We don't need no stinking badges

Hi @Stuart Weenig I moved your response here so I can track everything related to badges.  I did update the verbiage in the Badges, Ranks & Roles post hopefully it adds a little more clarity, since we are still in Soft Launch we haven’t finished all the badge designs.  So I added “Coming Soon” and will update it again when we get the designs.  We are finalizing the list for LM Certification and will be adding badges for all LM Certified members! @Mark Hensler this is also a question you had!

I have authored two replies and started one topic. My rank has moved up, twice (to Processor). It would be nice to see the Ranks defined, as well. Right now, it feels as if the bottom half of that list is too compressed.

@Mark Hensler appreciate the feedback!   

Ranks: Yes, the lower end of Ranks allow users to move up quickly this is primarily designed to get newer users to engagement more often by rewarding them quicker in their earlier stages of engagement.  As you progress and engage more the Ranks are harder to earn.  While I agree that more sophisticated rules would allow for more definition and delineation, this platform limits me to the predefined rules based on standard engagement, such as likes, replies, topics, answers, logins etc.  

Roles: As of now, the only roles we are using are LM Staff to identify our LM Employees. In the future as we build out integrations we will add more automated roles for Certified Experts, LM Exchange, Feature Requests, Inner Circle and more to allow access to special areas and identify them based on their activity outside of the Community.

Badges: While you may not need any stinking badges 😀, others in the community enjoy receiving rewards based on activity and engagement. Badges can be automated (again limited on predefined rules in the platform) awarded similar to Ranks, quick wins generate at the lower end faster to encourage more engagement., higher end badges will be harder to earn Manual badges; we are working now to add more badges for Certified Experts, LM Exchange, Feature Requests, Inner Circle. Unfortunately, for now these require manual validation to award, however in the future as we build out integrations we will add more automated badges to identify external achievements.

Lastly, while I understand users may like to know exactly how each of these are earned, posting that detail in the forums opens up opportunities for users to “game the system”, which can lead to users randomly posting just to earn badges/ranks. 

...also we are still in Soft Launch, so we are adding more content and making updates based on both Customer and Employee feedback, so I do appreciate you feedback and I will work on better definition of the items mentioned, without giving away all the secrets.   

Thanks again, much appreciated!

I can appreciate your desire to stifle any attempts to game the system. But with the names you have given badges, how are users to identify the badges that indicate subject competency (like LM Certification) vs badges for engagement (like posting 5 questions)?

@Mark Hensler   “The badges that indicate subject competency (like LM Certification) “. These badges will be customized and given manually for now.  They will clearly be named for the specification, we just don’t have them uploaded yet!  Working to get these loaded before full launch!

Thank you, A11ey!

None of these badges show up on my profile. I have a bunch of other badges though. I have no idea what any of the badges that i already have mean.

The link to the badges, ranks & roles page goes to your profile.

Updated the link and also removed the reference to Special Groups and Badges to avoid confusion!

How do we get the LMer badge?