[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Let's not forget ear-scritches. Cockatiels like those, too. (And cockatiels are also highly allergic to chocolate.)

Some specific badges might include:
Book Uploader - for first book uploaded
10 Books Uploaded
50 Books Uploaded
100...
500... (Yes, we need this!)
We might actually need one after that. How many has Patricia done again???
(I'm inclined against "most books uploaded," however, because I think that's against the spirit of MR.)

These could probably be generated automatically, since book uploads go in specific sections. Qualifying for multiple badges should result in displaying all of them, to my mind.

i agree with this idea. let's not forget that now is the time to implement the "book goddess" badge, specifically for patricia.

and yes, badges are DEFINITELY cumulative !! (like karma fortune super-powers).

Then we might have "Software Contributed" -- I don't know as numbers are as important, there, but platform might be. E.g. "Sony Reader SW Contributed," "iLiad SW Contributed," etc. These would probably have to be by nomination to the editorial team, because software tends to be in attachments or even links to other sites, but it doesn't happen with the miraculous frequency of book uploads, so that should be ok.

we could probably have even more badge categories ; for example, people could get nominated for being particularly helpful with technical questions, even if they don't upload any softs. maybe we could have something like "hardware guru" and "software wizard" (ar ar ar). if this seems like turning into too much work, perhaps this feature could be semi-automated, like people could click on a button "helpful answer" or something (like on amazon, you can say whether a review was helpful to you) and after a certain number of clicks, the helpful member badge would be attributed. this would have to be a separate click from karma. just stop me, if this seems like it's too complicated to implement.

It would be very nice if clicking on the badge would take the user to the relevant part of MR, though. E.g. clicking on a "books uploaded" badge could take one to a list of books uploaded by that person, the "iLiad SW" badge could take the user to the iLiad SW forum, etc. (No need to get obsessive about exactly where in the forum or which 500 books or whatever, just a general pointer.)

perhaps this function could be tied to a search function for some badges ? like, the ebook uploader badges could bring up search results of ALL the books uploaded by that user (that should be possible, right ? and then there's no worrying about which 5 books of the 500 to display...).

I'd also like to see, by nomination, "Thread Defuser". For people like Alex who try to keep things calm when the hot issues start to come to a boil.

yes, i definitely think that there should also be badges for less materially obvious things which are nonetheless essential to keeping the community humming along (along with the "helpfulness" badges i mentioned above). i think it goes without saying that Alex gets his badge unanimously. i can think of a couple of other people who should get a "thread defuser" badge as well.

This leaves the existing karma as a general "contribution to community" kind of feature.

sounds good to me.