New Awards and Profile Pages

Announcement and feedback

[jimsthoughts]

We are excited to announce that we're launching some great new awards for WebmasterWorld members in good standing. Members contributing significantly to WebmasterWorld have the potential to win one, or more of our awards. This is a big thank you for members contributing towards our community today, or for some of those extra special Members that have been so generous in the past.

Members simply need to be of good standing, and to participate and to contribute with quality posts over time, and may become eligible for one or more award at a time. In addition, new badges will show more clearly our Moderators and Administrators.

Here's a quick description of the WebmasterWorld Members awards.

Top 100 All Time Posters Award: This award is for those members achieving a position in the top 100 contributors on WebmasterWorld, since its creation.

Ten Year Members Award: Awarded to Senior Members, or any Member in good standing, that have continuously contributed for ten or more years. To maintain eligibility for this membership award, non-Senior Members must continue to participate.

Five Year Members Award: Awarded to Senior Members, or any Member in good standing, that have continuously contributed for five or more years. To maintain eligibility for this membership award, non-Senior Members must continue to participate.

Top Contributor Of The Month Award: This award is earned by being one of the top 25 contributors for the past calendar month. This award remains while a member is on the top 25 of the previous month.

Post Of The Month Award: This award is earned by any Member in good standing that starts a quality or newsworthy story selected for WebmasterWorld's front page. This award remains as long as the story is current on the WebmasterWorld's front page.

Senior Members Award. This award is for all Senior members in good standing reaching Senior Member status.

Moderators Badge. This award recognizes WebmasterWorld's moderators, and only applies to current, active Moderators.

Administrators Badge. This award recognizes WebmasterWorld's Administrators, and only applies to current, active Administrators.

We'll be rolling these awards out in the next 24-hours.

In addition to our new awards, we've significantly improved the WebmasterWorld Profile pages which make it easier to find information about the members. For example, if you're a developer looking for work it'd be worth your while making sure you have all your details up-to-date. Now would be a great time to check your own profile and to update it with additional information about you, your company, and the services you offer. We hope you find it useful.

Thank you for your continued participation in this WebmasterWorld Community.

We're Feeling Lucky!
Jim, Neil, Bill, and the DeveloperShed team.

PS, and of course, we welcome your feedback below.

[engine]

Terrific, thanks Jim.

I'm looking forward to seeing who gets those awards. :)

[RedBar]

Heh, can I combine my old monikers all into one? :-)

[engine]

hehehe, there's no satisfying some folks. ;)

[incrediBILL]

Wow! Look at those Awards! ;)

Did anyone notice the Top 100 Posters of All Time?
[webmasterworld.com...]

Also, there's the monthly archive of Top Contributors:
[webmasterworld.com...]


Lot's of cool stuff sneaking in here all the time.

[RedBar]

Did anyone notice the Top 100 Posters of All Time?

Yep, one of my monikers has 6,000+ posts and isn't listed!

Humph...!

[lucy24]

Did anyone notice the Top 100 Posters of All Time?

Wow indeed: what a useful list. Now I can snoop into everyone's sites at once instead of having to go through profiles manually ;)

:: pause for dirty look directed at WebmasterWorld member who, I'm guessing, does not like my browser ::

[incrediBILL]

of my monikers has 6,000+ posts and isn't listed!

Was your moniker mothballed by moderators?

If so, it wouldn't show any awards as those only show for active accounts.

If that's not the case, let me know as there were some glitches in the matrix that stopped a couple of other monikers from manifesting that had to be manipulated in order to materialize.

[lucy24]

Holy crap, Jim, you did warn us but...

Honestly now, what was the argument against permitting avatars again?

[RedBar]

If so, it wouldn't show any awards as those only show for active accounts.

Ah, there are several in this category then some of whom would easily have made the top 20.

I would have thought "All Time" meant just that, oh well, there goes yet another award:-)

[netmeg]

Badges? Badges? We don't need no steenkin badges....

(c'mon now, someone had to say it)

[PCInk]

Badges? Badges? We don't need no steenkin badges....

You'll want them when they start selling real versions of the badge to wear at SEO conferences!

[Fotiman]

Woo Hoo, I'm less than a year away from my 10+ Years badge! :)

[Fotiman]

Not to rain on the parade, but I think the badges look a little blurry.

[netmeg]

You'll want them when they start selling real versions of the badge to wear at SEO conferences!

Heh, no I won't. Never been to an SEO conference in my life. Probly never will now.

[penders]

Honestly now, what was the argument against permitting avatars again?

Quite. (Although I think something, like a small avatar, can help to distinguish users as you scroll briskly down the page, yardy yardy...)

Badges are mmmm... nice, but a little big I think. Which can be a bit distracting and result in more white space in the actual content. Could perhaps re-jig that left "user"(?) panel a bit...

- "User profile" link could be removed and instead link the actual username.
- "Sticky mail" link could be removed and instead have the envelope icon next to the username.
- "report msg" and "msg#" could be moved to be more associated with the message, rather than the user. Perhaps these could be moved to the message "banner" which is mostly empty with the date/time (and that "new flag", which I never did quite understand... everything seems new to me?).

Just a thought.

[Samizdata]

Can we have an option to turn the badges off?

I'd say they do nothing to improve the user experience.

And being forced to wear a badge is no fun at all.

...

[Leosghost]

How does one turn the "badge display" off ?..I seem to remember options existed here for "skins", since seeing these multi-coloured badges on the left I have looked in vain for how to turn them off when I'm reading, they are intrusive and distracting.

The member status info was perfectly readable before when it was just text..the number of years that one has been a member can ( I hope ) be calculated by all from looking at the member's "joined" ..and re "contributions" ( whether on an "all time league table" or "monthly" ) appear to be based only on total post counts..There are very many members whose post counts are not high, maybe less than a thousand , but who have contributed massively with their insights and comments, but who have commented less than others such as myself. We know who we take notice of, and in what subjects.

Quality over quantity..I fear that any "league tables" based on post count will ( as it always does ) invite "boost post count" spam, just in order to be able to say to "clients" "look at my WebmasterWorld post count, I must be the best SEO, open your cheque book".

On the same theme..Didn't we used to have a minimum of 100 posts before "homepage" showed (if given) to prevent spam and "look at my profile" site posts by new members..The new "profile pages" appear to be geared much more to those with "clients" to those who are "independent webmasters", and yet, I am certain that when I joined, WebmasterWorld had a page somewhere in the "about", that said that it was created as a place where "independent webmasters could meet, discuss, and help each other..

One of the beauties of WebmasterWorld ( as has been commented upon many times in the past by members ) was the absence of distraction ( avatars, badges, stars, fluff and bling ) from the comments.

From a design ( and usability ) point of view, the left side now looks and is, cluttered, text in the badges is way too small to read even on a wide-screen HD monitor, even worse on a mobile device, and yes, as a pro artist/designer for over 40 years ( and over 10 years of that around web design ), I do feel qualified to give a professional opinion.


This is a retrograde step IMO, ( despite the fact that it probably took someone quite some time to do ) and again, How can one turn display of these things off ?

Less is more..

<small> as was said above... "somebody had to say it" ..</small>

[RedBar]

Didn't we used to have a minimum of 100 posts

And when I first started posting it was one post per article if I remember correctly, not every post on every page. It took me ages to get to 1,000+ posts and then, all of a sudden, every post counted. My first moniker only did 2,300 posts but under the new system it must have been 10,000+ ... it certainly felt like it!

[Samizdata]

what was the argument against permitting avatars again?

Presumably the obvious ones:

- Unnecessary
- Distracting
- Add nothing useful
- Encourage copyright violation
- Open to abuse and controversy
- Require policing

The first three points certainly apply to the so-called "awards" badges, which I would class as "irredeemably naff".

I have no problem with others indulging in such frippery if it excites them so much.

But I would rather not be exposed to it myself.

showBadges=0;

...

[jimsthoughts]

Thanks for the feedback! We're going to talk about all these points next week and try to improve based on your input.

[rowtc2]

There are too many awards, pretty distracting.
I would like to see max 2 awards, for Admin/Mod and for 5/10 years membership.

I like the new profile pages.

[jimsthoughts]

FYI, I just put in a request for smaller icons for the awards (with less text...ie, 5+, 10+, admin, mod, top 100, etc...we'll make them smaller :)

[jimsthoughts]

There are too many awards, pretty distracting.
I would like to see max 2 awards, for Admin/Mod and for 5/10 years membership.

I think the way we have it now you can get no more than 4 awards...and 4 awards will fit all on one line when we make them all smaller

[jimsthoughts]

FYI, I also asked bill if it's possible to create a "turn off showing awards" button for those who don't want to see them.

[Leosghost]

Jim..make them optional ..so that we can individually switch them off ( via our control panel ) ..then those who want "bling" can have it, and those of us who don't, won't have to avoid coming here to read because of the "bling", however small you make the "badges" it is still going to be distracting.. and unwelcome to many, which may well affect member engagement..

Look what happened to MS with win 8 when there was no way to escape "tiles" on the home screen..time they got around to giving an option to switch it off, they had a PR disaster with their users..

You posted ( re "asking iBill" ) while I was typing ( I type slowly ), "ibill" can make "show badges etc" optional with a half full beer glass in each hand. :)

[Fotiman]

I like most of penders suggestions.

- "User profile" link could be removed and instead link the actual username.

YES!

- "Sticky mail" link could be removed and instead have the envelope icon next to the username.

I don't think I agree with this one. If "next to the username" means to the left, then I think that detracts from the content of that location (being the actual username). Is the sticky mail icon the most important thing in that box? I don't think so, and as such I don't think it should appear first. If you put it to the right of the username, then if it's immediately after the username, then it the mail links would not be aligned and it would looks a little sloppy. If you position it on the same line as the username, but aligned to the right, they would be aligned, but possibly harder for users to spot.

- "report msg" and "msg#" could be moved to be more associated with the message, rather than the user. Perhaps these could be moved to the message "banner" which is mostly empty with the date/time (and that "new flag", which I never did quite understand... everything seems new to me?).

I like that suggestion. I'd also like to see the msg number moved as well, and linked to make it easier to link to a particular message in a thread.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fotiman ..... | msg: <a href="#msg4713922">4713922</a> ... 9:05 am on Nov 7, 2014 (utc -5) |
| Senior Member | report msg ............................................................... |
| sticky mail . +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ~badges~ .... | ~message~ ................................................................ |
| joined ...... | .......................................................................... |
| posts: ...... | .......................................................................... |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[edited by: Fotiman at 9:40 pm (utc) on Nov 7, 2014]

[Leosghost]

and linked to make it easier to link to a particular message in a thread.

Oh yes.. this !

[lucy24]

I think the badges look a little blurry.

Heh, you must use the same .jpg reader as my cats' insurance company which claims to be unable to read email attachments. Oh, wait, no, the award icons are png. How can a png get blurry?

I pored over the page source and can't figure out why or how the first three icons are forced to display side-by-side while the fourth goes to a new line, regardless of viewport width. (Yes, of course I checked in three browsers to allow for differences in table rendering. Isn't that what we do around here?)

netmeg, if the site had a "Like" button I would use it ;)

[Fotiman]

How can a png get blurry

Whenever there's text saved within a small image, the risk is there for it to be blurry. Depends on how the image was created, anti-alias settings when the text was added, etc.

can't figure out why or how the first three icons are forced to display side-by-side while the fourth goes to a new line

They're just images with the default display "inline". They're contained in a div with a fixed width of 170px, so they naturally wrap.