There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
By offering advice, interacting with others, answering questions, giving recommendations, posting memes, or however else you’re contributing, you’re making the greater community a better place for everyone. This program is set up to acknowledges and gives you status for those contributions.
The program provides a badge and additional rewards for each core community member based on their endorsement count within a specific community. Endorsements are a useful and easy way members of the community can show each other appreciation for making the community better.
This program helps to make endorsements matter more by tying your endorsement count within a community to your status in that community. While this is a great place to start for, we’ll be looking to hear your feedback for additional ways to evolve the program and make sure all core community members are being recognized.
We’ll get into more of the details now, and again, we’d like to thank everyone in advance for participating.
PROGRAM We’re launching the Core Community Program as a Beta in the combined Outdoors and Ultralight Communities. We chose these communities because we want to make sure we test and develop this program with a careful approach to nail down the structure before we fully launch it in the rest of the communities. Your feedback will be critical to helping shape the program as we expand to the other communities.
TIERS There will be three tiered levels as we start the program: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. And as it evolves we may add more. Each level will require a certain amount of endorsements 👍 within a community. These levels will grow within their respective communities as the communities grow themselves.
· Bronze: 150 endorsements · Silver: 300 endorsements · Gold: 600 endorsements
When we fully rollout the program, we’re going to increase the requirements so make sure to get in take part before we do!
These numbers will change based on how people are using them, and we expect them to be around the numbers we’ve outlined below when we fully launch the program.
Level Requirements for Launch (Outdoors & Ultralight only):
· Bronze: 500 endorsements · Silver: 1,250 endorsements · Gold: 2,500 endorsements
One of the biggest challenges with setting up a program like this within Massdrop is making sure the endorsement levels make sense across all of the communities. There are a number of factors that complicate this including the size of the community, the activity of the community, and how quickly it is growing. Because of this, we’ve decided to set distinct targets within each community, and have those targets increase at a pre-determined time frame based on the size of the community. We’ll be fleshing this increase out further before it is brought to other communities, and will take into account the feedback from everyone involved.
Note: Once you get a badge, you keep it. We want you to maintain your status once you achieve it, even if the levels increase over time.
BADGING When you get enough endorsements in a given community, your profile image/name/title will get the corresponding badge (Bronze, Silver or Gold) of that community in discussion posts. To start off, there will only be one badge for the combined Outdoors and Ultralight communities, and that badge will only show up on pages in that community. This means if you’re a ‘Gold Outdoors/Ultralight Community Member’ your badge won’t show up while visiting Mech Keys or Cooking pages. We may expand the ability for badges to show up in other places, including your profile, down the road.
PERKS & REWARDS We want to incentivize and reward those that take part in this program and bring value to their respective communities. These are just a few initial items that we felt would be valuable including bolstering your identity within the community, getting samples to try out and review, and interacting with our team directly.
If you have any thoughts on what we have here or something that you think would be interesting, let us know. We want to shape this so that it’s valuable as well as interesting to you.
We’re really, really excited about this program and want to do everything we can to make it a success, especially for you, the community.
TL;DR · Core Community Program. · Endorsements in a community = badge, perks, rewards. · It’s only in Outdoors/Ultralight for now until we fully launch it later. · With great status comes great responsibility. Abuse it and you lose it. · What do you think??
FAQ’s Q: How do I find out if I have a badge or how close I am to getting one?
A: You’ll see a special line underneath your name in the discussion (as seen in one of the images above) that says ‘Core Outdoors/Ultralight Member’. It will be visible to everyone within those communities. You won’t be able to see it in other communities. Until we fully launch the program, you won’t be able to tell how exactly close you are, but we’ll be working on that so you can.
Q: Why endorsements?
A: We’re constantly evolving how the site works and how we measure the value that people are creating in communities. As it stands, our endorsement system is the best way to gauge that.
Q: Why can’t I see my badge/activity on my profile page?
A: You’ll be able to see your activity within the pop-up card (as seen in the picture above) for now, but when we fully launch the program, we’re aiming to be able to see everything you need on your profile page.
Q: I have more endorsements in other communities, why am I getting an Outdoors/Ultralight badge?
A: The program is kicking off in Outdoors/Ultralight only so badges won’t be available for other communities until we fully launch the program.
Q: When other communities are added in, how will that work?
A: Every community is a bit different than the other, but especially in size. Different communities will need different amounts of endorsements to level up in the program, and that amount will grow as communities grow in size.
Q: How do I get a badge?
A: Get endorsements on Talk Posts and comments within the Outdoors/Ultralight communities. It’s still valuable to get endorsements on Talk Posts and comments in other communities of course, but we’re only offering badges for Outdoors/Ultralight for the BETA of the program. The more you engage with everyone else in the community, the more endorsements you’ll get. The more valuable your Talk Posts and comments are will also get you more endorsements. If you get 150 endorsements within the Outdoors/Ultralight communities, you’ll get a Bronze badge, and so on.
Q: I don’t have a lot of endorsements even though I add a lot of value.
A: This isn’t a question.. But it’s a valid point. One of the things we’ll be working to do is make sure that people who participate in conversation or make great content get their contributions surfaced so they’ll get more endorsements. For the future, we will also will be looking at other ways people add value that can’t be captured simply by endorsement counts.
I’ll be answering questions in the comments below, and passing along all of your feedback to the team. Let us know what you think!