News Showing gratitude and thanks to our biggest contributors

[Art]

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As reactions have become ubiquitous on social media, they tend to lose their value. At least a little. Still very useful to convey an emotion but they can become common place.

For example, the famous "Like" is given freely. It has its value to say "thank you" but it doesn't really fit when one of our members really delivers in some way. We need something more to recognize, and thank, someone for their valuable contribution to our community. Therefore, we are instituting the "Trophy" reaction to recognize truly great contributions (posts, replies, articles, whatever).

Hover or long press the react button on a post and you will see that you can now bestow onto that poster a gleaming and prestigious trophy reaction. Please use it with restraint but do freely give it for contributions you consider above and beyond.

These trophies will be counted and can lead to someone being inducted into our Rockstar Club and receiving the following coveted user banner under their name.

Please remember that the trophy is there. Kindly present it to those that earned it.

 

[Pepere]

For all you do for us Art! A trophy for all of your tireless work…

I think it only fitting you get the first!

 

[Yugang]

For all you do for us Art! A trophy for all of your tireless work…

I think it only fitting you get the first!

+1 !!!!

If I may I offer my humble opinion, I am not sure if we need trophies or rockstar titles. A few kind words now and then, as @Pepere above, may be the most valuable, and would differentiate this forum from others. I see that also reaction score has disappeared, intentionally or not, and I would also find that an interesting idea, although it is motivating for all of us to receive recognition or confirmation of agreement on a message.

Just my two cents.

 

[Art]

For all you do for us Art! A trophy for all of your tireless work…

I think it only fitting you get the first!

Awe, thank you! I really appreciate the sentiment.

Honestly, it's not work for me. I enjoy the admin part, as well as being a hobbyist. I actually have to tear myself away and put strict time limits on myself so I can get some real life work done!

 

[Art]

+1 !!!!

If I may I offer my humble opinion, I am not sure if we need trophies or rockstar titles. A few kind words now and then, as @Pepere above, may be the most valuable, and would differentiate this forum from others. I see that also reaction score has disappeared, intentionally or not, and I would also find that an interesting idea, although it is motivating for all of us to receive recognition or confirmation of agreement on a message.

Just my two cents.

@Yugang, as always, great and thoughtful points. You are also very observant to notice that they disappeared.

Like you, I believe a community of friends should be based on trust, mutual respect and caring about the other members. To that end, reactions are still very much present so that we show our real emotions about a post or contribution. We can still show likes, love, cry, etc.

However, I have made them be neutral items meaning they are not treated as a "score" to be gain. I am after the intrinsic benefit of thanking someone with a Like rather than hitting the like button to gain a point. Let's thank and encourage each other for the right reasons.

I do want to leave the Trophy because it is just a small recognition and thanks for those that go above and beyond. It's not necessary as I hope most of the community will already know the person is a rockstar with everything they do. However, it's always nice to be publicly recognized with a small gesture.

To be granted the Rockstar title is special and takes work. Maybe none of us will get there but getting there isn't the point. The point is to be a good community member and enjoy yourself as you do it.

By the way, to meet the Rockstar qualifications, a member needs to:

• have over 500 posts;
• have been a member for at least 6 months;
• have a trophy to message ratio of 50%; and
• have been active on the forum for the last 30 days.

That is quite the feat for anyone.

 

[Burr740]

I think showing likes (aka reaction score) is a good thing. As the membership grows along with visiting readers it makes it easy to see what the community thinks about somebody relative to the value of their contributions

Of course its not the ultimate metric for that, but when Im lurking a new board, especially if I dont know the members, I'll pay more attn to somebody with 100 posts and 100 likes than somebody with 100 post and 5 likes

So in my opinion it is a useful stat to show regardless of any vanity factor involved

 

[Burr740]

Unrelated, on windows desktop whatever is going on in the right hand column is a little jacked up. Just fyi

 

[Art]

Thanks, Joe. Fixed.

 

[Art]

I think showing likes (aka reaction score) is a good thing. As the membership grows along with visiting readers it makes it easy to see what the community thinks about somebody relative to the value of their contributions

Of course its not the ultimate metric for that, but when Im lurking a new board, especially if I dont know the members, I'll pay more attn to somebody with 100 posts and 100 likes than somebody with 100 post and 5 likes

So in my opinion it is a useful stat to show regardless of any vanity factor involved

Thanks again, Joe. Let me have a think about how to be able to reflect this given the constraints of the software.

I agree with you if people are giving Likes for quality contributions. My feeling is that likes are also freely given just to be nice and as a "got it" or "thanks for posting". How do we distinguish between quality contributors and people that just get a lot of "thanks for posting"?

 

[*Ci*]

On Koiphen (pond forum) there is both a “thank” and a “like” option:

 

[ElleDee]

Thanks again, Joe. Let me have a think about how to be able to reflect this given the constraints of the software.

I agree with you if people are giving Likes for quality contributions. My feeling is that likes are also freely given just to be nice and as a "got it" or "thanks for posting". How do we distinguish between quality contributors and people that just get a lot of "thanks for posting"?

I also use the reaction score ratio the way @Burr740 does as a general quality metric.

I don't worry too much about distinguishing between all the different meanings behind a "like". If someone appreciates a post, it counts. The distinction is even less important as you surpass a 1:1 reaction to post ratio.

 

[Art]

On Koiphen (pond forum) there is both a “thank” and a “like” option:

Thanks @*Ci*, they use a different system than we do. The vBulletin system seems to offer the thank you option while ours doesn't. At least not stock.

The comments by @Burr740 and @ElleDee are making me reconsider the Like reaction score. If members are using it then I am no one to remove it. Would love to hear from others.

 

[SkaleyAquatics]

I know I am a little late to the party on this one with the recent updates. But another thing with the likes is if someone puts what you were going to put it reduces the redundancy and they can react to what that person said instead of saying "what they said".