User Engagement 🌶️ Is anyone special when everyone is special?

[joelr]

This is a spicy post, so read at your own risk LOL.

I was inspired by the post by @MrDawn when he mentioned that he thinks of badges as clutter:
https://admin-junkies.com/threads/do-you-like-badges.14865/

You join a forum. You immediately notice that other members have their usernames in pink with glitter, purple usernames, green usernames, blue usernames, sparkly snow usernames with a Santa hat because they forgot to undo their Christmas decorations and it's already May LOL. All of the members have colorful usernames, custom titles, a lot of badges.

When everyone is special, is anyone actually special?

When you're a new member and everyone else is special, how does that make you feel about the community?

 

[Nomad]

Frankly speaking, I don't care about any badges except badges for staff or badges for reaching milestone, such x number of posts done or x number of years spent on the forum. I also do not care much about sparkling usernames.

 

[Cedric]

There are forums where it allows you to style your username to your own preference. And when you do style your own username, you try something that makes you stand out from the crowd. Although it's very hard when everyone does it. I don't care much anymore about such settings, even though I've done it to try it out sometimes. I always try to make the members feel special. AJ even had such add on in the past, but I didn't like the cluter-ness it brought.

Sparkling usernames are just bad. Those are the worst, lol.

 

[MrDawn]

When you're a new member and everyone else is special, how does that make you feel about the community?

I see those people as recognized members who worked hard to contribute to their community. They put in the time and got decorated for it.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I see those people as recognized members who worked hard to contribute to their community. They put in the time and got decorated for it.

This is also how I view these members. I think anyone considered a valuable member on the forum should be allowed to get fancy username colors. Whether they actually paid money to support the forum, or added informative content. I don't think everyone should get the ability to change their username color.

 

[Darth Cognus]

It's going to be a mix, it will attract some and others will ignore or rebuff it. In my experience the rebuff doesn't override the benefit for those who are interested as long as it remains an interesting sideshow and people don't dwell on it too much. My taste is minimalist, I'm not anti badge but I do prefer fewer personally. Likewise I can dig a flair but am unimpressed by animations, sparkles, what have you.

Being able to flair yourself I do think is a nice niche of the forum community that would be a shame to dismiss entirely, the bar imo should be higher than my preference. I hope it's no big contest for whoever makes it the fanciest, and trying to stand out too much I think can have a tacky impression. At the end of the day it certainly doesn't make their post any more or less useful.

 

[Tracy]

I only recognize folks based upon two items.
Number of posts and the first 10 registered active users.
The banners are either New Member or Member, the latter which you are awarded after a set number of posts and days of membership.
I don't even show the user ladder fields on the postbits. You can only see the user title ladder on their profile.
The 1st ten active registered users got a Charter Member banner for their accounts.

But a LOT of it will depend upon the niche. For general discussion sites, doing the Myspace pursuits would probably be fine. But for a technical niche site, they would be obnoxious.

 

[Teegold]

This is definitely something worth thinking about. Being special means standing out, so if everyone is standing out, no one is special.