Badges

[nordwulf]

I have set up a few to play around with. Any suggestions for different badges for user groups or post counts? Nice enhancement or clutter?



I haven't set up any usergroups for members that made a donation. Should we have a badge for that at all?

The grey member badge is for 10 - 499 posts. I think there are a few different ways to show a visual post count.

Admins, Super Moderators and Moderators all have a Moderator badge. Should we change that to something like Site Team? There aren't really ranks here.

[rpiereck]

Those look good for a start, we can add to them later as we see fit. The design of the badges looks too simple, very generic, good for a start. I also think the size of the badges are a bit large and they compete with the user's avatar. I think the avatar should stand out as that is your "face" on the site.

For the future we could have other badges as rewards and awards, like "SAAB of the Month", "Benz of the Month", for example. A member who often shares lot of relevant technical information and helps others could get a "Master Tech" badge, or something like that.

There are a thousand ways we could go with that.

[nordwulf]

I like all your ideas and agree they are a bit too big and plain. I like the idea of a Master Tech badge. Perhaps we should keep post count, donation status and other titles separate. Perhaps a small badge for every year a donation is made.

[nordwulf]

Updated with a different design and smaller so they are less intrusive.

[nordwulf]

Added yellow stars for post count levels below the member type badge.

1 star - 50 posts
2 stars - 100 posts
3 stars - 500 posts
4 stars - 1000 posts
5 stars - 5000 posts

[Brad Lauzze]

I do like this idea of badges/post counts. What does one have to do to become a site supporter? Contribute to the operating costs associated with the site? I'd be all about chipping in a few bones a month to keep things going.

[nordwulf]

We used to have a donation system in place where you could send a contribution to the site. However, it wasn't very successful and was a bit hidden.

We also talked about setting up paid subscriptions with more pm storage, attachment storage, a badge like that and so on. I am not sure if there will be enough interest in a system like that. The Google ads for visitors bring in enough money for the site to be self sufficient (software and hosting) and have a little extra available for sponsoring Saab events (intSaab, Carlisle). In a perfect (Saab)World, I would rather see a site free from any advertising and completely supported by the members.

Or we can have both. More available funds means we can do more for the Saab community and the members.

[Brad Lauzze]

While I can't speak for everyone, I wouldn't mind having more space in my profile/inbox/garage for pictures and such and again I'd be more than willing to contribute something for such privileges.

[rpiereck]

This whole badges thing actually reminded me of a Subaru forum, ScoobyMods. At Scooby Mods each user can vote Thanks (like our "like feature") or Groan (an opposite of it). For each Thanks a user gets a point, and for each groan he gets deducted a point. There is a lot more involved, including a few different awards for posting levels, helpful members, referrals, etc. Seems complicated but it all translates into a community where members can see who is contributing the most, and those who are the helpful members, etc. Maybe we don't need a system as complex as Scooby Mods (and it is complex at first sight), but something along those lines?

Here is an explanation of the Scooby Mods Xperience as they call it: http://www.scoobymods.com/showthread...ned-10017.html

[Jacob Ilkka]

Having a Thanks feature would be cool, just to see how many people it helped, it's a visual that your post actually helped someone with their problem. I thought we had that before? Maybe I'm thinking of Astronomy Forum... Or does the "Like on SaabWorld" link serve the same purpose?