Table:Rewards for contributions?
Discussion
I just recently had a notion to consider this. Wikipedia already does it, but I have noticed several other wikis is employing it as well. The idea is basically to give people 'rewards' for significant contributions. They may be similar to the achievement/trophy systems made famous by Xbox Live, Steam and PSN. But I don't want the system to be automated, I'd rather have the community to grant these if we were to implement it.
But the real question (before we discuss how it is to work) is whether we should? The argument on Wikipedia is that it encourages editors to keep contributing, but so far no one has seemed to 'demand' such a system on the Infosphere, so I wonder if we really need it. For this reason, I bring it up and wonder what you all have to say. It will require extra work from the community, but I wouldn't mind spending extra time to ensure excellent editors stays, if that is necessary. --Sviptalk 15:33, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
- I'm in favour of this. Would a vote be in order? Sanfazer 15:42, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
- Possibly, but I'd prefer a discussion on it first, particularly whether it would contribute positively and not naïvely waste our time. But implementation might also be discussed before we vote, particularly so we know what we vote for. --Sviptalk 15:46, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
- Implementation includes two main questions: Who should be able to award rewards? And should there be simpler rewards that can be automatised or should all rewards be manually rewarded?
- If only manually rewarded, one would assume all the rewards include significant efforts (e.g. vandalism cleansing, impressive article fixing, etc.) rather than just simple efforts (e.g. fixed a grammar mistake, etc.). But perhaps rewards for many simple efforts (e.g. many grammar fixes, etc.). --Sviptalk 15:50, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
- All editors who are experienced and trusted could award in my opinion.
- I don't think that automatised rewards are actually encouraging. Manually awarded ones have much more meaning. Simple efforts could still be rewarded, though. Sanfazer 16:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
- Automated sounds like the kind of thing that might encourage pointless edits to trigger the reward. I guess some form of manual reward system would be okay, so long as it doesn't clutter the interface. - Quolnok 11:57, 31 August 2011 (CEST)
- I concur. Perhaps use User:User/rewards (or whatever we decide to call our 'rewards') as the page for storing people's rewards, which can only be edited by members of the reward committee (protection). The user can then decide to include his/her rewards on their user page with {{User:User/rewards}}. I suspect they will look similar to the userboxes, but larger (and on the left side of the page).
- Styling is something I will need to test out. --Sviptalk 12:03, 31 August 2011 (CEST)
- Automated sounds like the kind of thing that might encourage pointless edits to trigger the reward. I guess some form of manual reward system would be okay, so long as it doesn't clutter the interface. - Quolnok 11:57, 31 August 2011 (CEST)
- I'm definitely for this. Creative badges could be created for different "Achievements" -- it'd be great! They should try to be thematically consistent, but maybe we could have user-suggested badges or even user-designed --Buddy 22:01, 6 September 2011 (CEST)
- Possibly, but I'd prefer a discussion on it first, particularly whether it would contribute positively and not naïvely waste our time. But implementation might also be discussed before we vote, particularly so we know what we vote for. --Sviptalk 15:46, 30 August 2011 (CEST)