The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal/Achievements

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Discussion of Achievements

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Resolved: By a vote of 2 in favor to 6 opposed, the community has decided not to continue using the Achievements feature. 18:12, November 18, 2010 (UTC)

Please use this area to discuss the Achievements feature. A couple questions exist regarding this feature. The first, and most significant, is whether we as a community want to keep Achievements after November 21st (for full explanation, see here) or whether we want to get rid of them. If you support keeping Achievements, then please comment and address these issues: 1) How will we discourage "Badge Boosting" i.e. users making pointless edits and comments simply to earn points? 2) Are there new achievements that should be added to focus on other areas of the Wiki or to focus more on quality, rather than quantity? If you support removing Achievements, then please comment and address this question: How do we best increase community interaction without utilizing the Achievements feature?

If there isn't a clear consensus, a vote may be started so that a formal decision can be made. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 04:34, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion/Comments

Oppose - I think they encourage badge boosting too much, and don't focus on encouraging good constructive edits. Instead, I say implementing an Editor of the Month feature would be more beneficial, as that would give some target for editors to aspire to. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 04:35, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Support, I think it would boost the flow of users here a bit more. Just look at TSM, we have had achievements basically as soon as we started the wiki. Now for your answers.

Q. How will we discourage "Badge Boosting" i.e. users making pointless edits and comments simply to earn points?

A.Why even discourage it when you know it will still happen, even in the subtlest of ways. But I say that you could warn the user about badge boosting, always check recent changes. it'll put the rollbackers to work.

Q. Are there new achievements that should be added to focus on other areas of the Wiki or to focus more on quality, rather than quantity?

A. They could focus on areas and quality, you could make different ones for the users who love to categorize (me), build stubs etc...the achievements will be a success, I already know it.

And there answers, I support the achievements fully. I hope they stay, or I guess I'll just have to keep the achievements up over at TSM.--♥DarthCookie♥^♥Talk♥ 06:07, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - The system does not distinguish quality from quantity, and only rewards quantity. It does not appear to distinguish an image added by a template from one uploaded by a user. It does not appear to distinguish changing the caption alignment in a gallery from adding an image to it. It does not distinguish a good-quality image which helps to illustrate what an article is about from one that will end up being removed for poor quality; or for being redundant, or irrelevant to the article, or fanon, etc.

As for "badge boosting", one issue I see is that receiving a badge for something can imply approval of it. Yes, there will always be people who make pointless edits, but without achievements, they do not receive a reward for doing it.

I think recognitions/awards that come from the community, such as the proposed "Editor of the Month", might help. Dharden (talk) Open the Web! Wikia, support all browsers! 15:31, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - I feel that keeping it here will make editors make poinless edits just to get more points. Plus, I feel that this Wiki is too old for it to be implemented as users won't get points for edits made before the achievements were put into place, whereas on The Sims Medieval Wiki, we are a new Wiki and we can be rewarded for what we do in a better way. I think that the "Editor of the Month" idea is a good idea as it rewards as well as giving editors a good target, which can be achieved by making good quality edits! GEORGIEGIBBONS ^talk _{contributions} 15:45, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Oppose- I think this new system is not working here I catched out some users making pointless edits or copying info and pasting again into the article just to earn points and badges, this wiki is very old and most of editors are not adapting to this new "project", this wiki will only loose with achievements, I agree mostly with Dharden as he said this rewards don't distinguish quality from quantity, so it is better not keeping them. Users are also becoming obesessed with this and make mostly pointless edits instead of improving the article. ---Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 17:34, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - I just don't like the achievements.--Eduardog3000 18:05, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion - Here's some further evidence that supports the idea of users "Badge Boosting." These comments (from registered users) are from The Sims 3 Late Night "Blood Rush" blog (here):

"i didnt get ma badge and i typed 4 comments!!!"

"Neither I took my badge! Look, am I wasting my time here?"

It's pretty clear that a lot of users are commenting there just to earn the Platinum Badge. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 17:35, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

I just found something. If you go to your preferences, under "Misc", the last check box is, "Hide my achievements on my user page when I visit it and don't notify me of earned badges".--Eduardog3000 22:16, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah but that does not resolve anything because other users continue see your points.---Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 14:13, October 31, 2010 (UTC)

Oppose If you've read the previous comments, then you should know why I oppose it. Norman Average 17:59, November 5, 2010 (UTC)

Norman Average, just an FYI - this isn't counted as a vote of opposition unless you put it in the correct section. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 00:35, November 7, 2010 (UTC)

Vote

In order to have this decision made before November 21, the vote is being started now. The vote on this issue ended at 18:00, November 18, 2010 (UTC).

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The Sims Wiki should keep the Achievements Feature and expand its usage on the wiki.

Agree

1. Agree, because there is always going to be an edit count. People are already making pointless edits, and we can't stop them. The achievements are a fun thing, and we can warn users for abusing them. Also, achievements can be custom made, as far as I know, and edit counts can't be. What I mean is, to show quantity is and will always be the edit counts job. We can make custom badges to give awards for quality. So, I agree. BobNewbie ^{talk • blog} 17:45, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
2. I would say that people (including me) have been editing so much since the feature was first made so if I really had to eliminate something that would be the Featured User feature and I would keep the Achievements, so I fully agree.Andronikos Leventis 16:18, November 10, 2010 (UTC)

Disagree

1. Definitely not like all said this is not resulting here and it is not a way to promote quality instead of quantity---Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 17:43, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
2. - I don't see this feature as being able to get past its inherent flaws that favor quantity over quality. - LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 17:53, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
3. We can customize the names and appearances of Wikia's badges, but apparently cannot disable any of them or change the standards for receiving them. The basic system itself favors quantity over quality, and any customizing we do won't change that. Dharden (talk) 19:34, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
4. --Eduardog3000 20:05, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
5. Like what happened with the JoePlay blog, there would be too much badge boosting by making edits, like LiR said, that favor quantity over quality just to get a badge. GEORGIEGIBBONS ^talk _{contributions} 21:00, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
6. The Sims Wiki, in my opinion, is NOT a game. Adding achivements (grammar check?) would make the Wiki more of a game. Per all negitive. --Royace forgot where his signature went. 11:28, November 13, 2010 (UTC)

Comments

Perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places, but I haven't yet been able to find the spot where administrators can create new badges. I know that you can change the names and badge images associated with already existing badges, but I don't know how to create new ones. If TSW were to keep the badge feature, it would be important that new badges be created, meaning that someone had better find out how it's done if we keep this feature. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 20:08, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

Special:AchievementsCustomize it can be found on your user and user talk page under your badges --a_morris (talk) 21:15, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

No, I found that page without much trouble, I just can't figure out how to use it. I tried creating a new track, but it didn't work, and I can't see any spot to create new badges. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 21:32, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

On the right there's a heading "Create a new Edit track". Enter a category at the bottom of that section and hit "Create this track". A new track should appear called <Category> edit track after the first (main) edit track and look exactly the same. Each badge in the track can then be customized and the track enabled. --a_morris (talk) 21:47, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

Androkinos that is a bad sign, we are having more activity just because of achievements? That means that some people are badge boosting and making less quality and pointless edits, I think we must learn that achievements don't mean nothing about a user quality but instead quantity, so I think this feature must be eliminated soon as possible. ---Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 13:29, November 13, 2010 (UTC)