How does your community use badges?
YTatLE
New
I'm a bit of a tourist here at the moment, but seriously looking at Vanilla as a forum platform.
I've never handed out badges before, our current forum only allows a "like" and that simply goes to the person who created the topic (which always seemed a bit unfair, as often the replies were more exciting than the original post).
I'm wondering how people here might be using them.
Do members like getting them?
Has anyone hacked them to collect the lot?
Have any of you run a competition using badges?
Thanks.
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Shadowdare
r_j MVP
If you're looking for a badges system similar to what you see on this website, check out the <Vanilla Forums hosted solution>, which provides a lot of great features exclusive to the hosted solution. Here's a link to a blog from the Vanilla team <introducing the features that come with Vanilla Reactions and Badges> and here's a link to <another article about the system>.
Add Pages to Vanilla with the Basic Pages app
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What version of Vanilla and what are you using to host your forum? Self Hosting or vanillaforums.com hosting?
@YTatLE
The 'I Like This' plugin allows likes of OP's and comments.
There are free and pay badges/reactions solutions.
Personally, for the kind of forum I run, I don't use anything other than 'Likes', not even titles.
That said, I am sure there are lots of kinds of forums where getting badges/reactions etc. would be a motivational tool for encouraging posts.
I would go with peregrine's reactions plugins. Start slow with 'lol' and 'insightful' and then build it further on...
You might even convert the likes to 'awesome' with a little logic
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If you're looking for a badges system similar to what you see on this website, check out the <Vanilla Forums hosted solution>, which provides a lot of great features exclusive to the hosted solution. Here's a link to a blog from the Vanilla team <introducing the features that come with Vanilla Reactions and Badges> and here's a link to <another article about the system>.
Add Pages to Vanilla with the Basic Pages app
@businessdad has the most versatile Badges plugin for the OS version. Check it out here.
http://dev.pathtoenlightenment.net/shop/product-category/vanilla-forums/
Thanks everyone.
I can see I have a lot to discuss with the moderators. We are a small group of merry people, but really passionate about what we do.
@ilovetech, I don't have a Vanilla flavoured forum, yet. This is my first foray. I'm cooking up a little plan for my current forum.
@Shadowdare - I am looking into hosting with Vanilla. I just wish they did a not for profit discount (hint hint).
@Whu606 - It's the motivational aspect I'm looking into. I must admit I got a little buzz when I saw I had been "awarded" my first badge. He he. Lots of people visit my current forum, but I want to kick them into action. I'm a fan of learning by doing.
@Under Dog - Thanks. Nice ideas, but I'm not sure I could do that kind of tweaking with a hosted account and logic was never my strong point.
I kind of like "Like" because most people have learnt to understand what it means courtesy of Mr Zuckerberg et al. I heard a rumour that Vanilla spreads karma - nice. 
@Phreak - Thanks. I shall take a look.
I was new to badges before I've registered here and seeing them and hardly noticed them at first. But now I think they are fun and yes, I like them. If I had a community, I would use them by any means!
That's the impression I'm getting RJ. I went to a presentation once on motivating students using badges, and I thought pfft, but that's purely me (and maybe I'm not actually immune). I think this gamification lark is onto something.
@YTatLE
There's no doubt rewards are a great motivational tool for students.
When I was teaching, even tough, no-nonsense kids would ask if they could have a sticker/stamp for their work.
Thanks @Whu606. Yes, I think if I were teaching at school age, it would be a no-brainer, but I teach / help adults. So, it would be interesting to see how motivated they may be by such things.