New Badges

[BomberEscort]

Hey all, just a thought here but can we get other custom badges? For example, maybe 10, 15, 20 year etc. (I'll be 20 years on this site in 2023). Supporter is cool, maybe a Super Supporter or Contributor (for those that have a "take my money" attitude). I can see the box getting full quickly so maybe we could pick which ones to display? I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for new ones or maybe I am alone in this. Anyways, thanks for your time and keep on rockin'

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Hey all, just a thought here but can we get other custom badges? For example, maybe 10, 15, 20 year etc. (I'll be 20 years on this site in 2023). Supporter is cool, maybe a Super Supporter or Contributor (for those that have a "take my money" attitude). I can see the box getting full quickly so maybe we could pick which ones to display? I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for new ones or maybe I am alone in this. Anyways, thanks for your time and keep on rockin'

Cool idea! CFC has been "online home" for quite a few people here.

Could the retired Admins please also have Retired Admin badges, so we can tell at a glance which of them are active and which are not?

 

[The_J]

We actually discussed this some time ago internally in the moderators forum, before the 30-years-civ anniversary:

The basic outcome is that having more badges makes forum administration more complicated, since for each badge there is the need for a newly defined user group (and we already have 80+; yes, it's complicated), people need to be added manually, then there's the need to decide who gets them, etc.
At the end we decided that we only really should add more if we anyways need to set up specific permissions for something important in the forum, and not simply for "fun". (even if we'd simply like to)

 

[BomberEscort]

Ah ok, makes sense - thanks for the response

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We actually discussed this some time ago internally in the moderators forum, before the 30-years-civ anniversary:
View attachment 615733

The basic outcome is that having more badges makes forum administration more complicated, since for each badge there is the need for a newly defined user group (and we already have 80+; yes, it's complicated), people need to be added manually, then there's the need to decide who gets them, etc.
At the end we decided that we only really should add more if we anyways need to set up specific permissions for something important in the forum, and not simply for "fun". (even if we'd simply like to)

Having a Retired Admin badge would only require swapping one for another. Do retired admins still have the same accesses as active admins? If not, their usergroup would essentially have the same permissions as regular members, I should think.

 

[The_J]

I don't think we have a separate user group for retired admins, but only the active admins can answer that.
(I don't think we'd even need that group, since moving them to the retired mods group will do exactly the same)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't think we have a separate user group for retired admins, but only the active admins can answer that.
(I don't think we'd even need that group, since moving them to the retired mods group will do exactly the same)

It would, but then they'd get an inaccurate badge, unless all admins, whether active or inactive, were promoted from mods, rather than going directly from member to admin.

 

[The_J]

All were .

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't think we have a separate user group for retired admins, but only the active admins can answer that.
(I don't think we'd even need that group, since moving them to the retired mods group will do exactly the same)

It would, but then they'd get an inaccurate badge, unless all admins, whether active or inactive, were promoted from mods, rather than going directly from member to admin.

All were .

Except Thunderfall, I assume. Forum software tends to assume that whoever started the site is the admin. Somehow I can't quite imagine a scenario where Thunderfall would tell it, "Look, I SAID I'm a MODERATOR. Now lemme into the ACP!" Whereupon the system would grin nastily and say, "Nope. You're not getting in here unless you're an admin."

Okay, so if that's what makes the least work. It was only a suggestion. But I am not going to back down from pointing out that it's REALLY ANNOYING to not know who the active and inactive ones are, in case you want to ask them something that only a currently active admin could answer.

 

[The_J]

The mod list https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/which-moderator-should-i-contact.613806/ right now shows only Leif and Browd, because the others are mostly inactive .
You are in general also better of asking an active moderator first, because the admins are normally busy, and it's best to hammer out any necessary details with someone else and let them relay the info afterwards to the admins.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Not sure if it is possible to change, but the lil badges we get as you collect likes, and posts etc are nice.. But easily done in a week of use on the forum.

Can that be stretched out? Or perhaps some 'bigger' levels added?

 

[The_J]

The trophy points you mean?
I guess they could, but it would just be "more", which itself isn't that interesting.
I was curious if there'd be other options, but apparently not .

 

[Kyriakos]

And while we are at it, why not - at last - some badge for those few of us (only 13) who are top 13 in files uploaded to the civ database?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

More is interesting to some

If the final trophies took 1000, or even 10,000 whatever for example.

Just a shame to smash through them in a week. Means less. If I 'achieved' a thousand likes for example that really means something!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The trophy points you mean?
I guess they could, but it would just be "more", which itself isn't that interesting.
I was curious if there'd be other options, but apparently not .

Camikaze asked me about that a few years ago when I mentioned the different reasons we get trophy points over at TrekBBS (that forum made the jump from vBulletin to XenForo before we did, in a way that let us test drive the features and report bugs before the final switch was made).

I've given it some thought over the years; it should be something uniquely civ/CFC-related to make it interesting and fair to everyone, like not having something impossible for most people to attain. TrekBBS awards trophies mainly based on post count, as post count determines your Starfleet rank. After 10 years I finally made it to the bottom rung of the admiralty (there are two more ranks, but based on my posting history, it'll take another 10 years to get there; I already have over twice as many posts here as I do there and I've only got a 2-year head start here).

So of course there are trophies for joining the forum, reaching post count milestones, garnering specific numbers of "likes", and so on. Just yesterday someone there asked about points and trophies, as she'd become confused about post count, trophy points, and ranks (she's still a flaptain, thought she should have reached Commodore, and was confused as to why some people were vice-admirals, some were admirals, some were fleet admirals, etc.). She's something like 200 posts short of reaching Commodore. If that were me, it would take another year at my rate of posting there, but sometimes knowing you're within close reach of the next rank means you're more motivated to post faster.

There's one guy there whose post count is literally off the chart by any forum's standards. No new rank has been created for him, and no new rank lounge (hidden forums accessible by people of specific ranks) either, because what would be the point? He'd just be sitting there talking to himself, probably for years before anyone else caught up.

So if there is a way here to create new reasons for trophy points, I'll give it some more thought. I've never seen the ACP of a XenForo forum so I don't know how much extra work it would be for staff.