We've Got Badges!

posted by Brian Houston (dag) 1 decade 4 years 6 months 1 week ago • 2,233 views


VideoSift is a working-bee kind of place. There are jobs to be done- and up until now we haven't been that great at recognizing the Sifters who put in the work around here.

Today we're introducing a slew of badges to be worn with honor on profiles- indicating an achievement that is noteworthy and beneficial to the Sift. Here they are:


The Grim Reaper is the tireless scythe-person who seeks out and erradicates dead videos on the Sift using the *dead invocation. They might be a bit gloomy- but they provide an invaluable service. Don't fear the Reaper.


The SuperDuper has a brain that stores the title of every other video he or she has ever seen on VideoSift - and knows where to find them. They're also banned from Blackjack tables. Some people are really good at finding duplicate posts and this is the badge for them. The SuperDuper badge is awarded if you've been successfully declaring *dupeof or *isdupe on a bunch of videos.


The Necromancer is the yin to the Grim Reaper's yang. Necromancers seek out dead videos in The Dead Pool and supply fresh embeds, bringing these posts back to life. This is an important service because not only does it revive the video, but also the comment thread- which is sometimes better than the video itself.


The Golden One is the highest honor bequeathed on a video post. It's awarded for posts that have reached the number one position on the Top 15.


The Silver Tongue is for the commenters. Not everyone likes to post videos- some Sifters make contributions by amazing, insightful, witty or informative comments. The Silver Tongue badge is for these people.


The Pop Star knows what you like. If you find your videos frequently make it into the Top 15 - you may find yourself awarded with a Pop Star badge. This badge indicates that you know what people like, and we know that you know. ;-)


The formula for awarding the above badges is not public knowledge and may be subject to tweaking. In other words- we're not saying how many *deads equals a Grim Reaper badge. The Golden One badge is a little different because it's awarded each time you get a #1 post in the top 15.

We're also using the concept of leveling for each badge. So, once you are a SuperDuper Lvl (1) you can ascend to Lvl (2).

Achievements are not retroactive, they start from right now.


In addition to the achievement badges we're also awarding an anniversary badge each year from the day you joined. For the record, VideoSift started in February 2006, so the highest year anniversary badge is currently a 4.


Lastly, we haven't forgotten about the "original" badges - star levels. These are the most important badges on the Sift for indicating moderator abilities and general involvement with the community. We now have nifty large badge sizes of all the star ranks which will be displayed alongside all the other badges in your profile.

This may not be all of the badges - but just a first batch. If you have some ideas for other achievements that should be noted, let us know.

I'd like to thank Chris Murphy the talented and speedy graphic artist who designed the badges. Chris has also done some work with our pals over at Neatorama. Finally, thanks as usual to my partner @lucky760 for giving Siftbot the tune-up required to make this happen.

53 Comments

burdturgler says...

>> ^rasch187:

I find it a travesty that I'm not already a SuperDuper Necromancer, but quality all the same


No question ... you should be Arch-Necromancer rasch187!
Kind of bummed about the no retroactive deal as well. Still, very cool. And the badges look great. Great job guys!

Duckman33 says...

So will these apply to videos posted in the past, or just posted from this point on.

EG: I have 11 #1 vids and 99 top 15's. Will these badges apply to those, or only vids I post from now on?

Oh and another *quality for badges!!

Bugger off siftbot.

siftbot says...

>> ^Duckman33:

So will these apply to videos posted in the past, or just posted from this point on.

EG: I have 11 #1 vids and 99 top 15's. Will these badges apply to those, or only vids I post from now on?


^dag: "Achievements are not retroactive, they start from right now."

Raaagh says...

"In addition to the achievement badges we're also awarding an anniversary badge each year from the day you joined. For the record, VideoSift started in February 2006, so the highest year anniversary badge is currently a 4."

Didnt everyone get wiped in the sift-apocalypse of 2008? (or whenever that was)

Sarzy says...

Cool idea, though if you want this to have that super-addictive, MMO type of feel, you should probably disclose the numbers you need to earn these (and possibly even have a progress bar).

dag says...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

we specifically aren't revealing this because we don't want to make it about grinding for points.
>> ^Sarzy:

Cool idea, though if you want this to have that super-addictive, MMO type of feel, you should probably disclose the numbers you need to earn these (and possibly even have a progress bar).

Throbbin says...

Cool. A possible future badge to consider could be a Phenom badge - for folks with sufficiently high average-votes-per-video. This would be a great way to recognize all-around quality sifters.

blankfist says...

@dag, Nope. Have you learned nothing? So help me Jesus.... Be my ANGEL!

...creepy....

I promise to treat you well, my sweet angel. I still don't take anal. And you're not going to win me over with the private emails. Stop flirting. See? No shame. Question. Answered. Real talk.

burdturgler says...

So ... I decided to finally check my email and I see this:

Greetings from VideoSift!

This message is to inform you that member SIFTBOT has posted a new
comment on your member profile. To view the comment and your profile,
visit the following address:
http://burdturgler.videosift.com?loadcomm=1#comment-985973

The full comment follows:
Congratulations! Your dedication to keeping VideoSift clear of
duplicate videos has earned you your "Super Duper" Level 4 Badge!

And I come here and .. nothin!
Siftbot giveth .. siftbot taketh away

Doc_M says...

How about an MVP badge for outstanding batting average (an average votes/video of some number or higher... assuming a certain minimum number of videos)?

Hybrid says...

Donor - Awarded to sifters who use the vast majority of their powerpoints on other people.

... in a similar vein...

Promoter - Awarded to sifters who use the vast majority of their powerpoints promoting other people's videos.

choggie says...

dude...keep yer day job,my badges suck-go with the flow dude...tweak yer websiteandstopwankin'...(my advice,for what it's worth...)

Otherwweitz, good-on yas Mary-

oh yeah,and,yer t-shirtz sideline blows....go figger, you let users dictate the criteria....plus, as always,the graphics reek of uber-code-monkeyhoo-hah...

*part-time jobz, keep em.

cybrbeast says...

>> ^SlipperyPete:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://dag.videosift.com" title="member since February 16th, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color: rgb(0, 136, 0);">dag a couple of suggestions for the next batch:
Amazonian (for linking Amazon items)
Boy/Girl Scout (for providing [backups])
Sinner (for negativly-voted comments)


Seconded, I've posted quite a few Amazon links

Sketch says...

Just a thought about the Dead command based Grim Reaper badge:

Granted, I don't have any working knowledge about how things are set up behind the scenes, but it seems as though the * dead command usually gets nullified either because the video never made it to 10 votes, or after someone fixes an embed and uses the * notdead command, more often than a video will actually go into the Dead Pool, even though the video was correctly identified as being dead at the time. Here's a personal example:

http://videosift.com/video/Compulsive-Whoreders-An-Intervention

So it seems as though there needs to be a distinction between whether a video was erroneously declared dead, as with "notdead" and when it was correctly identified as dead so as to give the potential Grim Reaper some credit. Perhaps a * fixed or something that would then allow both the Reaper and the fixer/Necromancer some credit.

If I understand things correctly (and admittedly I may not), as a Silver Star, I can declare things dead, but I can't actually do anything to fix it myself until it does go into the Dead Pool, which it probably won't even do. It's a game balance issue, but if there are going to be gaming elements, which I am whole heartedly in support of, it will need to be balanced.

Sketch says...

Also, fixing videos in the Dead Pool is fairly difficult, given the information we have, since we can't actually see the video that is dead. I understand that this is inherent in the system, but perhaps there is other information that could be gathered and shown about the original embed code, or the videos time codes, or anything that would be helpful. Retrofitting some of that information, obviously, would be impossible, but if it could be gathered for new videos at the moment of submission, it might help Necromancers to clear out the Pool.

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