Badges Are Coming!
6 years ago
This FA United we're introducing a new system - Badges! Fur Affinity Badges are a way to reward users using the site, attending our convention, or participating in community events (such as the art contests).
Art (Left to Right) - WinterSnoWolf Macroceli Patto
* Anniversaries - Earn badges that reflect your anniversaries on FA, celebrating each year you’ve been a member of the site.
* Community Recognition - Earn badges, such as the Golden Paw, by doing good deeds in the community, representing the fandom in a positive manner, assisting users of the site, or trying to make the fandom a better place.
* FA United - Earn badges for attending FA United! Register and get the themed badge for the year. Register as a Sponsor and up, and get an additional FA Supporter badge. Not only that, but each year you attend FA United earns you a “FAU Patron” badge that can earn you special early pre-registration discounts.
You can also earn badges volunteering at FA United, hosting panels, winning contests (such as the FAU Dance Contest or gaming competitions), and more!
* Donators - While Fur Affinity no longer accepts donations, we want to honor those who helped contribute to the site in the past. We’ll be offering a special FA Supporter badge for those who helped support the community.
Not interested in badges? No worries! The system is completely optional, and can be disabled via the Control Panel.
Q: How do Badges work?
A: Badges are awarded once certain criteria are met (such as your one year anniversary on FA). It’s automatically applied to your account, and you can choose which badges display on your profile.
Q: How do I earn FA United badges?
A: All you have to do is register! Simply registering for FA United earns you a badge. Register as Sponsor or higher and get an FA Supporter badge. Otherwise, attending certain events at FA United can earn badges.
When registering for FAU just be sure to list your username in the “FA Username” field. You can also edit your previous registrations at Eventbrite.com if you forgot to list it.
Q: If I attended FA United previous years can I still earn badges for them?
A: Yes! If you registered via Eventbrite you can earn a badge! We’ll be posting more information on how to claim badges from previous years.
Q: I have a great idea for a site badge - can I suggest it?
A: Definitely! We’ll be adding more badges as time goes on, improving the system, and occasionally put out a signal flare for ideas and concepts.
Q: Who gets selected to do badge art?
A: After the initial batch of badges are implemented we’ll periodically put out a call for artists to help contribute new badge designs. Not only that, but you can also earn badges in the process!
Q: If I change my mind later, will I miss out on badges I would have earned, or lose my current badges?
A: Once a badge is applied to your account you’ve got it for life. Even if you opt out of the badge system you can still earn them -- they simply won’t display on your account. Certain badges may be time limited or available with certain offers (such as convention-specific badges or badges related to FA events, like art contests).
Art (Left to Right) - WinterSnoWolf Macroceli Patto
Earn Badges
Badges can be earned in a variety of ways, such as:* Anniversaries - Earn badges that reflect your anniversaries on FA, celebrating each year you’ve been a member of the site.
* Community Recognition - Earn badges, such as the Golden Paw, by doing good deeds in the community, representing the fandom in a positive manner, assisting users of the site, or trying to make the fandom a better place.
* FA United - Earn badges for attending FA United! Register and get the themed badge for the year. Register as a Sponsor and up, and get an additional FA Supporter badge. Not only that, but each year you attend FA United earns you a “FAU Patron” badge that can earn you special early pre-registration discounts.
You can also earn badges volunteering at FA United, hosting panels, winning contests (such as the FAU Dance Contest or gaming competitions), and more!
* Donators - While Fur Affinity no longer accepts donations, we want to honor those who helped contribute to the site in the past. We’ll be offering a special FA Supporter badge for those who helped support the community.
Not interested in badges? No worries! The system is completely optional, and can be disabled via the Control Panel.
FAQ
Q: How do Badges work?
A: Badges are awarded once certain criteria are met (such as your one year anniversary on FA). It’s automatically applied to your account, and you can choose which badges display on your profile.
Q: How do I earn FA United badges?
A: All you have to do is register! Simply registering for FA United earns you a badge. Register as Sponsor or higher and get an FA Supporter badge. Otherwise, attending certain events at FA United can earn badges.
When registering for FAU just be sure to list your username in the “FA Username” field. You can also edit your previous registrations at Eventbrite.com if you forgot to list it.
Q: If I attended FA United previous years can I still earn badges for them?
A: Yes! If you registered via Eventbrite you can earn a badge! We’ll be posting more information on how to claim badges from previous years.
Q: I have a great idea for a site badge - can I suggest it?
A: Definitely! We’ll be adding more badges as time goes on, improving the system, and occasionally put out a signal flare for ideas and concepts.
Q: Who gets selected to do badge art?
A: After the initial batch of badges are implemented we’ll periodically put out a call for artists to help contribute new badge designs. Not only that, but you can also earn badges in the process!
Q: If I change my mind later, will I miss out on badges I would have earned, or lose my current badges?
A: Once a badge is applied to your account you’ve got it for life. Even if you opt out of the badge system you can still earn them -- they simply won’t display on your account. Certain badges may be time limited or available with certain offers (such as convention-specific badges or badges related to FA events, like art contests).
"It does not [carry over automatically], as we have no way of tracking who changed accounts directly. However, you can open a ticket and say "I've moved accounts from X to Y, can I have my specific badges transferred over?" and we can do that."
Thank you for the info
The pure activity badges would probably need some kind of manual vetting at anything beyond the trivial level, (e.g. who cares if somebody types up a bit of absolute drek to get the "starting author" badge for submitting his first story). If the badges are for milestones like 1000 submissions, it probably wouldn't be that much work, (call up the person's gallery/scraps look at a few random pages and go "yep, it's actually art").
Am curious how the "assisting users" system will work c: Something like a "thanks" button on everybody's page?
There may be a system for nominating people, but it should probably be a bit more difficult than just clicking a link. So you don't just have to do something that people are going to go "thanks! *click*" but something that will actually get them to go out of their way to contact the admins.
Would all of this mean that people will be missed? Sure, but IMHO the people that deserve this kind of thing also aren't doing it for a bit of profile bling and probably don't really care.
1: IOW, if you post a racist/sexist/etc. tirade every other week, you probably aren't getting a 'good egg' badge no matter how helpful you are.
Strange, but hey, I'll give 'em a shot.
About like on SoFurry.
Honestly they were okay...some people went a little crazy over them, and then points made everything go to hell
it gets tiring when you se hundreds of times ;__;
Just a thought.
I look forward to seeing more of theses badges!
Even if it's simple addition, it's quite welcomed! Keep up the great work!
Don't mind me. XD <3
"I stubbed my toe, DAMN YOU NEER"
However a comment field below the commission-section would make sense. Should be moderateable by the owner like the shouts so it does not protect from an artist suddenly turning bad, but at least positive comments can end up there.
Additionally, you'd have to rework your CoC because trusted artists is something that can and would be contested by users who were ripped off but moderators may be completely unaware of. And as it currently stands, you cannot warn others on FA about a scammer artist. [which is also poor in taste because there are quite a few artists that owe me quite a bit of art but keep hiding reminders from I and others about that outstanding commission, such as Vani. Would be easier to warn people if we could actually talk about it here.]
We don't want another incident where the administration admitted to only looking at one side of the story before taking action.
(also every time I see your icon I have a need to hug you somehow)
We are mainly an anonymous community - much more than Facebook for example - so it's in the end extremely rare possible to tell who says the truth and who is lying. And thus it's better to ban attacks from the site as a whole.
Also, honestly. I am commissioning artists for about 3 years and think I haven't lost money so far.
However I do kinda avoid popu-furs after experiences with getting art without any WIPs due to the high speed many of those people work...
Artists beware makes it super easy for the truth to come out by giving commissioner and artist the chance to explain theirselves, BUT you must have evidence/screens of this for your submission to be accepted. There's substantial proof against many of these scammers. It wouldn't be that hard for FA to accept a similar method.
EDIT: 10 years ago means it's probably barred unfortunately.
But yes, Artist Beware is the way to go since we don't really need FA to have a police...
Also.. screens are sadly barely proof nowadays since you can fake everything with the board tools Chrome has.
FA could technically look into notes, etc. but depending on the country that's against laws on itself (unless they implement a separate communication system only for monetary stuff like Ebay for example).
It's all not so easy.
For Artist Beware it's easier because they are not actually executing any actions (like banning accounts, etc.) but only display information.
Imagine the shitstorm FA would get if they ban a popular artist >_> So many people will claim that every evidence you have is fake and unfortunately thing is it could technically be since you communicated in the end "directly" and not through a service made for this purpose which would be responsible.
We need a way to authorize artists, so commissioners (bascially: customers) are protected. If business rules gets destroyed, it would be much more useful for the customer. Rather than just telling em to go get a lawyer (In which good luck, lawyers don't work the same internationally, lawyers cost money, and lawyers may not wanna take your these kind of cases seriously) - Can't disagree with Dragon-Tear enough.
It doesn't hurt anyone.
Hrrrm... I suppose we'll see what happens when the badges come out.
Thank you for your response!
I already see that heavy as hell in this fandom. I agree with SiliconeRainshade - This will only embolden people with these traits to be way more heavy on the toxicity.
You are on point, thank you! 💯
Though every time I see something like this implemented on an art site, I always wonder/wish there could be two separate badge sections, one for official badges and one for unofficial badges. Because, ya know, I never get a widget on my page for putting my own personal logos/emblems/elemental symbols or whatever, into. Maybe I have to just make my own art site for that to be a thing lol.
In this way the badge system becomes more than just an FA or FAU badge system, but a community system.
But okay then.
With Friends like these....(amass 100+ watchers on your account)
Friends with benefits (complete 10+ pieces of art with a fellow user)
Making Bank! (complete 100 commissions)
Money is no object! (complete 500 commissions)
What is this, Myspace? (get added to the watch list of an Administrator)
The Wanderer (attend 5+ conventions)
Pack your bags! (attend 10+ conventions)
I made an account on FA.....(and all I got was this badge)
New guy (One Year with FA!)
Seasoned (5+ years on FA)
Veteran (10+ Years on FA)
Sous-Chef (Upload a recipe to share with fellow chefs)
Red Light District (Upload +10 Mature pieces)
Chatterbox - Make 1,000 comments on FA
Blabbermouth - Make 10,000 comments on FA
Socialite - Make 100,000 comments onFA
If the badges showed on the user's page to people who are not signed in (or do not have an account) then that could be a problem.
And I like Feralfrenzy 's Comment badge suggestions.
For some reasons I am not a fan of the commissioners badge idea. For one, FA would have to make a way to track and record
that you have done X amount of commissions through an FA service of some kind. Two, not all commissions artists get
are done from FA. It would not be a very accurate badge in my opinion. Three, I don't like the thought of badges making me
seem like a certain type of artist focused around money. Four, "Selling $1 commissions, 100 slots" I am concerned for the
artists' health who would do something like that because overworking can cause some big health problems.
I'm in agreement with DoNotDelete on Redlight district. I draw gore, and that can be placed into Mature/Adult pieces,
but my main gallery content is SFW cute adorable things.
later that people used to pay for art with real money on DA so close to the time I joined it. Being introduced
to the art world where everything costs 5 points really warped my perspective on pricing right off the bat.
It took just that little bit of time to destroy DA's Artist market apparently. Sometimes I wish I could have
seen it happen. i only get to hear the stories from old DA users from time to time.
Back in the days before points, people sold adoptables for real money. At MINIMUM people would sell things for $1. If not, people would do Draw to Adopt, Art trades, collabs. Very community based.
First came the llamas which was supposed to be an april fools joke but then they stuck around. Giving people llamas could upgrade them to super llama, ninja llama, etc. Your stage of llama indicated how cool you were. People started to trade art for a certain amount of llamas to be given to them on alt accounts.
Then came the points. At first, there was no way to cash them out. You could only buy them, or earn them via llama bribe market, where users would offer usually one point per llama. 80 points equaled $1. Honestly, the biggest appeal of the points before you could cash them out were a free way to get premium membership, kinda like Bonds in Runescape.
People started offering their art and adopts for points so they could get premium membership. I think one month was about...300 points back then? So people, going by regular commission prices of dollars, started to price their adopts and art at like 1-10 points. people would draw for HOURS for ten fucking cents.
Whats worse is that points reflected pennies, not dollars, but because they were so small, and there were no ways to get them without the bs other than paying real money right off the bat, they were super in demand despite not reflecting much.
When real commissions came out, it got WORSE. The points only reflected their true value, (80 points to the dollar) on Deviantart products itself. When you cashed them out, 100 points equaled a $1 PLUS it took TWO WEEKS for the commissions to clear before you could add it to your account, PLUS the cashout fees of the payment processor itself.
It was absolutely abysmal. Even I would spend 10 minutes on sketches for 5 points cause my logic was "well i can commission other people" It's just extremely harmful to the community, and made it even more worse for people charging real money cause people are always asking "Do you take points?"
One community thats coming that is planning on doing virtual currency right is writscrib. They're supposed to be a social media platform that allows you to donate directly to the creator on blog posts you like via chips, which are 10 cents each. In addition, I believe chips will be able to be earned via ads at some point, which allows a more stable way of introducing them into the economy. Not to mention, the only purpose of chips is to give them to other artists as support or cash them out. It's a lot better this way I feel. But I'll be involved in the beta so we shall see.
The points system is/was even more useless than badges. If you can't trade the points in for real money it's basically just a money-grubbing scam set up by the site owners - they're the only ones who actually get to handle any real coin.
Thus began an age where my poor friends did digital paintings for 500 points, aka, 5 dollars on deviantart and still were told they were overpriced.
Bespoke art pieces, however, you *have* to commission. If people aren't prepared to pay you for your time they're really not worth wasting your breath on. Just tell them to look elsewhere.
I want to study and am too lazy to think of an idea (even then I'm very selective of who gives me the idea, people can be ungrateful)
As an additional thanks for someone commissioning me x number of times, or as apology for commission delays
In art for art trades (not technically free but you know)
to appreciate very close friends on special times.
Speaking of which, shout out to the people who go "oh requests for friends? am I your friend? owo"
Ugh. I always get the "Ooh it's an art stream, they must be offering free shit, gimme free shit. Why no free shit? I'm leaving." that's cool too.
Doodler badge for people with loads of scraps? x'D
Have fun at the con.
How exactly does this one work? Curious because I can't draw for shit so can't do contests and I've no plans to go to con. I sorta want in on badges but I'm not exactly the shining role model.
It seems that it is a bit overused-besides, for the FA United Badge, we do have lives and our own commitments-the date for many is a little inconvenient as school is starting or started for many furs in college.
that do nothing
Will there ever be a FurAffinity mobile app?
However, I'm excited to see the beta progress in the future and thank you for your hard work!
Mastodon (a decentralized social platform like Twitter) does this today: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/3243 If you're curious, you can read up more on the technical details here: https://developers.google.com/web/f.....-push-protocol
Of course, plain 'ol email notifications would be nice, too - that's a fairly universal system :)
But yay! BADGES!!!
The system will NOT notify other users when you get a badge, nor do we have any plans to implement that.
like it would be cool if it showed up on the front page or in search when someones browsing in general.
As an achievement hunter and badge earner on Steam I'm definitely ready to take on these challenges!
Badges are just meaningless fluff.
Quite honestly, that is more important than a silly digital sticker.
Using the new design on mobile is worse than before
"It does not [carry over automatically], as we have no way of tracking who changed accounts directly. However, you can open a ticket and say "I've moved accounts from X to Y, can I have my specific badges transferred over?" and we can do that."
Banning/suspending account isn't exactly nothing but that in itself is very easily circumvented but I appreciate that IP bans wouldn't be the perfect way to stop all of it but if there's nothing else in the works it wouldn't exactly hurt people who are being stalked by less resourceful stalkers.
But I mean hey, it's your site and this is about badges, so.
And watchers who don't even look at the stuff of those they watch don't deserve praise for that. If there would be a badge for that it would only lead to more people becoming fake watchers, and this is honestly not a good thing. (Fun fact, due to such a phenomenon of watching only for own attention Devianart put a cap on how many people one can watch at most.)
Edit: I'm referring to mobile ofc
Of course that'd require being able to add tags.
Next thing is there's going to be more badges that require you to pay in some way - there's already some with the con and sponsor badges. Then a 'premium' account which allows you to get premium badges and access to other site features
If users suggest badges, would it be possible to have a personal page listing how close you are to one, or maybe some kind of implementation of an achievement system to accompany certain ones?
I might just be spouting off nonsense, but i really am all for the idea~
like a lot of other people it wouldve been nice to see more actual site updates, but hey, maybe this will help encourage me to be more social. i like the idea of the "chatty" badges for comments posted but im not sure how spam could be avoided with that one :\
Badges will be officially rolled out during FAU and will start being awarded soon thereafter.
Guess I'm out, I'll never have a chance to do either, given that I live too far from cons, have little money and my art exclusively consists of 3D and not traditional (that, and I can't afford an art tablet) *sigh*
Edit: Also there's no way to make trouble tickets, either, and the "recent" search doesn't work properly at all, but I can't report that bug.
You can create Trouble Tickets on the above page.
There should be a link to the Trouble Ticket interface in your menus; in Classic it's under My FA > Report a problem. I don't know offhand what the exact menu path is on Beta, but it should be something similar.
"Help & Support
The Help & Support page is not quite done just yet. We're working on finishing up the last revisions, and will get the page online ASAP"
So that's why I was confused. @Dragoneer, I'm sorry for the confusion, and for my negativity, just...been going through some incredibly trying times with my life right now :(
I'm curious how Community Recognition are going to be picked?
I hate those things and they get so annoying.
It won't be something that will be displayed on our profiles when we earn them, will it?
According to the journal it is the same set up and system as DA's badges.
Comments like that are just people making an excuse for themselves to not try harder. It's quite depressing.
It's more like giving you the option to display on your page if you did certain things on FA. Like if you took part in a convention, or joined a contest, and so on. But you won't even have to display them from what they said.
Sorry couldn't help myself. YEAH! some rewards to earn!
I loathe 'achivements' on any platform and disable them whenever possible.
Sofurry lets us opt the fuck out
(It's ironic).
Here Comes Trouble (# of trouble tickets resolved, for admins/mods only)
Vigilante (# of trouble tickets a user has submitted that were resolved productively (so not counting tickets where the user's complaint was waived))
Socialite (# of comments left that were not hidden or reported)
Group Leader (at least one group formed, possibly with # of watchers on group account)
Contested (# of contests started/completed)
Good Samaritan (nominated by another user(s) for a good community deed, approved by a staff member)
Naughty (# of adult submissions)
Spicy or Questionable (# of mature submissions)
Family Friendly (# of general submissions)
Groupie (# of groups joined/watched)
Well Traveled (# of accounts with more than 10 uploads)
...and probably more!
A: When a user opts out of the badge system, does that prevent from viewing their own badges, or all badges in general, regardless of whose page you're visiting?
B: Will there be an option to disable the viewing of pageviews?
In other words, "Blotch" is a ghost haunting FurAffinity?
I was just curious whether badges are awarded to pages that are abandoned by their owners.
I imagine badges will be given to any account that meets the requirements; it'd be a lot of work for admins to check through every badge awarded to see if the account is still in use, and many people may leave their account for a while to come back later.
I really tried to help a furry out so I can get my badge.
I really did.
But some people just can't see another's point of view.
I mean, for another example, All eighteen original members of 'Destiny's Child' are busy doing other things, and in theory they could get back together, but let's face it darlings, 'Destiny's Child' is dead as a door nail. It ain't coming back. Stick a fork in 'em. Their done.
Also an idea, Milestone badges, like 10K Comments posted or 1K watchers and what not.
And I know I can't personally do any of the contests on this site, since NONE of them have been for poets or writers. Only artists. People that can't draw like the amazing people who enter the contests would never be able to win a badge.
I don't think you need more badges, you guys need to diversify the stuff on the site. More contests (like writing or free-entry), better categories on submissions and such...make it easier for more people to interact with others in a polite and meaningful way. I don't think more than 10% of FA's users actually use the forum.
And now we get badges. Am I the only one feeling like we are getting the Pokemon GO treatment...?
The funniest thing is that I am by far not the only one here (and this is not the first journal where this is the case) commenting about this filter/tag system.
And the mods fully ignore it. They reply only to those who are standing fully behind their stupid decisions.
That's how you do it. |D
And I know I'm not the only one thinking that way about specific fetishes - if anyone feels triggered now. I like stuff, you like stuff. Fine. But I don't need to see the very weird sh*t if I'm not comfortable with that.
DA became basically a porn-bot and people-uploading-weirdass-body-photos site and I fear that that could become the future of FA if they continue not listening to their community.
A lot more development actually happens than what is strictly visible to users, but because much of it is "under the hood", we like to trade off with some more visible updates from time to time.
Replies to site newspost comments are primarily focused on answering questions. You'll find there are plenty of "Yay! I like this!" style comments that have also not received responses. Because the purpose of us answering comments is to provide clarifications and further information, not to simply say "yes, we have read your comment." Anything else would make trying to find information in staff comments pretty torturous.
It will need changes to implement that, yes. So why does it have to wait then? So everything is only getting more complicated? Even in Tumblr I can block out stuff I don't want to see - with a third-party-addon for the browser!
Of course we can't see what's happening behind the scenes. Maybe it would be nice to get a little bit of insight though? Like.. a list of things that is going to happen in the future? What we can expect? Seeing "Adding Tag Filtering" on a list of soon-to-be implemented things would obviously cause many people to be far more pleased than having badges for popufurs who don't care anyway - let's be honest here for a moment.
I know that what I write here seems salty, but I see not why this should need any sugar-coating. The Furry community is rather toxic, nobody can deny that. And I don't like to beat around the bush just because some people get triggered easily or a horde of white knights will try to make me kill myself.
The new site design is beautiful and I prefer it over the old one. You guys did great with that. Now please focus on what FA really needs instead of adding more extras. Putting cute stickers onto it sadly won't change that the whole tag filtering system could have been there for years now.
You're pretty much summing up the Catch-22 we're constantly facing with your comment, though:
Focus on under-the-hood changes that will allow improvements in the long run, or fix bugs impacting very few users? "The devs are lazy/don't do anything."
Focus on visible changes? "Why are you adding this feature, rather than this other one (that would require tons of backend changes)?"
We understand tag filtering is something many users want. Really, we do. It's also something our system wasn't originally designed for, which complicates things. A lot. The same goes for username changes. We do have an index of feature requests available, though. You can find that here.
You can update us on such under-the-hood changes just as you do with obvious stuff. A bit of in-depth information that you managed to implement code that will allow this and that in the future. There will always be people being stupid and saying things like that, yes.
But with making changes the site doesn't need it simply really feels like the community is being ignored. Even if that's not the case. As I said earlier: it feels like a Pokemon GO kind of treatment. As in frequent updates are given, yes, but the content is simply not what people really want. And that will - in the long run - only cause the community to be pissed and get impatient. One could say now "oh not all of them - and the big artists will stay bla-bla" but that is, in my eyes at least, kind of egoistical and contra-productive.
Like.
It's like the admins listen to feedback or something.
Please don't make 'X many watchers/faves' badges either, it just puts more pressure on creators
I heard that we'll be able to submit a ticket to get badges transferred from old accounts to newer ones. If that's so, I totally want any this old account gets on my "new" main account. xD
If I can be blunt, people are going to complain about everything we do. Everything. Back in 2007/2008 we increased the size of thumbnails. The amount of complaints we received that we increased the size of images on the site was monumental. There are always those who are going to have something negative. We, instead, are trying to focus on the positive.
The badge itself doesn't meant that this person is a paragon of the community, but that they did something worth of recognition. It's our way of saying thanks. Perhaps that person merely volunteers their time to help users out when they have a problem.
It's a token of appreciation.
And if you look further below here, you'll see other people get the idea too, asking for badges for other money related transactions. :P
"There are always those who are going to have something negative. We, instead, are trying to focus on the positive."
Lemme translate that for you:
"We ignore anyone who complains and do what we want."
If you received complaints that you increased the size of thumbnails, do you think maybe people had a reason to complain? Maybe it screwed up the layout or made it harderto fit more on one page. I mean personally I don't have a problem with it, however I do have a problem with all pages now being "full view only". I used to load things with the default small view, so the entire image would fit on my page. Now I can't do that anymore, and some images are ridiculously massive when they don't need to be. Wildly large uncompressed images taking 5 minutes to load because the artist doesn't know how to optimize or decided to upload a super massive uber image. Now when I want to see the original, I click download, or full view, whichever. But I don't want every single image to be full view.
How many complaints did you receive, and ignore, about that? I couldn't complain, cause I was blocked by all admins for a while for some reason, perhaps another one of your screening methods that prevent people from complaining about site changes. If you receive a lot of complaints about a change, obviously something's wrong with the change, not the people who complained. You shouldn't ignore them just because "its users being users".
I predict my comment will be hidden though. Censorship on FA!
I hadn't thought about it before but you're right, I don't understand why images load 'full view' straight away either; Something like that means a lot of artwork is missed out on because people aren't going to sit around and wait for the full image to load, Not everyone has a turbocharged superfast computer.
You're right about the general attitude toward negative comments as well. That kind of blinkered view is what leads to the development of unnecessary, unasked for 'updates' like *site badges* instead of changes that will actually streamline the site and improve the user experience.
But hey, instead of fixing problems and making actual improvements, let's dish out empty gestures to distract people away from the fact we're not actually doing anything useful. Let's reward positive comments with shiny badges - and at the same time discourage negativity by not giving the complainers anything.
It's a tried-and-tested political tactic. Distract your community away from the fact you're actually not fixing anything by dishing out shinies and sparkles.
Or maybe I'm far too cynical and I'm reading too much into this - and it really is just meant to be a light-hearted bit of fun. It's true that time could have been better spent elsewhere though - on actual site improvements. No getting away from that.
I mean c'mon now; This is like what 90% of the internet is used for. Let's be adults and not be ashamed of the truth of it all. It's only a negative thing if you think it's something to be ashamed of (newsflash: it isn't, it's part of being human).
I do agree this is going to be more of a divisive thing than a 'positive' thing. It's a way of people keeping score and playing one-upmanship against other people. For example:
"I don't see any convention badges on your account - therefore you can't possibly have a more realistic perspective on being a furry than I do - I've got badges for having gone to at least ten conventions!"
"I've got a badge for community spirit! I'm a more valuable - more positive - member of this community than you are! That validates my opinion of you being unnecessarily negative!"
For something being pitched as being 'positive' and 'encouraging the community' to come together - it's far more likely to cause arguments, bickering, pettiness, odd behaviour (i.e. people going out of their way to do odd tasks in order to get a certain badge), one-upmanship, putting people on a pedestal for not having really done anything remarkable.
It's the best way to encourage a community to get into arguments about very pointless, stupid, petty and worthless things.
But then again if people are going to place importance on such trivial things then they deserve whatever they get themselves into.
I like the idea of achievements as a way of keeping track of how I stand personally in the community, but I do agree that, for minors especially, shiny profile swag is like crack. We discussed how comment badges for example could possibly increase the possibility of inane spam done only for the badge. However, I do honestly think that these types of people are in the minority.
I can see the convention badges as kinda being a problem for those with the "gotta catch them all spirit". Not really sure how to resolve that.
And at the end of the day you're right, we're still waiting for features like blacklist/proper blocking/note organization etc. Still, I try to be optimistic. (we did get folders after a century...)
Sad but True.
Badges for buying ad space, Badges for commenting on submissions a lot. Badges to encourage interaction with the community could be good. Badges for uploading your first submission, Uploading your first icon etc. More like an achievment system really. It could be something unique and fun.
The art needs to be distinct and visually descriptive. Otherwise it's just more noise
Just looking at it doesn't give a single idea of what it's about.
-Someone had to say it anyway
the ability to change your username if you so desire to (like SF has)
The ability to prevent someone from viewing your page entirely if you block them, as if your page was disabled but more for blocking purposes.
optionally: potential mobile version of the site for your phone and/or tablets for easier task execution should one be using the layout on their mobile device(s)
a bigger size limit for the icons should anyone desire an avatar that's animated without losing a lot of the quality.
adding some new species onto the list of species when posting something. i mean.... Werewolf fursonas have been around forever but it's not listed as a species? i mean come on, dragons are listed, even pokemon are listed, but not Werewolves?
but i mean hey, whatever floats your boat.
Do we not want to show recognition and offer validation toward the more oddball and exploratory members of our community?
Do we not want to reward and recognise those who are outside the mainstream?
It's like the admin only see what they want to see - or that they just pretend to go through the motions of 'listening to the community'.
I'm gonna have to keep my cynicism in check otherwise I'm going to get very depressed and disappointed with all of this.
- The Desert Fox
https://img.ifcdn.com/images/7b3f1f.....eade53ba_1.jpg
Change that pic into
Do you go into Cons and meet people?
*Show furaffinity badges
I look forward to using the badge system.
There may be some subjectivity to this, but it's weaksauce. Meaning no disrespect to them, there are members of this site who are dead, and they're still "achieving." How long before "Five years of not-being-alive" becomes a badge?
If badges were reserved for exceptional acts or accomplishments, that would be different. But these? These are 'participation awards', and people are already clamouring for them. What profound emptiness of life drives that, and what hope has anyone who settles for this?
I'm glad I'm not the only user completely unimpressed by this - and can see it for the empty, vacuous husk it is.
Maximum Yiffyness
Wiseguy
Number 1 Comment Joker
Cool Roo
Sexiest Furry
Need these badges on my page asap!
It might be funny if it weren't so tragic.
Idk, don't listen to me, I'm just trying to state an idea that sounds good in my head. 75% of the ideas that come out of my head are poor ideas that frequently don't have an easy way to implement realistically.
Dragoneer, you know what you are?
YOU"RE A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI
BTW, will there be a badge for being an active user for 3 months?
Would make looking for something soooo much easier, but badges are nice too.
Basically coping DA's badge system and llamas?
I do have a question though: will people be able to hand out badges in the future, like on Deviantart?
But alas money doesn't allow it...
just not a fan of this
This could also apply for the other side of the spectrum.
Its taken me more than four minutes to type this. ridiculous.
https://sta.sh/07ejm4geodf
Is it not an active feature yet?
If this has already been brought up, im sorry, but I hope you can understand I'm not going to sift through 500+ comments lmao
Also, my original account (which I no longer use) was made in 2011, so does that mean I can bring the anniversary badge from that account to my new one, even though the new one is from 2015?
1.) Thus being active here or accounts that is one year old above will receive badges?
2.) I know there are various ways to earn those badges, however, are there any lists to follow in order to earn those badges?
3.) Are those permanent on my profile?
4.) Are there any chances that those badges will be removed or deleted from my account?
5.) May I make a sample of a badge? XD
So many badge types were explained and brought forward but I see only two actually implemented.
It's been two full years now since this was posted and I'm incredibly disappointed as to how slow it's coming along.