Achievements & Ranks

[Brother Tyler]

ACHIEVEMENTS

 

This hobby community thrives on the contributions of its members, whether that is sharing hobby content or engaging with other members. One of the methods for incentivizing positive and constructive participation in the community is awarding badges to recognize members' contributions. Badges may be awarded automatically by the software when certain actions are performed, or they may be awarded manually by the staff for a variety of actions.

 

AUTOMATICALLY AWARDED BADGES

 

The system tracks all of your content submissions and community engagement (giving/receiving reactions). When you reach certain milestones, achievements are awarded. Most of these are awarded in a progression starting with a green badge for the first performance of the action, then three steps each for blue, purple, red, copper, bronze, and silver, and culminating with the gold badge as the submissions/engagements increase. The green badge for the first performance lets you know that the type of action is one for which achievement badges will be awarded, but subsequent badges will require increasing repeats (non-linear) of the same performance. The progression is based on the "difficulty" of the action - actions that are common and easy to perform have a much higher progression than those that are uncommon and difficult. The gold badge is the final badge for the action, though you are still encouraged to continue performing that action.

 

Each of the actions, their progressions, and the gold badges are shown below. Some of the achievements also have explanatory notes in italics. The highlighted numbers after the action name indicate the milestone progression, with the matching background color (green - blue - purple - red - copper - bronze - silver - gold). The badges are shown at 40x40 pixels, and you can click on the gold version to see a larger version. Other badges in the progression will be similar, with only the color and icon at the bottom showing. All badges have a small black circle at the bottom. The gold badge shows a crux, which is thematic and visually similar to a plus sign (+), indicating that the badge recognizes all higher levels of performance of that behavior. The green badge has a thumbs-up icon, indicating to the member that this type of behavior is one that earns achievements along the progression. The blue, purple, red, copper, bronze, and silver badges will have the Roman numbers I, II, or III, indicating which of the three badges in that color they have earned.

 

CREATING A DISCUSSION TOPIC

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 | 70 | 75 | 80 | 85 | 90 | 100+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY IN A DISCUSSION

( 1 | 25 | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 750 | 1,000 | 1,250 | 1,500 | 2,000 | 2,500 | 3,000 | 3,500 | 4,000 | 4,500 | 5,000+ )

 

WELCOMING A NEW MEMBER

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 | 70 | 75 | 80 | 85 | 90 | 100+ )

Members are awarded for posting replies in the + INTRODUCE YOURSELF + forum.

 

CREATING A GALLERY ALBUM

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20+ )

 

SUBMITTING A REVIEW OF AN ALBUM

( 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 13 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 28 | 33 | 38 | 43 | 49 | 55 | 61 | 68 | 75 | 82 | 90+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY IN AN ALBUM

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 60 | 75 | 90 | 110 | 130 | 150 | 175 | 200 | 225 | 255 | 285 | 315 | 350+ )

 

UPLOADING AN IMAGE TO THE GALLERIES

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | 150 | 160 | 170 | 180+ )

 

SUBMITTING A REVIEW OF AN IMAGE

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | 150 | 160 | 170 | 180+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY TO AN IMAGE

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 60 | 75 | 90 | 110 | 130 | 150 | 175 | 200 | 225 | 255 | 285 | 315 | 350+ )

 

CREATING A BLOG ENTRY

( 1 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | 150 | 160 | 170 | 180 | 190+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY IN A BLOG ENTRY

( 1 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 50 | 70 | 90 | 120 | 150 | 180 | 220 | 260 | 300 | 350 | 400 | 450 | 510 | 570 | 630 | 700+ )

 

CREATING A CALENDAR EVENT

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 25 | 28 | 31 | 34 | 37 | 40+ )

 

SUBMITTING A REVIEW OF A CALENDAR EVENT

( 1 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 18 | 22 | 26 | 30 | 34 | 38 | 42 | 46 | 50 | 56 | 62 | 68 | 74 | 80+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY TO A CALENDAR EVENT

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 60 | 75 | 90 | 110 | 130 | 150 | 175 | 200 | 225 | 255 | 285 | 315 | 350+ )

 

UPLOADING A FILE TO THE DOWNLOADS

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 25 | 30+ )

 

DOWNLOADING A FILE FROM THE DOWNLOADS

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 120 | 150+ )

 

SUBMITTING A REVIEW OF A FILE

( 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 13 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 28 | 33 | 38 | 43 | 49 | 55 | 61 | 68 | 75 | 82 | 90+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY TO A FILE

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 60 | 75 | 90 | 110 | 130 | 150 | 175 | 200 | 225 | 255 | 285 | 315 | 350+ )

 

SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE AS THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 25 | 30+ )

These badges will be awarded to the original authors of articles, or to the Librarians who submit such articles (when the original author is either no longer active or is unable/unwilling to perform the work).

 

SUBMITTING A REVIEW OF AN ARTICLE

( 1 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 24 | 26 | 30 | 34 | 38 | 42 | 46 | 50 | 60+ )

 

POSTING A COMMENT/REPLY TO AN ARTICLE

( 1 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 60 | 75 | 90 | 110 | 130 | 150 | 175 | 200 | 225 | 255 | 285 | 315 | 350+ )

 

CREATING A CLUB

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20+ )

HAVING A REPLY MARKED AS THE BEST ANSWER

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 25 | 30+ )

 

HAVING CONTENT PROMOTED

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20+ )

 

GIVING REACTIONS TO OTHER MEMBERS' CONTENT

( 1 | 20 | 150 | 600 | 1,200 | 1,800 | 2,400 | 3,000 | 3,600 | 4,200 | 5,000 | 6,000 | 7,000 | 8,000 | 9,000 | 10,000 | 12,000 | 14,000 | 16,000 | 20,000+ )

GAINING FOLLOWERS

( 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100+ )

 

VOTING IN A POLL

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 25+ )

 

LONGEVITY BADGES

 

These are a subset of automatically awarded badges. These are awarded to members when they log in after comparing the current date to the member's join date. These are awarded at a member's 1st year, then every multiple of 5 years, as indicated by the red Roman numerals on the forehead of the skull:

  

 

MANUALLY AWARDED BADGES

 

Badges may also be awarded for special achievements that the system can't track and for which we can't create rules.

 

ARTICLE RECOMMENDATION

( 1 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 15 | 21 | 28 | 36 | 45 | 55 | 66 | 78 | 91 | 105 | 120 | 136 | 153 | 171 | 190 | 210+ )

If a member recommends that content be submitted as an article and an article is ever published, the member that made the recommendation will earn an achievement and be awarded badges on the above progression. Like the automatically awarded badges, there will be a progression starting with a green badge for the 1st recommended article and culminating with a gold medal for reaching (and hopefully surpassing) a higher number of recommended articles. You can see more about recommending articles here.

 

BANNER OF THE MONTH

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20+ )

If a member submits a banner for the Banner of the Month challenge and that banner is subsequently selected for display at the top of the site, the member that submitted the banner will earn an achievement and be awarded badges on the above progression. Like the automatically awarded badges, there will be a progression starting with a green badge for the 1st selected banner and culminating at a gold medal for reaching (and hopefully surpassing) a higher number of selected banners. You can see more about the Banner of the Month challenge here.

 

CONTESTS/CHALLENGES

When contests and challenges are conducted within the community, we can award badges to participants and those who earn special recognition. In general, we prefer to keep the number of badges for each contest/challenge at a maximum of 4.

 

 This badge was awarded to every participant in the Chronicles of the Legio challenge.

 

 This badge was awarded to everyone who completed the 12 Months of Hobby Challenge in 2019.

 

 This badge was awarded to everyone who completed the Boxing Day Bash in 2023.

 

FEATURED IN WARHAMMER VISIONS OR WHITE DWARF MAGAZINE

 

Members whose hobby content is featured in either of the official periodicals for the hobby may be awarded a badge recognizing this achievement.

 

GOLDEN DAEMON/SLAYER SWORD WINNER

   

 

LEGIO BOLTER & CHAINSWORD

 

Members who submit either a Legio "mini-me" (a miniature representing their persona in the Legio Bolter & Chainsword) or a picture of their Legio persona's honour shield will be awarded a badge recognizing their contribution.

 

LIBRARIAN ASSISTANCE IN ARTICLE DEVELOPMENT

( 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 16 | 19 | 22 | 25 | 28 | 31 | 35 | 39 | 43 | 47 | 51 | 55 | 60+ )

 

Librarians perform considerable work in assisting authors in the development, submission, and publication of their articles. These badges recognize (and incentivize) these efforts.

 

SITE STAFF MEMBERS

    

Members who volunteer to the community by performing work in a staff role will be awarded badges for each role that they perform in thanks for their commitment, time, and effort.

 

SPECIAL AWARDS

  

There are also badges that are awarded for special contributions to the community.

 

SUPPORTER BADGES

 

These are a subset of manually awarded badges, awarded to members that donate to the site (1 per year). Whether you donate a little or a lot, we appreciate your contribution to the financial upkeep of the site. These badges are awarded the first time you donate money during a calendar year. Below are some examples:

  

 

You can see all of the badges that a member has earned by clicking on the Recent Badges option in the Your Achievements block on their profile. 

 

Note that members may earn each badge only one time; and while the system allows for badges to be removed, it is our policy to never remove badges once earned (unless they are awarded in error).

 

ACHIEVEMENT POINTS

 

Achievements are worth 0-3 achievement points. A member's total achievement points determines their rank (see below).

 

RANKS

 

A member's Rank is different from their User Group/Role, and is an indicator of their overall contributions to the community. Ranks do not confer any special authority or responsibility, simply letting others know roughly how much of an impact a member has had on the community. Ranks are based on the number of achievement points a member has earned and use a progression based on the Adeptus Astartes, specifically the imagery of the Legio Bolter & Chainsword. The points required to reach each rank are based on the total of points at various milestones of the site's core features/behaviors. These features/behaviors are:

• Creating a new [discussion] topic
• Posting a comment/reply in a discussion topic
• Creating a new blog
• Creating a new blog entry
• Posting a comment/reply in a blog entry
• Creating a new [gallery] album
• Submitting a new gallery image

The achievement points that a member earns can be from any of the achievements, not just the core features/behaviors.

 

 Aspirant (0 points)

 

 Novitiate (3 points)

 

 Battle-Brother (18 points)

 

 Veteran (31 points)

 

 Honoured Frater (51 points)

 

  Venerable Frater (71 points)

 

  Ancient Frater (91+ points)

 

The icon for a member's rank will appear in the lower left corner of their personal photo and will be displayed, along with the plain language name, in the Your Achievements block on their profile.

 

DISCIPLINE

 

Achievements and rank equate to imaginary Internet points, but they also represent a member's overall contributions to the site. Rank confers a certain level of prestige, so misbehaving (i.e., continually violating the community rules) will result in a loss of that prestige.

• Achievement badges will never be rescinded as part of disciplinary action - badges represent actual contributions to the community and will not be taken away from members.
• Achievement points may be removed as a result of repeat offenses (for the same offense type). Loss of achievement points may incur a reduction in rank.
• Achievement points may also be removed if a member is permanently banned.

You can see details here.

[Brother Tyler]

A more in-depth explanation of how we determined the points required to reach each rank follows.

 

While there are many ways in which members can earn achievements, we wanted to have a level of objectivity in determining how members earn ranks. In this, we decided that the requirements to reach each rank would be based on the points a member might earn based on specific milestones for the core behaviors of participating in the community. These core behaviors can be summed up as:

• Participating in discussions with other members about various aspects of the hobby
• Creating and maintaining a blog to present hobby efforts
• Creating and maintaining an album to store images of hobby efforts (for use in discussions and blog entries)

These are the behaviors that any member can perform; and ideally, every member will perform these behaviors as they participate in the hobby. Generally speaking, the Gold level milestones were based on milestones that some members have already reached. The exceptions to this are things like the New Blog Entry, Banner of the Month, the various ~ Review types, and the various ~ Comment/Reply types that were broken out of the main discussion forum Post - Comment/Reply behavior. In such cases, we may adjust those progressions later if we determine that the milestones are too high or too low.

 

It was important to identify reasonable rank-based milestones for each of the core behaviors. If the milestones were too high, attaining higher ranks might be (or appear to be) unachievable. Conversely, milestones that were too low would cheapen the sense of accomplishment. In the end, we decided upon the core milestones as depicted below:

 

(click the image to see a larger version)

 

The chart on the left shows the core behaviors and the attendant milestones while the chart on the right shows the total points value that are earned for each behavior at each rank, with the rank badges below (the Aspirant rank badge isn't below a column since that is the rank that all new members with 0 points start at).

 

The behaviors are listed on the left and the 20 achievement levels are listed across the top in order, from green through gold. Green and gold have one badge each while blue, purple, red, copper, bronze, and silver have three each (I, II, and III). The main body of the chart shows the milestone required to earn the badge for each achievement. The number on the left indicates the milestone - the number of times the behavior must be performed to earn the achievement. The italicized number in parenthesis shows the total number of points the member will have earned in that behavior's progression upon reaching that milestone. For example, if you look at the New Topic behavior (the first behavior) and the Blue III award, you will see that the member must have created 15 new topics to earn that achievement and they will have earned a total of 8 points in that behavior's progression (the total points earned for that achievement and each of the preceding achievements in the progression). The milestone that we used to calculate each rank is highlighted in the color we chose for each rank (green for Novitiate, blue for Battle-Brother, red for Veteran, purple for Honoured Frater, yellow for Venerable Frater, and orange for Ancient Frater).

 

Each behavior has a progression of milestones, and these core behaviors provide us with a pacing points value to earn each rank. We simply totaled the points at the various milestones to determine the minimum total requirement to earn each rank. To reach each red (Veteran) milestone, it is necessary to first reach the preceding blue (Battle-Brother) and green (Novitiate) milestone.

 

It's important to understand that reaching any rank doesn't require that a member perform the behaviors shown above at the milestones that are depicted. All it takes to earn the Battle-Brother rank, for example, is to earn 18 total achievement points. The core behaviors shown above simply serve to provide us with the points required to earn a rank, not the actual behaviors that are necessary. This amount of points can be earned by reaching each of the blue milestones shown above. Alternatively, it might be earned simply by creating 40 new topics. The other achievements (i.e., those not shown in the image above, but depicted in the previous post) might earn points, too. While there are four behaviors for which no points are awarded*, the vast majority are worth 1 or more points, generally 1-3 points**. So a member can earn points by doing things like submitting articles, submitting files, etc. It is entirely possible to earn the Ancient Frater rank without performing any of the core behaviors depicted in the charts above.

 

In this way, members have the flexibility to participate within the community in a manner that suits their interests/abilities without being limited to certain types of behaviors.

 

* These are for "behaviors" that take little/no effort and which contribute little. For example, the Welcome Wagon achievement is for posting comment/replies in the + Introduce Yourself + forum. The New Topic and Post - Comment/Reply behaviors are already covered by this so we didn't want to double up on the points being awarded. You'll still receive the badges in the progression for posting in that forum, and topics and comments/replies in this forum will count towards those other behaviors (which will earn you points). The badges in the Welcome Wagon progression incentivize posting in the + Introduce Yourself + forum without making this behavior more valuable than posting in other forums. Similarly, it takes little/no effort to download a file or to gain a follower.

 

** The only milestone that is worth more than 3 points is for the first blog entry that a member creates. It is not possible to create an award for creating a blog. We consider creating a blog to be one of the most important ways of participating in the community as it is the key method by which members can present their hobby projects to the other members of the community. So we combined the points that would have been awarded for creating one's first blog (2 pts) with the points awarded for creating one's first blog entry (3 pts). You'll see that subsequent achievements in the New Blog Entry progression are worth 3 points each.

 

One thing we considered was that we didn't want to be overly prescriptive in how members organized their blogs and images. It's entirely conceivable that one member might decide to have only one album while another member might decide to have multiple albums. So we made the first milestone worth 3 points while each subsequent album is worth only 1 point. Since multiple albums contribute towards better organization (and findability!) of images, it is still appropriate to award points for subsequent albums, but keeping each at 1 point helped keep things from getting out of hand.

 

Another aspect of the achievement/rank system is that we wanted the vast majority of it to be objective (relatively speaking) and automatic (i.e., without requiring human intervention). The behaviors aren't based on the quality of content. Quality of content is reflected in the reactions that members give to that content (which affects a member's reputation) and in the reviews that some types of content can receive from members (e.g., files, images, albums, etc.). Instead, achievements are earned based on the quantity of content. The automatic aspect of this is that the system measures the behavior and performs the achievement recognition. There are only a few exceptions to this, and only where the system cannot measure a behavior. For example, having one's banner submission selected as the banner of the month earns points, but the process for this requires administrator intervention to add the banner to the rotation, award the badge, and award the achievement points. Of all the achievements, only three fall into this manual process (Banner of the Month, Article - Recommendation, and Article - Librarian). Each of these has clearly identified requirements, removing objectivity and maximizing impartiality. The rest of the achievements are automated.

 

Also keep in mind that 1 achievement point is earned at each longevity step (1 year, 5 years, then every 5 years thereafter). In addition, achievement points may be earned for special contributions to the community.