
How do you think we could improve presentation and meaning of the awards?

Any feedback you have on this system is more than welcome. We'll be taking it into account when revising things, though we can't promise every suggestion will be implemented. This is the first step in a chain that we hope will lead to greater focus being placed on individual users, as well as a more equitable distribution of recognition.

Comments (Page 1)

RomanDA

on Aug 27, 2007

What do you dislike about the current system?
- No real explanation on what they mean or how to get more, etc.
- ie: Top 2 Veteran - What in the world does this mean??

What awards do you think we should add?
- It would be nice to see some based on milestones
- 10k download, 50k, 100k, 150k, etc.
- Maybe we could have some you had to be nominated for?
- like Biggest TROLL? or Best Comments? LOL who knows.
- or.. Beast Speelr? -- thats Best Speller (Zu!)

How do you think we could improve presentation and meaning of the awards?
- Make a page that shows them all and what they mean, as well as what it takes to get them, etc.

- How about user created icons (maybe a contest??)

Have fun!

Philly0381

on Aug 27, 2007

How do you think we could improve presentation and meaning of the awards?
- Make a page that shows them all and what they mean, as well as what it takes to get them, etc.

I believe RomanDA hit the nail on the head with one swing.

For me it's a little hard to answer the bullets in the OP if you don't know what all the current awards are.

I'm not a skinner, but skinners do deserve awards for thier volumn work. It's easy to figure out, no skinners, no site. That being said, the rest of us non-skinners are trying to contribute to the community also, can we get some recognition?

Lantec

on Aug 27, 2007

How do you think we could improve presentation and meaning of the awards?
- Make a page that shows them all and what they mean, as well as what it takes to get them, etc.

I agree with that. Personally I think the current system is pretty good. It rewards those who contribute at every level and the honorifics honor those who go the extra mile.

Personally I don't want to see a 10K, 20K 100K type system because it's unfair to those who skin say Rightclick compared to those who skin Windowblinds. I also don't like it for the fact that it keeps out-dated skins on the site JUST to keep the download counts up. I've taken several of mine off because they really don't benefit the community they only take up space. I also think it encourages the "upload spamming" of the site with multiple "versions" of basically the same skin for higher download counts.

I think a "best skinner for the month of.......year" would be good for each category because it's highly unlikely anyone can ever catch Adni on overall downloads.

I would like to see Jafo award a "Speeler of the Month" but I'm afraid Zu would walk away with it every month.

(I know....speller not speeler)

eieio

on Aug 27, 2007

(Master)RomanDA
August 27, 2007 17:28:11
Reply #1

Ditto!

messiah1

on Aug 27, 2007

Yeah, what he said...

Bichur

on Aug 27, 2007

- like Biggest TROLL? or Best Comments?

I kinda think those go hand in hand...

yeah ditto on #1

PoSmedley

on Aug 27, 2007

You missed one...

The now infamous Personal Page Elite Award

and I think prizes should be given...like the new iTantalus, for zapping your favorite mod, admin, or Troll into another dimension!

mrs_starkers

on Aug 28, 2007

yay I agree with ya Po.

SKoriginals

on Aug 28, 2007

RomanDA did a good 'cover job' in his comment.

I like the idea of the 'milestone' awards for download count. The current '1000 downloads' is pretty lame and always thought that one should grow with the skinners numbers (i.e. 10k, 100k, 250k, 500k, ect). Also, maybe one for number of featured skins? Where it just says 'Featured' and a number of times. Awards for winning WC held contest could be cool, seperate award for each contest as a possibility even.

Some none skinner community ones would be good too, like the ones listed above which would pretty much have to be 'handed out'. Maybe something for number of forum post as another 'automated/milestone' award like the download count is.

Like the idea of members making some of the award icons too (could be fun to do).
A page that explains the awards/milestones would be very nice as well.

Current 'system' is ok... could just use some tweaking

Zoomba

on Aug 29, 2007

These are all great ideas. Keep 'em coming!

vStyler

on Aug 29, 2007

Perhaps a post whore award

Seriously though, perhaps awards can equal points that can be redeemed for software or skins?

Honestly, I currently have no idea how the current system works, nor have I cared to this point. Perhaps that means it could use fixing.

Jafo

on Aug 29, 2007

I would like to see Jafo award a "Speeler of the Month" but I'm afraid Zu would walk away with it every month.

That's a given.

Zubaz invented poor spelling....or at least raised it to a sublime art.....

sViz

on Aug 29, 2007

Er...yeah, what RomanDA said.

A page listing all the awards, what they mean, how they're earned and who is the current holder (where applicable).

That's about my only gripe.

Don't have a most/least favored award.

I think all the bases have been covered as far as what awards there should be for skinning. If any new awards need to be created I suppose they should be on a monthly/yearly basis and more community oriented.

Fuzzy Logic

on Aug 29, 2007

I'd like to see an end to the emphasis on numbers of downloads. It's all meaningless really.

You could spend ages working on a WB skin. If it's good you might get 20,000 downloads. In the same time it took to make the WB skin you could 'make' a hundred bootskins. Same amount of time but a fraction of the skill... but who has the higher download count? Yup...

Not something awards should be based on.

ZubaZ

on Aug 29, 2007

Short and long term awards would be neat too . . . like a trophy that rotates around.

It's also be nice to see awards awarded by the community. Maybe the Master skinners can Pick a new skinner a month or some such thing. I'd like to see the masters recognizing the up-and-comers more.

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