Badges and Reactions

cdaquila

Hi everyone,

Just posting to let you know that I've switched on a couple of new features developed by Vanilla: Badges and Reactions. As the Vanilla folks describe them, "the Reactions can be used to highlight interesting discussions, suppress abusive comments, flag abusive members, and create more nuanced reputation profiles. Vanilla Badges serve to reward community members for positive participation – members are awarded Badges for receiving praise from others and for various other forms of participation." They were just rolled out last week, and so we've not yet customized the badges for our own purposes. Here is Vanilla's summary of the new buttons at the bottom of the posts: http://vanillaforums.com/blog/news/introducing-vanilla-reactions-and-badges/

Please let us know what you think of the features. If there are any technical issues that arise, certainly we'd like to know about them. It's our hope that these features accomplish some of the goals we'd had discussed in the past.

Thanks for your participation and feedback.

Carolyn

the same mountainbike

Honestly, I sincerely commend your attention to the website and your efforts to offer improvements, but in my humble opinion the new changes add too much "noise" and too much blinking. To me it's overkill.

Just one man's opinion, and I respect that others may differ.

cigroller

I was actually thinking the same thing. I almost typed it up when I first saw it all. Then I thought let me see if I get used to it.

I actually think it might mostly be the "blinking" part - as in where the emphasis/shading follow you around the page. If the blinking/highlighting part was turned off I'd probably like it better.

We might have to take a vote though.

missileman

It could be an improvement but I would hate to see it used in an inappropriate manner if a poster had a long standing disagreement with someone. It would be easy to track however so let's see how it works out.

cigroller

Is there a difference between "agree" and "like"?

ken green

I used to like the ability to post a direct comment to someone's post which was directly linked to theirs.
These days that doesn't happen. Every comment gets pasted in a time line and you can't tag yours directly to theirs. Granted, we if we make a reference to theirs, we all know to what we're referring, but I wonder if that feature can be added back now ?

cdaquila

I suppose if you get deep into the semantics of "agreeing" and "liking," there could be made an argument for a distinction between the two. In my own head, I've been thinking that "agree" would be more suited for seconding someone's advice or assessment, and "liking" was less about agreement and more about either the style in which something was said or finding a non-mechanical issue interesting. I think you could use your judgment either way; functionally there is no difference.

As far as abuse of the system, these feedback options are entirely in the eye of the beholder. They can add weight to a recommendation or comment, but it requires a concerted effort to game the system, and it's up to the reader to decide whether these comments are worth accepting.

ken, unfortunately this forum software does not have the ability to provide inline replies like you're missing.

cigroller

Perhaps agreeing is done more with the head and liking more with the heart ;-) I won't lose any sleep over the question. They'll just get used as they get used.

cdaquila

For the record, cigroller, I liked your comment because you said it better than I did, in fewer words.

texases

Any way to turn off the 'blinking'? I don't understand what it's for...

cdaquila

I'm not speaking for the developers, but I am interpreting it to be a design choice to ensure that when you are clicking a button you are certain you are clicking the button for the intended comment. The buttons are dimmed so as not to be as visually loud, I think. Yes, you could argue that pale blue highlighting is visually loud, but this is the way it's been developed.