Forum:Wikia now has achievements

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > Wikia now has achievements

In what has got to certainly got to be the most novel addition to wikia, you can now enable achivements for your wiki. Read about it here:

Wikia Achievements Help page

Unlike so many other recent new additions, I'm not against this. For one thing, they didn't force it on us. Even if they did, I wouldn't mind because it's just some harmless fun that doesn't alter anything about the wiki (plus I love the concept of achievements and always welcome them being integrated into anything).

So yeah, little poll here. Shall we turn them on? Diablocon 21:23, August 4, 2010 (UTC)

Sure, why not?

1. Seems like the Merit Award, or Barnstar, done right. ^BLUER一番 21:57, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
2. Because we have failed to come up with a working award system. Having users recognize others for their work is awesome, but it's been tried and failed. People get lazy and don't look for great contributions, and don't nominate others for the awards we had. Because of that, right now the only means of recognition of great work on this wiki is to award one with modship, and even then, that's not saying much because of the nature of the position. There are plenty of users who deserve recognition for their hard work here, and sadly, will never get it. - +DeadlySlashSword+ 22:30, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
3. Breaking the habit of a lifetime, I know. Yes there will be people who will abuse the system, but if it encourages users to edit the wiki more often, then I'm all for it. Jeppo (Talk | contribs) 23:09, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
4. Because I like to brag. have my efforts rewarded with browser-slowing goodness. 死の騎士 23:39, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
5. I'm all for it, but I am pissed at whoever removed my Penny Arcade joke (you know the one). Exdeath64 20:04, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
6. Why not put it on a trail basis? A lot of people's fears seem to stem from a possible reaction, so lets see if that is the reaction we get here. Likeacupcake 00:45, August 6, 2010 (UTC)
7. I'm for it and there were comments of people making edits just for badges. If that occurs, just blocked them and there's achievements turns to 0 anyway. So I vote yes! Zey^pher 21:44, August 13, 2010 (UTC)

Nah, it's fine.

1. The concept for these is good. It could be a great way to motivate people to start editing things. However, a few things do bother me. Firsly, these awards would be displayed on the page. While this seems like common sense, I am wary as followed pages single-handedly screwed up the format of most userpages (that, and they were a dumb idea). Secondly, it could become competitive, with users making dumb edits to make the leaderboards. Also, these awards seem to be about editcount, and not contributions, which I don't like. So yeah, unsurprisingly, I'm against it. ScatheMote 21:49, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
2. No, at the beginning, everyone will be happy about it but later no one will give a crap about it so...no. TenzaZangetsu 22:51, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
3. I'm gonna agree with what Scathe said. --SilverCrono 22:55, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
4. No. I just learnt at #wikia that the thing only takes into account edit counts, as opposed to fewer but substantial edits. There's no justice in this being the only criterion being followed. Fëasindë ^{te audio} 00:10, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
5. Agreed with Fae - it's not an even playing ground, and that'd bother me. I'm also anti-this-idea in general. They have a similar system on the God of War wiki and it's terrible. - Paramina 00:15, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
6. If it's based on only edit count then...well...eh? We already have the edit count in needlessly giant numbers on everyone's userpage. (Who has the most wins? :p)Keltainentoukokuu 00:47, August 5, 2010 (UTC)Keltainentoukokuu
7. People above gave the arguments. I won't repeat them. KujaRhapsodos 02:35, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
8. The Merit Award system mostly failed because users were unwilling to nominate and recognize others' contributions. I think a system that just automatically measures edit counts and dispenses badges is worse. Actual people should offer praise for the work of their fellow editors, not a calculator. If we have a large amount of customization available, and could issue badges like "This user helped with the restoration of Revenant Wings location images" instead of "This user has achieved 1000 file edits", it would work, but I don't think that's possible. 8bit BlackMage 03:29, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
9. Not that my opinion counts for much, but even as a newbie, I see issues with it. I have something over 300 edits now, but I have to say the lion's share of them have been small things, like spelling, grammar, and standardizing things like italics. Also, lots of questions. While I wouldn't call these things useless, they really don't compare to someone getting a guide and providing in-depth info on every monster and such. Just doing it by edit count doesn't reflect the quality of the edits and encourages elitism for people who've simply been around longer. Bluestarultor 04:27, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
10. The idea has credence, but users editing solely for rewards are editing for all the wrong reasons.  Armageddon11!  11:42, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
11. I'm not sure I agree with the implementation as displayed on the Wikia Help page. I think we can do a better job, in every sense of the idea, rewarding ourselves through active monitoring. T·A·C·T·I·C·A·N·G·E·L 01:50, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

Comments

		Diablocon - No, the question is; who art thou, ham planks? Shanks! I meant shanks TALK - 21:23, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
		If we go ahead with this, I'll start a new topic for achievement ideas and discussions.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff25/bluerfn/occu-27.png

		Ser Blue says at 22:53, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
		If this goes ahead, I'd like to be in-charge of its execution and policing. I love the mainspace, I love mainspace edits, boom de ah da 2x

		Jeppo TALK - 23:11, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
		Wikia, actually coming up with a genuinely good idea? I didn't think they had it in them!

http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy50/Whostolemymuffin/FFWiki%20Stuff/Talkbox.png

		Likeacupcake - Never are we more free, than when we are confined to the realm of dreams. TALK - 04:36, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		I'm a bit unsure about this. I had a poke around, and the wikis that have adopted the idea seem to manage quite well, and I assume we can turn them off if worst comes to worst? But then, as others have said; it could become very competitive, and draw attention toward the awards rather than the wiki. I think it would be best to start of with a trial period (let's say a month) and see what effect it has, and we can take it from there.

		Armageddon11 - Sind Sie das Essen? Nein, wir sind der Jäger! TALK - 11:51, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		Right reasons to edit the mainspace: Because you want to, are able to, and/or enjoy doing so. Because you're bored. Because of peer pressure (everyone else is doing it). Because the wiki admins keep telling you to ("edit the mainspace DAMMIT!" and so forth). Wrong reasons to edit the mainspace: For rewards, respect or power. To prove that you're better than someone else. To damage something. To gain false trust so that you can cause anarchy at a later date. Because you think you will gain valuable life experince from doing so (HA!). Because you're bored.

		Jeppo TALK - 12:09, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		I've come from a forum background, and I'm used to people being rewarded titles based on their post count. There were a few people that abused their post count to get a better title, but all in all it was, if anything, an incentive to contribute more to the forum and get a higher title. For wikis, I can see the same thing happening. People would use the achievement system to contribute more to the wiki mainspace and filespace. You could argue that awards could raise competitiveness, but is that really a bad thing? The only winner would be the wiki. Besides, you could argue that people are competitive with their post count anyway. True, you still get the odd fool who abuses the awards system to better their rank, but they always existed anyway, and they don't last on the wiki very long. You'll get people who want to better their rank, and people who won't be that bothered about it (like me), but all in all I think the pros outweigh the cons and that's why I think the achievements are a good idea. Plus I have a good idea on what the awards could consist of.

		Deadlyslashsword - +It takes disaster to learn a lesson, but you're going to make it through the darkest nights+ TALK - 15:45, August 5, 2010 (UTC) - Some people betray and cause treason...we're gonna make everything alright.
		Jeppo is correct on all counts, but playing off of that, is it so wrong to want to be recognized for the work we do here? No, it's not a paying job, it's volunteer work, but even volunteers in the real world get recognition. It would raise the morale of the editor even by a slightest amount to spur them on to edit more. I trust in the fact that the users we have here won't abuse the system. At least, the ones who actually deserve recognition will not. Newer users will in fact most likely abuse the system, but that's nothing a few warnings and in dire casts, a short block can't fix... In reiteration of Jeppo, in the end it's the wiki who wins, along with the hard working users. Let them have their day in the sun.

		Paramina - "Oh please, we both know I'm a phenomenal dancer." TALK - Paramina
		What constitutes as a "hard working user" though? I'm just going to use this as an example: I spent like, 45 minutes on the Rasler article, cropping and uploading new images and completely expanding/re-writing all the text there. Which, if edit count is the basis of this reward system, which would give me the same reward as hitting "undo revision" in a second. I already find the whole edit count thing dubious because some users put a lot of work into things, but their count will always be beat out by five comma additions from someone else. If the whole concept is "reward users for editing mainspace", then it isn't an even playing field. And I'm not just saying this because I'd be like "guuuuys, I'm one of those people who wouldn't be on an even playing field!" I couldn't care less about gaining .jpgs telling me I've made 50 edits in the past 50 days or whatever, I'm just pointing out the inconsistency.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff25/bluerfn/occu-27.png

		Ser Blue says at 16:41, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		I support this basically for it to be a personal achievement of myself; seeing that the "Achievement" feature is like an automatic rewarding entity onto itself, and not the subjective judgment of wikia users - of which IMHO isn't entitled to judgment in the first place. And this feature is customizable and policeable. Good faith in place, it shouldn't be hard to execute. Those who claim to not care about edit counts, wouldn't be bothered if the feature was in place, I think.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii319/THE_faethin/kainfinal.png

		FëasindëTalk "Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." 18:15, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		What you're saying is that you support this change because you would like to pat yourself in the back then. The honest approval of the community towards a hard-working user should not be disregarded as "subjective judgement"; a lack of a formal system of qualification does not imply that objectiveness is all but gone. That's like saying that a person's experience on a matter, whether the former be extensive or not, is subjective and overall worthless because it is not possible to quantify experience. Those that claim not to care for edit counts regularly mean that they do not judge a user's contribution to the Wiki based solely on the count figure. This does not mean that they disregard entirely said figure, so it is unfair to assume they would not care for a system that, at core, is completely opposed to what they think.

http://i560.photobucket.com/albums/ss44/Oavatospics/sd-hanako-c.png

		OavatosDK --- 18:23, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		I agree with Likeacupcake's idea, we should give it a month or too, and have a revote then.

Like Jeppo, I came from a forum background. Unlike Jeppo, I was completely against postcount based ranks at every forum I was at. I was also against reputation based ranks. The thing is, postcount ranks mean people with the more posts meant they would have a sort of authority. And most of them would have elitist attitudes anyway. And it is normal for people to seek higher ranks so they'd post more. And then the spammers would post loads and be a higher rank than those who actually contribute to discussions.

But edits its even worse, since there is a far easier way to rank how important an editcount is. Although, that's subject to personal opinion.

I could get a 1000 edits extremely quickly. I could decide that we should have a consistency and that all "Weak against" and "Resistant to" sections of enemy articles should read "Nothing", not "None" or "N/A". That's one edit to at least half (far more than half in reality) of our enemy articles. Then, all our enemy articles have additional problems, which I will try to change at the same time, but then I'll realise I forgot to do something for about a tenth of the articles. We have surely over 3000 enemy articles. So I'm suggesting I could do 1650 edits just by doing that.

To get to my point, those 1650 mainspace edits don't actually mean anything individually. As one, they are a minor contribution to the wiki. If I were to give this a worth, I would give it 3, because of the effort. Write an article as in-depth as Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (sorry, I just know how good it is since I wrote it myself) and it takes potentially one edit (though in reality a bit more for things I remember to add). So if I were to give it to worth, I would give it about 3.

And I'm sure people would argue the article is more important than the enemy-article consistency.

So yeah, editcount is a silly way to award users.

And people who don't care about editcounts think it doesn't reflect the meaning of the contribution of their edits, or anyone elses, since editcounts don't reflect meaningfulness of edits, just the superfluous amount of times they've had to his "Save page". 88.108.109.23 19:31, August 5, 2010 (UTC)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff25/bluerfn/occu-27.png

		Ser Blue says at 22:29, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		Nothing's wrong with that; its like getting a Trophy for achieving some certain criteria in a game. Satisfying. Diablo seems to understand this too. And Wikia did say they're looking into taking more than edit count into account, if they're looking to improve, I'd give them a chance. Because, let's be honest, the system that relied on my coined term "subjective judgment" failed. Twice. Three times. I've looked over the execution, and while it started well enough, it died out. Why? Could be since nobody bothers. I'm believing this feature operates itself after being preset, without waiting for anyone's approval. That's neutral enough. And the other argument being that it'll lead to spamming and making fluff edits for rewards: I've seen this executed on an even bigger wiki, and they've policed it well enough so that there's admin intervention whenever this sort of thing happens. Course, this sort of thing will happen; take vandalism, you can't avoid it, it will happen and when it does you'll just do what's in your power to take action against it.

		Jeppo TALK - 23:11, August 5, 2010 (UTC)
		Looking at the votes as it stands, it looks like the awards system isn't going to be implemented, which I personally think is a shame. I figured we should at least trial it out for a few months. I can understand why the 66% of voters don't want it though, probably due to the fact that the system could be abused, and the fact Wikia made it. If Wikia do improve it in the methods Bluer said they might, we could consider this again. Agreed?

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii319/THE_faethin/kainfinal.png

		FëasindëTalk "Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." 04:05, August 6, 2010 (UTC)
		Diablo agrees with you; he doesn't understand any better than the rest of us. The argument of most people against this move is not that people will abuse it in order to get recognition. The argument of most people against this move is that it is unfair: you cannot give recognition to users based solely on how many edits they have, irrespective of their nature. If Wikia is able to improve the feature so as to use acceptable criteria, then I'd be more than pleased to support it. But as it is, I still oppose the this whole thing - which I understand perfectly.

TacticAngel TALK 02:06, August 14, 2010 (UTC) I think Faethin has articulated the opposition quite concisely. I personally have some beef with the idea that an edit is an edit is an edit. I am not sure how they expect to resolve this. There doesn't seem to be any built in way to really track what is substantive, no way to customize it. I have always been something of the idea that there are four types of people on any given wiki: Contributors: People who write articles and expand the knowledge base of the wiki. These add the vast majority of imagery and text to the wiki. Secretaries: People who do the paperwork, filing articles and images under the correct categories, and systematically editing huge lists of articles in the case of a template change, addition, or similar. They are a great help to those people who want to contribute but are not detail oriented, or would like to spend more time adding rather than rearranging. Commentators: Not as common here, but these are people who don't actually edit anything but talk pages, for the most part. You will find a lot of these on the Wikipedia. Socialites: By far the most worthless, these people stick around for the side shows, the drama, and the forums. They contribute little to the knowledge base. As I see it, this sort of thing would benefit socialites more than anyone else because they would probably care more about it, and we've already established that people can accumulate a huge edit count just by using the forums. It benefits It benefits contributors least, as they are making relatively few edits while adding more. Somewhere in the middle, secretaries probably drive the largest edit counts, but usually the disposition of a secretary is such that they are doing a largely thankless job anyway, and aren't looking for vast amounts of recognition. Rewarding people based on, say, characters added (and/or deleted?) to the wiki also wouldn't necessarily work because this, again, wouldn't be able to differentiate--it certainly doesn't advertise the fact, anyway--between different namespaces. I could certainly care less how many characters people add to the forums. Most Wiki Project Pages, similarly, are not highly substantive. In any case, I have long established I can expound upon my thoughts to numbing ends, so I'll leave the rest of you to kind of mull over and follow these thoughts to their logical conclusion. For now, I'm just not seeing this as a real worthwhile addition. Plus, I want credit for my previous edits. I've added a lot of FFXI stuff that otherwise probably would not be here.

What if you're a mixture of One and Four? Exdeath64 06:41, August 15, 2010 (UTC)