I do think there should be more badges, but CL should be involves and choose what badges there should be. Like, we all narrow down 10-15 new badges and have a poll to pick the top 5 or something?

Eghhhh... I'm not good at giving out ideas, but I figured I'd try!

Flamethrower them all. Maybe keep the mods and admin badges and MAYBE one for rangers. But I think even that is pushing it. Regular members shouldn't have any AT ALL. PERIOD. I always thought that it's a terrible idea from the start. Badges are an objective measure of merits that are subjective. Never a good idea and certianly not one that has ANY place on a site that's no thing but a forum and a chat that have no connection to any sort of game. If this were the Blizzard forums and we had badges for being in different Starcraft 2 leagues, sure. Go for it. But what do we have to measure objectively here? No thing. People should be self-motivated to be "rabu" and "bani" (how does one even do this?). Wtf does it matter if they're just doing it for a stupid icon on their profile? Also, get rid of profiles. Kinda pointless when we have a chat where we share lots of personal details already. My 2 cents.

So tl;dr they aren't worth the effort. Time better spent fixing bugs, goofing around chat and going bowling! :D

I'd like to be able to give out the Rabu badges, like we were able to in the old site. Then EVERYONE can have Rabu. Maybe there can be a list of the qualifications for each badge? I think people find the badge system useless because no one knows how to earn them.

@Chestnut_Rice Why? I think badges are a neat idea that you rarely see in forums. It just isn't used that often, and there aren't that many badges. I think this is where CL users can step in a suggest some neat badges to hand out.

Also... most regular forums have profile pages, and I personally like this too. Many users have been wanting profile pages for awhile, actually. I was happy when I saw that they were finally complete!

Ok I have an idea that works like the "Infection" title from CoDMW2-3 that you can get. Basically one or a few people have the badge and they have to give it out to others, now those people are allowed to spread the badge then and so on and so forth until all of CL has the badge.

See this is where I disagree with a lot of CLers. The Colorless to me isn't /just another forum/. It's a halfway point between an anonymous imageboard and a traditional forum. It's not fun /despite/ the fact, it's fun /because/ of that fact. Take away the balance and you lose what makes The Colorless unique. We shouldn't ask some thing to be implemented just because "most regular forums" have it. Nor should we implement some thing because some imageboard or another does the same. And yes, Profiles and Badges are disrupting the balance in favour of "traditional forum" and I don't like it. Not one bit. But ultimately it's up to the admins. Just putting my opinion ou there. :>

We had an instance a week or so ago where a badge was handed out in a thread. Immediately the thread deteriorated into chaos over arguing that the badge was not deserved.

Within that context I have a few suggestions.

1) I would like to see all badges that incentivize bad behavior, removed.

2) I think badges should be awarded at a set date (maybe monthly), in a place separate from the thread itself in order to prevent arguments such as an announcements page. Users should not have the ability to comment on this announcements page.

3) Similar to how we are currently able to flag posts. I think it would be great if users themselves could nominate other users for badges. In other words, you could click on a post and select from a dropdown. The user nominated would then receive a message that they have been nominated for a badge (although I wouldn't specifically state which badge in order to keep it a surprise :)

4) 1 month delay for new users before they are able to nominate others for new badges in order to avoid people simply creating duplicate accounts and giving themselves badges. Also do no allow users to nominate themselves directly.

5) Only allow users 1 nomination per month. So only allow them 1 nomination across all badges. For example, if I were to nominate acostoss for a badge. I would not be able to nominate any other user for any other badge until we rolled into the next badge month.

6) All posts specifically requesting that people nominate them for badges should be against the rules and deleted.

7) For badges such as the Eternal Flame (and really all badges) I think it would be best to have a clear definition for what qualities you should look for when awarding a badge.

8) Possibly set a threshold that must be met for each badge. For example some badges might require 5 nominations, others might need 10. If that threshold is not reached, nominations would of course roll forward to the next month.

That's all I can come up with at the moment. The point being to somewhat automate the nomination process and remove the responsibility from mods. Also, it's important to keep the nomination process anonymous.

After reading @Fieyr and @PigBoss 's posts, I've reformed my position. Badges as a concept is alright. Just, please please please make sure that they reinforce positive behaviour and make sure that they actually reflect what the community thinks of a certain user (the nomination idea). No badges of course would be best, but I doubt any one would want to take their grubby little hands off those pointless pictures at this point so might as well use them as rewards for being good and active users instead of as shitty in-jokes.

@Chestnut_Rice - Agreed. It's one of those things that can be good, but if not done properly, can be very bad. And +1 to @PigBoss I completely agree.

@Fieyr So you mean that it would take 5-10 months for a user to be awarded a badge? And that is assuming the user is nominated for the same badge each month. It would make more sense if the each user was limited to one badge each month, unlimited nominations. Other from that, I agree with you.

And if this idea were to be implemented you should also only be able to nominate another user for one badge, one time each month.

@Chestnut_Rice Yes, I would very much like to keep my AMV Contest badges.

Yea the specific nomination/awarding process needs to be discussed, but the point is that the community must generally agree that Y Badge is deserved by X User before X User actually gets Y Badge.

@Noodle- Nonono

Each user gets 1 nomination to use per badge month. So if 5 users all decide to nominate you for the Rabu badge for example (assuming that's the necessary threshold to obtain that badge) then you would receive Rabu. All those nominations could take place on the same day and therefore you would receive Rabu that same day.

I'm not firm on the 1 nomination per badge month. It could be like, 5 nominations. But I think it should be limited to 1 nomination per badge such that it forces users to think carefully about who they want to award the badge to. So you could give away 5 badges to any user... but only 1 of each per month.

I'm not firm on any of these numbers. We may find that these numbers need to be tweaked because it's too easy or hard to obtain them.

Also, while for example the Mmmmmmm Beer badge is pretty funny for users who know each other pretty well, it's pretty useless.

But don't you dare remove mine. My e-penis will shrink srsbsnz

@Fieyr That makes more sense :3

@Noodle

lol

Alrighty, this was just the kind of feedback I was hoping to get. Much of this has been said by different members of the admin/mod staff at one point or another, namely issues considering "reinforcement of positive actions" and "why do we have the duck and bani badges".

I really like Fieyr's framework, as well. 5 nominations, only can nominate a certain user for a certain badge once per month, no stacking nominations from one user within that month. These are great ideas, I love them.

I'm toying around with the idea of nuking all of the badges we currently have, bringing some back and possibly adding more later.

What do you guys think of badges like the Corgi badge? I like to exemplify different historical/constructive groups on the site. Named groups such as the "Old Chaps" and "Corgis" can serve such a purpose, just as the "Brainiacs" might. I do not feel there is much room for people to feud over certain groups, a la Color Gang Wars.

Keep the input coming!

Would a nomination be permanent or will it be forfeit by be next month?

@Noodle I think you almost have to roll them over from month to month. I mean, how much would it suck to receive 9 nominations for a particular badge, and have it be deleted because you didn't reach the necessary 10 nominations that month.

I think badges are a good thing. Great thing in fact and I think that if we create the right ones, it will give users more incentive to do more things.

A progress bar for each badge (a la steam style) will also help (eg I'm only one interesting thread away from getting the 'wrote 10 popular threads' badge! Better get writing that article on alien strippers!!)

The badge for being banned is too much. Maybe a badge for never being banned is a better choice?

@Pigboss perhaps the ex-mod badges could stay, but have seperate ones to differentiate between the mods from old CL (ancient guardian), mods that gracefully stepped (resigned guardian) down and other (fallen guardian) (or something similar)?

Unique badges such as 'it's a duck!' should be reserved for special competitions or something.

@Fieyr That would really suck. But then again, only the really qualified would recieve the badges. Even though that would be counter productive since we are trying to encourage good behaviour through badges and if they are super hard to get, that kills the interest. Unless you're a pro achievement hunter, that is.