This is the first edition in a series highlighting the tools and capabilities that set OPIEWeb’s Q&A section apart from listservs and regular discussion boards. To see the complete series of Feature Spotlight articles, click here. – RA

OPIEweb has its own “pieces of flair.” We call them badges and chances are that as a registered OPIEWebber, you already have some.

Most users first encounter badges when they fill out all of the fields in their profile after registering. For that simple act you are awarded the ● Autobiographer badge.

There are 3 classifications of badges and just like in the Olympics, they come in bronze, silver and gold. Bronze badges are common and it is not unusual to see a user with dozens of these on well established sites. Silver are a bit harder to come by. A typical user may have between 10 and 15 silver badges after a year or so on OPIEWeb. Gold badges are very difficult to come by. Some users will accumulate a few of these over the next year, but not all.

Why do we do this? Well because its fun, mostly. OPIEWeb’s badge system is based on trophies/achievements/badges found in modern video games. Badges are our way of thanking you for being a good OPIEWeb citizen. They reward you for doing things that we want to encourage (hurray for positive reinforcement!) which make OPIEWeb a better place to be. This is separate from reputation which is a metric of trust, but more on that later.

You’ll find a general list of badges here that anyone can earn throughout their time on OPIEWeb. Many can be awarded to you multiple times. There is also a badge for every single tag used on OPIEWeb. If you earn 400 up-votes on non-Community Wiki questions with those tags, you can earn a silver badge for that tag marking you as an expert in that subject. Earn 1,000 up-votes and you get the coveted gold badge.

We don’t tell you where you are in your progression towards a badge. This is on purpose. We like it to be a surprise when you have left enough comments to earn the ● Commentator badge or visited the site every day for 100 days straight to get your ● Fanatic badge.

So how many pieces of flair do you have?