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.

[incrediBILL]

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.

FWIW, they were originally 2 across that wrapped and often showed as a 2x2 square for older members with lots of awards but we had the column was normally wide enough to accommodate 3 across so we switched to keep the pages from getting longer.

The trick was trying to insert a row of images that can wrap inside and old HTML 2 page. If we weren't relying on quirks mode of the browser before we're knee deep in it now.

The table actually has that column set to NOWRAP which was a problem, originally the images went straight across the page, 4, 5, right into the text area.

They're simply wrapped that tells them to float left and the NOWRAP is defeated with "white-space:normal" and after the images are displayed, the "clear-all" resets the float so the rest of the page displays as it did before.

<div style="width:170px;white-space:normal;float:left;">Award Images Go Here...</div><br clear=all>

Hopefully we'll be upgrading to full HTML 5 soon but how soon is the question ;)

..make them optional

There's an add-on called AdBlock, setup a WebmasterWorld rule for 50x50 images.

Avatars are also possible,may be coming soon, probably will be right above the awards.

@fotiman, et al, re: new page layout
This should be a different thread, but something very similar to what you described already done awaiting approval.

[lucy24]

They're contained in a div with a fixed width of 170px

Oh, it's the width of the div. So that's what needs to be changed. It should be expressed as a percentage, with a supplementary max-width for ultra-wide monitors.

It wasn't 170 px before, was it? Seems like the left column used to vary based on the length of usernames in the current page.

Edit: OK, didn't see incrediBill's post. New page.

[Leosghost]

There's an add-on called AdBlock, setup a WebmasterWorld rule for 50x50 images.

Did that, BTW, adblock is not available for FF28, nor for some other FF versions, have to use adblockplus, ( the badges are described in adblockplus as 48x48 ) also have to set "options" to "hide placeholders of blocked elements" or where the badges were gets filled up with "link text", bigger than the comment text in the comment areas..

Avatars are also possible,may be coming soon, probably will be right above the awards.

I do hope you are joking..

[incrediBILL]

I do hope you are joking..

I never joke about Avatars!

I've also got a new font full of emoticons as the same old :) ;) and :( are getting stale.

[graeme_p]

I do not like it, for the same reasons as Leosghost. It favours quantity over quality. Any regular user recognises those who make valuable contribution anyway. I think its the plain, lots of text, content first approach the makes WW what it is.

Incidentally, what exactly is a "senior member"?

[graeme_p]

Also, the problem with using the number of contributions as a metric, is that it is very easy...

[graeme_p]

....to inflate one's post count.

[Fotiman]

I agree with the comments about the number of contributions being a metric. I'd rather be able to "like" a comment as in indication that I think it has value, as opposed to using the number of contributions.

[lucy24]

Incidentally, what exactly is a "senior member"?

More than such-and-such number of posts, independent of time-on-site and/or age. Essentially the same thing that php/bb and similar Forums packages use when they auto-generate "rank" based on raw post count.

otoh everyone can take comfort from the knowledge that Tedster is way up near the top in lifetime post count. So it isn't all fluff and filler. (Still think we should have given him Beloved Emeritus rank, though :()

to inflate one's post count

Does the present subforum count? Someone told me foo, right next door, doesn't.

I'd rather be able to "like" a comment

I'd rather be able to edit my own comments. I rarely discover lethal typos within the first 60 minutes, and surely the moderators have better things to do than adding/deleting exclamation marks.

[Samizdata]

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

The largest number of merit badges per person currently showing is five.

Presumably only Eagle Scouts qualify for this.

...

[netmeg]

otoh everyone can take comfort from the knowledge that Tedster is way up near the top in lifetime post count. So it isn't all fluff and filler. (Still think we should have given him Beloved Emeritus rank, though :()

I'd support that 100%.

I always thought senior members were subscribers, but now that I think of it, I dunno why I thought that. Guess I don't know.

[Leosghost]

otoh everyone can take comfort from the knowledge that Tedster is way up near the top in lifetime post count. So it isn't all fluff and filler. (Still think we should have given him Beloved Emeritus rank, though :()

I'd support that 100%.

Me too..superb idea..

[Samizdata]

I always thought senior members were subscribers, but now that I think of it, I dunno why I thought that.

Not sure if this explanation is up-to-date:

Q: What are the different member levels?
A: Member levels are currently based on post counts. These levels may levels change from time-to-time. The current status:
New User 0-
Junior Member 40-
Full Member 200-
Preferred Member 350-
Senior Member 650-

Source: Brett Tabke in December 2004

Someone else may have more recent figures.

...

[Marshall]

I do not like it, for the same reasons as Leosghost. It favours quantity over quality. Any regular user recognises those who make valuable contribution anyway. I think its the plain, lots of text, content first approach the makes WW what it is.

Obviously I have been a member for 13+ years with just over 2,000 posts.

While this is not necessarily an objection to the new system, I consider the posts I make relevant and not just meaningless diatribes (a.k.a. rants) which really add little to nothing to WebmasterWorld. Frankly, I question members who make one or even two thousand posts a year and are not admins or moderators. That being said, I have to go with quality over quantity when it comes to metrics.

Marshall

[lucy24]

I question members who make one or even two thousand posts a year and are not admins or moderators.

Ahem ;)

The largest number of merit badges per person currently showing is five.

I looked at the list (the one linked from Announcements [webmasterworld.com] at the top of the page). There are a total of eight Awards. But two pairs-- 5 and 10 years, and Administrator vs Moderator-- are mutually exclusive, and a sixth-- Post of the Month-- is transitory by its nature.

[Samizdata]

I looked at the list

I looked at actual posts.

The largest number of merit badges per person currently showing is five, as stated.

For Jim to fit them all in one line they will need to be considerably smaller.

Post of the Month is a misleading term as it actually applies to any post on the front page and the "award" can have numerous concurrent holders (with some likely to be perpetual).

...

[lucy24]

My point was that five is the highest number that can show. Theoretically six, but that would be so fleeting, people might not even notice.

[londrum]

if I was in charge I wouldn't stop at badges, I would introduce everything possible, avatars, badges, badges for personal interests... a bit like how boardgamegeek does it. Their forum is very old school looking too, but they have got loads more ways for people to personalise it

They do image and file uploads too, so you can upload screenshots and things. That is what we need the most at WebmasterWorld... much more than we need badges. and they let people talk about actual products and other websites too, instead of everyone having to tip-toe around keeping them secret and deleting any mention of them. You could double the number of discussions overnight, I reckon, if you freed up those rules a bit. More discussions, more traffic, more posters

It should be a proper webmaster community where we can recommend stuff, say what products are good and what is bad. Let us talk about other websites and designs, Let us have a page where we can tell people what we do for a living and what we've worked on. Its more like a secret community at the moment, where you have to hint about things without mentioning them by name

pat-on-the-back badges is nice enough, and puffs up a few egos but its not going to get any more posters in, I don't think

[netmeg]

Frankly, I question members who make one or even two thousand posts a year and are not admins or moderators.

<cough>

Some of us can't be trusted with anything more important than a sack of wet mice. Trust me.

<----- post count

[Samizdata]

if I was in charge

Says it all, really.

Good luck to Jim and friends with whatever they have planned.

Badges suck, but you can't go wrong with a sack of wet mice.

...

[brotherhood of LAN]

I don't think there's much correlation between volunteer moderating and post count, other than the post count indicating a member may be willing to spend the time looking after things.

I agree re: the old layout, if all involved were part of the new web generation, we would've had it running on a bootstrap template in no time ;)

[Leosghost]

if I was in charge I wouldn't stop at badges, I would introduce everything possible, avatars, badges, badges for personal interests... a bit like how boardgamegeek does it. Their forum is very old school looking too, but they have got loads more ways for people to personalise it

They do image and file uploads too, so you can upload screenshots and things. That is what we need the most at WebmasterWorld... much more than we need badges. and they let people talk about actual products and other websites too, instead of everyone having to tip-toe around keeping them secret and deleting any mention of them. You could double the number of discussions overnight, I reckon, if you freed up those rules a bit. More discussions, more traffic, more posters

It should be a proper webmaster community where we can recommend stuff, say what products are good and what is bad. Let us talk about other websites and designs, Let us have a page where we can tell people what we do for a living and what we've worked on. Its more like a secret community at the moment, where you have to hint about things without mentioning them by name

pat-on-the-back badges is nice enough, and puffs up a few egos but its not going to get any more posters in, I don't think

That might well attract more posting, to test the idea a section of WebmasterWorld could be made to work like that, it could have a title* enclosed in blink tags and then wrapped in marquee tags..


*I suggest "spam" as a possible working name for the sub-forum...seems somehow appropriate..

Ps..I searched "sack of wet mice" ..G places an interesting ad..and I found me some new ring tones ;) Thanks netmeg ;)

[edited by: Leosghost at 2:48 am (utc) on Nov 9, 2014]

[lucy24]

I went back and eyeballed both pages of this thread. To date, every single person posting has at least one "award". Almost all have two or more.

Seriously, administrators, since I'm the most expendable person here
:: waving merrily to leosghost ::
I'll say it: I think you goofed.

[engine]

Interesting comments, thank you.

As Jim mentioned we'll be discussing this, and other issues raised.

[Panthro]

welcome to 2002?

I think the award images should be bigger. Even better if they were flashing .gifs.

[ogletree]

I can't believe i'm 54 in top 100 and I didn't post for many years. I guess I was posting a lot when I started.

[engine]

We're tweaking it, and you should see some improvements rolling out.

[Leosghost]

Interesting the new link to message that appeared today over each message..But, it is too bold..( distracts from the actual message ) switch it to "normal weight" and it would be fine..:)

The "owner edit" button is better where it has been moved to..:)

Anything else changed ? ( I still have the badges blocked, so won't notice if they are removed )..

BTW.."problem with message" appears to have been removed ? Going to be hard to signal spam if that change persists..

[engine]

We've taken on board all the comments and made enhancements, and improvements. You should briefly turn off the blocking.

I think you'll find the report with some mousing over. ;)

[Leosghost]

I think you'll find the report with some mousing over. ;)

Ah..;) ..I thought that the "link" I could see ( I did take only a very quick look and did n't read all the contents of my status bar ..FF 28 Linux ) at "message"..was so that one could link to the specific message..

I just turned off "blocking"..and turned it right back on again..badges are still there :((

What are the chances of "link to specific messages" being implemented ?..without it being via a "badge/button"..;)