(New) Achievements on TST (via IPS 4.6)

[iacas]

With version 4.6 of the software that powers our forum, the developers introduced "Achievements." There are a few things here now that are somewhat similar, and so let me try to clarify what they are. I'll use my profile (https://thesandtrap.com/profile/1-iacas/) as the example.

At the top of my profile, you'll notice this:

That contains two of the three things I'll talk about here.

• Reputation - This has been around for a loooong time. You can earn "reputation points" when people click on the "Upvote" or "Thumbs Up" or "Funny" or "Informative" buttons in the bottom right of most posts. They look like this:
  
  My reputation is about 11,000, and you earn points when others "give" them to you by "reacting" to your posts. Note that the "confused" and "booooo" reactions award no reputation points (nor do they subtract any). These aren't new, and they're pretty much unchanged.
• Awards  - These are actually handled by a third-party plugin, and they include both the "challenge badges" (like the No Sixes Challenge) as well as other awards, like "Breaking 80" and "Eagle" and "Lowest Score Wins owner." You can see my awards at  https://thesandtrap.com/profile/1-iacas/?tab=node_awards_Awards.
• Achievements - You can read more about these here. These are what's new in version 4.6, and what I'll spend the rest of this post talking about.

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Achievements

The staff of moderators and I have spent a lot of time over the past few days contemplating how many points to award for various activities. These points count separately.

We currently have nine levels of "achievement," or "ranks" as they're called. They are currently (subject to slight changes at any time):

1. Newbie - 0 points.
2. Member - 25 points.
3. Established Member - 100 points.
4. Well Established Member - 250 points.
5. Dedicated Member - 500 points.
6. Great Member - 1,000 points.
7. Super Member - 5,000 points.
8. Incredible Member - 10,000 points.
9. Hall of Fame Member - 100,000 points.

Your rank is indicated by a little flag (currently) over the bottom-left corner of your avatar. The flags look like this:

I'm sure you can see the pattern. 🙂

You can earn points by doing a number of things. For example:

• Posting a comment (a reply to an existing topic).
• Posting a new topic.
• Creating a poll. Voting on a poll. In fact, currently, points are awarded to the poll voter and the poll creator every time someone votes in a poll.
• Adding a reaction to someone. Receiving a reaction to someone.
• Etc.

In other words, you can earn "points" by using the forum and posting content. Or at least voting with "likes" and voting up content (like my buddy Paul who has reached "Great Member" rank despite never having posted a single thing on TST).

We don't plan to share the number of points available for some of these things, but I will say we also have milestone points awards, too. If you earn (to make this up) 1 point for every topic you create, you might earn a billion points for the 72nd topic you create. Or the 72nd reaction you give (or receive). Or the 36th poll you create. Etc. On top of the points you earn for just creating the poll, post, topic, etc.

You can see my badges here: https://thesandtrap.com/profile/1-iacas/badges/. Add "/badges/" to the end of your profile URL and you can see your badges, too. Hover over them and you'll see what each is for.

So, that's the new "Achievements" functionality on TST. Take a look at your own badges and achievements.

P.S. "Rare" badges are those given to fewer than 5% of the membership.

[billchao]

I like the new badges. Just adds a little extra flavor to things.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

I like the new badges. Just adds a little extra flavor to things.

The should have a ‘green jacket’ badge too! 😜 I miss the reputation count, but otherwise an improvement.