Badges

Tell us how we can improve the night ops forum. Your suggestions and complaints are welcome.
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joshvillen
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Badges

Post by joshvillen » Thu Mar 24, 2011 10:44 pm

Something that I've been thinking about for a while now, implementing badges/medals/awards. They could be located near a person’s signature or likewise anywhere that has room. I think that showcasing badges for completed OPs in the dare thread would bring each person a little more recognition that they might otherwise get for just posting in the dare thread. Why is this a good thing? Because it will continually raise the bar for the other board members and create a more competitive atmosphere (competition breeds progress/improvement). Basically, I think greater recognition for proven successful ops will generate more activity on and off the board.

InShadowLies
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Re: Badges

Post by InShadowLies » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:56 pm

I second this proposition.

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Xanatos
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Re: Badges

Post by Xanatos » Fri Mar 25, 2011 5:56 am

Hmm... while I like the idea of an ops recognition system (just to prove we're active participants) I don't think it should be made into a competitive thing because it may drive one of our more inexperienced operatives to attempt a mission they're not prepared for all for the sake of earning a few extra "points". Night Ops is a non-competitive activity much like Parkour or UrbEx and I think it should remain that way. It would also exclude those members unfortunate enough to not have a camera or aren't willing to take photographs of dares for whatever reason. It would also alienate some of our older members. For instance, I've probably completed more dares than anyone on NOnet but I'm still nowhere near as experienced as, say... Psychlonic (or even yourself, Villen).

Still, there's nothing stopping you from putting a Dare count in your signature but you'll have to update it manually for each completed challenge. If everyone else is up for it then I'll give it a shot too.
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joshvillen
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Re: Badges

Post by joshvillen » Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:49 am

Any idea how to put gifs or jpegs in the signature area then? I would like to design a few for myself and if it picked up between the other members it would be cool too. I understand where you're coming from Xanatos but I don't think anyone is going to put themselves on the line because of a little competition. Besides, if you arent pushing yourself to become better than what's the point anyway, the whole reason for completing the dares is to test yourself/improve. Basically, I want to see more activity around this forum, I want to read about people taking greater and greater risks and gaining massive experience because of it. Everyone benefits from inspiration and motivation!!!

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Secant
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Re: Badges

Post by Secant » Mon Apr 04, 2011 11:58 pm

The main problem I have with the badge idea is that, like Xanatos said, it excludes those who will not or cannot take pictures. And, night ops is not supposed to be overtly competitive. This forum is based on collaboration and learning from each other's successes and failures, not getting as many dare ops as possible. Dare ops were intended to be a way of engaging the community, not dividing it. This all being said, if you want to list the dares you've completed in your signature, that's fine.

I've got a site redesign project on the back burner, and as dare ops seem to have been successful, I want to find a way of integrating them more into the forum and website. So, can we keep this discussion open? Apart from badges, what ways would you want to use for displaying your dare ops?

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Xanatos
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Re: Badges

Post by Xanatos » Tue Apr 05, 2011 5:49 am

Having a separate Dare count near our username/avatar/location seems like a good idea, with an option to have it displayed or not. If that's not possible then enabling BBCode for signatures would be a good substitute so we can have a visually distinctive indicator, such as:

NO Dares completed: x
We are all books containing thousands of pages and within each lies an irreparable truth.
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joshvillen
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Re: Badges

Post by joshvillen » Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:11 am

Secant wrote:Apart from badges, what ways would you want to use for displaying your dare ops?

I'll throw out some random ideas,

We could have a banner display somewhere on the forum showcasing the best picture taken during an op each month.

You could assign a point value to each particular dare op and then have a running tally of everyones relative position.

Different subtitles or rankings display under the persons username, like where it would say moderator or member.




Prizes for completing the most ops over a given time period, nothing exspensive or flashy, just something that would be cool to earn. I would be willing to donate money for that type of cause.

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mib
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Re: Badges

Post by mib » Sat Apr 09, 2011 3:30 pm

Image

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Illusion
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Re: Badges

Post by Illusion » Mon Jan 09, 2012 1:12 am

Simple solution: For those that wanted such a thing; simply allowing BBCode in the signature and having something like...
As a signature; however the shortfalls are...

- Quickly you get more than the allowed 255 characters
- BBCode isn't allowed, presumably for security reasons.

I personally however, don't feel a need to change anything - badges etc could make things go down hill as described above..
"I'm not worried about this because I am too strong, too good, too intelligent, but I want to say to the others 'don't follow the stupid'."

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Ghost
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Re: Badges

Post by Ghost » Sat Jan 28, 2012 12:35 am

What about some sort of "spoiler" type function with a button that could be clicked to reveal completed dare ops? or perhaps a section in the user profile for showcasing them?
"A man's greatest treasures are his illusions."

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Illusion
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Re: Badges

Post by Illusion » Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:48 am

Therin the Hand wrote:What about some sort of "spoiler" type function with a button that could be clicked to reveal completed dare ops? or perhaps a section in the user profile for showcasing them?
I'm going to hazard a guess that putting it in the user profile would be a pain in the ass - editing the profile.php template, rigging up extra fields in the database, then coding up something to populate those fields with relevant data.

However, the spoiler function would definitely be a good one - and there are phpBB mods out there that will allow this. However, it does mean there will have to be less restrictions on signature size, and BBCode; which may present issues in their own right.
"I'm not worried about this because I am too strong, too good, too intelligent, but I want to say to the others 'don't follow the stupid'."

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