POLL: Badges in one's profile

[tcawe]

UPDATE January 2, 2015: topic is locked as all changes have been implemented. If you have more ideas or wish to report bugs, please feel free to start a new topic in this forum (for ideas) or the support forum (for bugs). Thanks and have a wonderful 2015

As we've constantly improving Colnect's design by introducing responsive design and recently re-working our collector lists pages, we've now added badges to Colnect's profiles. Badges indicate roles and acknowledgements on Colnect. Here's how it currently looks like:

badges.png

Starting from left to right, first line: Stars - indicate level of contribution, each star is a huge effort in comparison to the one before it. Coordinator - indicates a member is responsible for managing at least one category on Colnect. Editor - indicates the person has direct editing permissions on Colnect. Translator - indicates the member is helping to translate Colnect.

Second line - indicates if the member is current a premium member.

Third line - not badges but command. Envelope - write a personal message to that member. Log - view the collector's log. Posts - see what the member has posted on our forums. Globe - visit the collector's homepage.

Choosing these specific icons follows a long discussion on the forum and you're welcome to reply there with any additional badges you'd like to suggest. Please upload 32x32 PNG files that you have made and write what they can be used for.

[Dana-Levitas]

I like the badges in general. However, looking at the whole picture now I think that the "Editor" badge should be changed to something more clear and simple. I think this one is not clear enough, I don't immediately see this is actually a pencil with a hat on a page. The Font Awesome editor badge is more suitable in this case (just pencil on a square in one color).

[Romanus]

It was very clear and easy before, using normal language.

Now I see badges that don't mean anything for me, and every time, I need to find the translation in english or french to know what to do.

Will you print a dictionary Badge/English - English/Badge ?

More seriously, a suggestion : put all the badges you want if people like it, but let the normal words beside for persons who don't speak "Badge".

[quarteris]

Thanks for pointing this out.

First, we have only few badges for now, and we did everything to make them easily understandable by everyone.

You can see the whole discussion here: https://colnect.com/en/forum/viewtopic! ... 1&start=75

If you have any specific suggestions, you can post them there.

Second thing, put your mouse over a badge and you will see the hint. Those hints should be translatex in most languages by now, if they arent, they will be soon.

[Romanus]

In the previous situation, I saw "Log" or "Posts" in english or any other language and could immediately know what it means, because it is a language I speak and understand.

Now I see hieroglyphs I don't know and need to look for their meaning (maybe pointing the mouse on the badge).

I think that an immediate information is better than a mediate information.

So I insist on letting the full words visible beside the badges and not hidden behind the badges.

[DarioDeSantis]

First, we have only few badges for now

You mean you are going to put badges all around? Waaahhhh... we might soon be using badges to express our opinions here in the forum!

No, seriously now. I understand Romanus' point of view, and I am actually on his side. Even if we lose 200-300 milliseconds each time to see what every single d#@n badge means (hovering the mouse), at the end of the day we have wasted some time in some silly way. OK, the page may now look a bit nicer, more colourful, more modern, ...whatever you like, but as for effectiveness... nothing can beat the plain text link we had before. Even if you should colour the contribution stars (e.g. yellow for 1, green for 2, ... red for 5), the immediateness of seeing a row of stars will be unmatched.

[tcawe]

Let's first differentiate two things: badges and command icons. Badges are acknowledgement for achievements or roles on Colnect and it's common practice to have badges present without text.

Command icons were previously shown smaller with text near them. The idea to make them bigger and without text was meant to attract attention to them. If you don't know what they mean, simply click them and you'll see. This is common practice over the web and it's easy after the first time to remember what a specific icon does. The envelope icon is one that's easily recognized over the web. The two others can be tried and you'll see what they do. But yes, I can see how this may be confusing. For now, seems most people voting here like this change. Let's see if more people will have the same complaint and then we may revert the change of the command icons.

[syllectis]

I dont like the Star+number badge. Imagine the US Flag with ONE STAR+50. Imagine the EURO coin with ONE STAR+12. Imagine an Army General with ONE STAR+4 and many many other cases where a number of stars is employed.

I believe the distinction awarded to someone for his work or his achievements should be generously presented. Let the stars increase in number expressing the size of the community’s acknowledgment, if you need space cut it from somewhere else.

For the Editors badge, I propose to alternatively use the goose feather with the ink pot, like it is used for the Notary or the Secretary.

[tcawe]

The new stars badge has the amount of stars in it, they are just smaller and in blue color. We're open to alternative icons that will replace the current ones. Feel free to attach your suggestion for 5 different icons here. However, presenting 5 star icons looks very bad on collector lists, as we needed to fit them for different widths. If many contributors would like to see the stars as before on one's profile page, please start a new suggestion + poll for it and we'll do it if a great majority would prefer going back.

[phil56]

I do not see the point in why stars are awarded.It does not show what they have been awarded for.I have been trying to find missing pictures for stamps and have added a lot through your editors. I have never asked for any reward for doing so maybe more time could be spend on getting catalogues upto date than spending time on such pointless activities as changing what the site looks like.

[Dana-Levitas]

I do not see the point in why stars are awarded.It does not show what they have been awarded for.I have been trying to find missing pictures for stamps and have added a lot through your editors. I have never asked for any reward for doing so maybe more time could be spend on getting catalogues upto date than spending time on such pointless activities as changing what the site looks like.

The catalogs are not being neglected in favor of design. There are many processes going on here at once, as needed in a large and diverse community. The primary focus of Colnect, by far, is usability and usefulness - providing as much information in the best way we can find and create. I think it's evident from taking one look at Colnect, really, that has a nice and relatively simple look, in an age where sites have endless pop-up animations, music, flashing lights and effects. However, there is a time and place for giving thought to the appearance of the site. It is OK if you are not interested in such things as design, contributions stars and rewards, but many on Colnect are and I don't see anything wrong with that. When being in such a large, well intentioned, volunteer community it is equally important to take at least a bit of time to properly say thank you and, yes, show some of pride in each persons help. Also, collectors spend a lot of time on this website, so it is important to give some thought on what they are looking at.

By the way, as someone who helps on Colnect, you might be eligible not just for stars on your profile, but for free premium membership. This is something more practical that you may be interested in that. To receive it you need to be in contact with the coordinator of the category you are helping with, which are the ones that decide on these issues. This also helps make the help more efficient, since being in contact with the coordinator keeps you in touch with what's going on in the category and what needs most help.

[phil56]

I am only able to search for stamps I do not have programme to add items to catalogue. I have pictures avaliable for lots of stamps for some not listed and when I have requested for these to be added I get emails to say comment rejected it would appear that editors can not be bothered to add to catalogue this includes Lola22 who I asked to add Gambia 1993 stamps who said he would but never bothered.Great when others get rewards for others work.I will continue to add pictures but it needs someone to go through the stamp catalogue and add missing stamps even without the pictures.

[quarteris]

Your comments are rejected because the comment system isn't for adding new items, it serves only for updating missing/wrong information in existing items.

About adding new items - you can read more here: https://colnect.com/en/help/collecting/ ... nes_stamps

The only application you need to add new stamps is Microsoft Excel or Openoffice/Libreoffice equivalent (I use the latter, it works perfectly for NIFs and you can download it for free if you don't have Microsoft Office). You can also use Google Docs to do this, without installing anything new on your computer. If you have any technical problems with this, don't hesitate to contact me or ask on the support forum

Coordinators already spend hours on making the catalogues better, believe me, it's not that they don't bother. All coordinators and editors do. But an additional task like copying the information from comment fields to NIFs, would require them to resign from sleeping at all.

[Dana-Levitas]

quarteris - thank you for the reply, I literally couldn't have done it better myself.

phil56 - your issue, questions and and comments are completely legitimate and should be discussed and answered (as done by quarteris here) but if you would like to continue this discussion, please open a new topic for it. This is already going far off the original subject of this thread.

[tcawe]

Topic is locked as all changes have been implemented. If you have more ideas or wish to report bugs, please feel free to start a new topic in this forum (for ideas) or the support forum (for bugs). Thanks and have a wonderful 2015