Or “Emily Litella says…”
TL;DR – it’s more fun and engaging than reading a manual. That’s… pretty much it. 
The fuller explanation of the philosophy is here, I wrote that way back in 2008:
Bronze badges. Bronze badges are awarded for basic use of the {thing}; they encourage people to use all the typical, routine functions of the {thing}: {list of common activities for thing}. Bronze badges are relatively easy to get and provide immediate positive feedback to new users.
Silver badges. Silver badges are for experienced users who regularly use {thing}. They encourage continued participation and returning to the {thing} by rewarding longer term goals. Silver badges are uncommon, but definitely attainable if you’re interested enough.
Gold badges. Gold badges are for the hardcore and the completionists. They reward the most difficult feats; you’ll have to not only participate but be skilled and knowledgeable about {thing} to earn these. Gold badges are something of an accomplishment.
I was happier when I discovered that you can turn off most of the badges. Or at least, the notifications that say, “congrats! You have now quoted another poster!” It’s a setting somewhere.
We recently added a “thanks, but I’m already familiar with the basics of Discourse” escape hatch to Discourse in the previous release:
https://blog.discourse.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/discourse-skip-new-user-tips.png
“skip these tips” is also a user preference, which you can link to generically using the “my” syntax:
[/my/preferences/interface](/my/preferences/interface)
Thanks! Good upgrade. I didn’t love the new user notifications the first three times i came across them, but the fourth time they really got on my nerves.
Never really found any of those on Stack Overflow to be all that useful. The ones that could be would be the ones telling me my answer was accepted or I got X number of upvotes, but I can see that with the other kind of notification.
That said, I do like one of the badges here on Discourse: the popular link badge. That’s not something I would normally be informed of, and it appears to happen every time. Like the numbers on the links, it’s useful to be able to see whether the link was useful.
I’m a big fan of a small number of useful badges and not the “baby’s first step” style badges that feel more like how free-to-play games try to hook you.
I actually left my first discourse site because the badges annoyed me. That and the bot. I go to chat sites to talk to people, not to have conversations with bots. Oh, and the disorientation.
I went back to that site this year–it’s about a topic that interests me, and someone recommended it, and I didn’t realize i’d been there before. I was surprised to see it was discourse. But I’ve finally learned how to navigate discourse sites without getting lost, so it was okay this time.
I’m a spacially oriented person. If i can’t keep a mental map of where I am, and how to go back to where i was, i feel uncomfortable. I spent a lot of time feeling uncomfortable when a couple of my chat sites moved to discourse.
I do like to know when something is useful. In boards that use the “like” button you get the same feedback about a post.
Unfortunately, here the likes would lead to community moderation, as they affect page rankings. If they had no effect beyond notifying the poster, I would be all for them.
That is one area in which the goals of Discourse (as stated by @codinghorror earlier) and the SDMB are at odds–we reject community moderation. I asked and was flat out told this during the move by TubaDiva–that the mods alone would continue to moderate the board, and all such features would be disabled.
Interesting. I have not seen the likes have any impact beyond a little number under the post. But i haven’t extensively searched, either.
But the way, having posted on boards with inadequate moderation, i think it’s a decent idea to have a little community moderation, with guardrails, built into the software. It doesn’t mean every board will use every aspect of it, nor that they should. But i think it’s a nice option to have available.
I can’t even find how to like a post from my phone. I do find the badges somewhat useful in finding out features I wasn’t aware of.
Likes have been disabled on this site. They’re pretty obvious on sites where they are enabled.
(imagines clicking Like on this)
whoa - meta, dude!
Before likes were disabled, I received one (from discobot, IIRC).
Discobot still can give likes, but AFAIK he’s the only one who can do so. I recently got three from him. All you have to do is thank him.
Thanks, @discobot!
1 Like
Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.