User blog:Bryce53/Improving the Achievements Leaderboard

The Achievements Leaderboard is a system of badges that encourages editing and participation. The leaderboard can be simply known as "badges", and you can read about the leaderboard on Help Wiki.

On various wikis, I have noticed contributors and administrators complaining about some trolls unlegitimately earning the badges. This includes vandalism, cheating, and stuff like that. I think badges are worth zero points each if earned without integrity. What also is a pain is that badges cannot be taken away once earned (this is what the administrators complain most about). So I have improvements to discuss with the community. Remember the list is not complete and will frequently be updated.


 * Remove the category track. Undoubtedly that. That is where people cheat most. On The Annoying Orange Wiki, users add categories with bad style just to earn badges. Some even add 250 categories at once, and then - plop! Automatic gold badge.
 * Start a user privilege called "achievementleaderboardmanager", similarly to the chat moderator. If I can explain such a thing, these users have the privileges to manage users' badges. They can change the value of the counters if necessary. They can remove badges if the badges were earned without integrity. They can also block users not from editing the wiki, but from earning badges. Well the description is currently a little vague. I'll explain more of that later.
 * Have the rankings of the leaderboard in two lists. One is by badges, another is by the amount of contributions in the artilce namespace. So if a user is ranked #1 in badges but only made one edit, and someone else made more, the user is not ranked #1 in constructive editing. I dislike the "User is ranked #1 on this wiki" thing. I think it should more accurately be worded "User is ranked #1 on the Achievements Leaderboard". Because you're not ranked #1 on the wiki if you cheated to earn badges.
 * Allow administrators or achievementleaderboardmanager's to create their own fun badges. They can create a custom gold, bronze, or silver badge by doing an objective.

Well, that's the bottom of Mt. Everest of the suggestions. Please feel free to civilly suggest more suggestions, and improve my current suggestions. If Wikia won't disable badges at all, whining about the cheating will only perpetuate the whole situation. We should at least discuss some improvements.

Annoying Orange  andClassical Piano GABS 03:30, June 17, 2011 (UTC)

Edit Well, I'm still at the bottom of Mt. Everest. And I'll probably always be there. Since Wikia is a growing website, it constantly needs its users to suggest improvements. Happy editing - Annoying Orange  andClassical Piano GABS 05:18, June 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Nobody Cares suggested that the name "achievementleaderboardmanger" should be renamed to simply "badgemanager".
 * I suggest that the managers should be the only ones able to create the custom badges.

Edit Still at the bottom of the mountain... - Annoying Orange  andClassical Piano GABS 23:23, June 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Per all of the comments as of 23:23, June 17, 2011 (UTC), it's concluded that everybody likes the badge manager idea. That's definitely something Wikia should create. I'm still all ears for any suggestions for the badge manager!
 * One person doesn't like the custom badges idea; who else doesn't?

Edit Suggestions for the users banned just from earning badges:
 * If users are banned from earning badges, that ban is named (similarly to bannedfromchat) bannedfrombadges.
 * The "bannedfrombadges" user have a message on the "More Badges You Can Earn!" section: "Sorry, but you are currently not allowed to earn badges on this wiki. If you think this was a mistake and would like to be reconsidered, please contact an administrator."
 * Again, bannedfrombadges users can still edit the wiki, but their counters are turned off and will not be allowed to earn badges. Their edits do not count for the "Lucky Edit".