Achievement Badges

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Achievement Badges

1handshakes
Bewerkt: aug 7, 2022, 8:16 pm

As far as I can see, there are no sites out there that offer reading achievement badges. I've been looking forever, and I can't find any. This would be a great feature to have. I know kindle and audible have things like this, which I thoroughly enjoy, but I don't use a kindle and I don't use audible often.

2ScarletBea
Bewerkt: aug 8, 2022, 3:46 am

This can be both a good and a bad idea, and the downsides could actually backfire.
There are people that read a couple of books per year and others that read over 10 per month, and both are great in their own life: so an achievement badge could alienate both depending on the levels, either too high or too low.

I suggest you set your own personal targets, I'm sure there may be a site out there that helps you create and track personal targets, and this way it'll be better for you and all types of readers.

3MarthaJeanne
Bewerkt: aug 8, 2022, 4:01 am

Some of the Challenge groups act as personal achievement goals.

https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/search/challenge

4Kuiperdolin
aug 8, 2022, 8:15 am

There are the medals too, although a lot of them are for pointless stuff.

5guido47
aug 8, 2022, 8:40 am

And badges/medals mean...

6gilroy
aug 8, 2022, 8:49 am

Maybe it's that I'm the wrong generation, or that I just don't seek that type of validation, but I don't see the need for a reading achievement badge/medal. I mean it's not like the item will get you free pizza or a free book from your local indie store. Once you get out of school, you're reading for either information or enjoyment. Why would you want to stain those with having a badge that you have to achieve?

7Kuiperdolin
aug 10, 2022, 7:28 am

That's far from the worst thing I stained a book with

8aspirit
aug 10, 2022, 8:33 am

>7 Kuiperdolin: If you've never bled on a book, then have you really be reading enough? 🙃

>1 handshakes: I'm rarely on there these days, but if if I remember correctly, Goodreads automatically awards an achievement badge when you meet the reading goal you've set for the year.

At this time, I think the closest we have on LibraryThing is that you can give yourself a badge by posting the image you want in a thread you've created to track reading... which sounds sad now that I see it spelled out. The 75 Books Challenge group or something similiar doesn't recognize members who meet their personal goals?

I agree this recommended feature would be nice for the people who want a number to aim for when reading.

9lilithcat
aug 10, 2022, 8:55 am

>8 aspirit:

If you've never bled on a book, then have you really be reading enough?

If you do, you can remove the blood with your own saliva.

10AndreasJ
aug 10, 2022, 3:44 pm

>9 lilithcat:

Is there any reason someone else’s saliva wouldn’t work?

11Maddz
aug 10, 2022, 3:49 pm

>10 AndreasJ: Depends on whether they have the secretor gene or not, and whether they have incompatible blood groups or not...

12reconditereader
aug 10, 2022, 8:42 pm

>11 Maddz: Today I learn!

13lilithcat
aug 10, 2022, 8:49 pm

>10 AndreasJ:

I was told it had to be your own, but I haven't experimented with anyone else's!

14Keeline
aug 12, 2022, 1:31 pm

>13 lilithcat:

I'm just imagining conservation rooms of libraries having dropper bottles containing human saliva to be used in restorations with recent blood staining.

Then again, there are "crime scene cleaners" (with a couple TV shows inspired by them) and one wonders if they make use of anything like this.

It does sound like a MythBusters type of experiment. There's an old saying about using white wine to clean up spilled red wine. But it apparently doesn't really work.

More data and experimentation is necessary? Who is ready to bleed on some paper and try to clean it up with theirs or others' saliva? :)

James

15Kuiperdolin
Bewerkt: aug 14, 2022, 2:23 am

EDIT : whatever, dumb derail.

16handshakes
aug 12, 2022, 6:05 pm

Dit bericht wordt niet meer getoond omdat het door verschillende gebruikers is aangemerkt als misbruik. (Tonen)
>2 ScarletBea: if an achievement badge alienates you then you should rethink your level of maturity.

>6 gilroy: people like playing video games and achieving things too. it doesn't stain anything. gamifying tasks helps A LOT of people achieve things that they otherwise would not. just look at lvl up life or habitica.

17SandraArdnas
aug 13, 2022, 3:22 am

>16 handshakes: I think you're missing the point that people do not want to view their reading as achievement or lack of it and that achievement badges skew your focus. That is the point where alienation happens and it shows maturity, rather than the opposite. I can't tell how many times I've replayed a game to get some silly badge when I would have been better off moving to another one. Similarly with reading, what you view as helping you achieve more has as its opposite side skewing your focus towards that particular achievement, which necessarily comes at the expense of something else because we do have limited time at our disposal. Read x number of books will make you avoid War and Peace and pick up something that will make reaching the badge more likely, as one example.

18MarthaJeanne
aug 13, 2022, 6:10 am

The other point is that if someone ends up on an 'achievement list' by number of books read, the person who struggles to read a book a month is going to be way down at the bottom compared to all the people who read a book a week or a book a day. That person is the one who needs to be encouraged, not all the others for whom reading is easy.

19handshakes
Bewerkt: aug 13, 2022, 6:14 pm

>17 SandraArdnas: Yeah, the issue is that you're projecting your outlook of reading onto everyone else. Not everyone reads for the same reasons that you do. They should read for whatever reasons they want to, whether that is to enjoy books or to reach reading goals. Maybe I don't WANT to read War and Peace. Maybe I'd feel better about myself by reading x amount of books per year than one long book. Some people love to re-read books. You're telling me that they're wasting their time because they could be using it to read new books? NO. If you enjoy it, it's not a waste of time.

>18 MarthaJeanne: I'm not talking about a "list". I'm talking about individual badges only available to view by the user.

20AnnieMod
Bewerkt: aug 13, 2022, 6:29 pm

>19 handshakes: LT’s badges are public though. What you are asking for is a new system which allows private badges based on read dates. Which is fine for your needs. But if they exist, people will ask for them to be public and to be in a list. And you get back to what everyone above is saying. And I suspect you will want yearly badges and what’s not as well. Which again - not how badges work in LT.

As you want it visible/shown only to you, use a collection or a tag for each year/whatever interval you want the batch for. Then the number will be there and you decide how to use/interpret it. :)

21amanda4242
Bewerkt: aug 13, 2022, 7:04 pm

I'm not in favor of giving badges for reading, in part because I think it would be silly for LT to hand out badges for reaching a self-set goal, but also because most LT badges are awarded for helping to improve the site. I like that LT rewards community involvement rather than personal achievements.

22SandraArdnas
aug 14, 2022, 1:10 am

>19 handshakes: I'm not projecting anything. I am merely explaining another view, based on years of experience partly gaming, more reading. No need to be so combatative. War and Peace is a random example. The point is your reading choices will be skewed by the badge, which isn't what people who are not thrilled about your RSI want in any shape or form. All of this is just theoretical talk because no RSIs will get developer attention until site redesign project is finished and that's not soon, so chill.

23Keeline
aug 14, 2022, 6:45 am

Most badges I have seen are to acknowledge and appreciate contributions to LT, especially Common Knowledge, images, reviews, that benefit all users.

I have not seen badges for how many books one adds in a day or year because that is a personal benefit, not one for all of LT. You can see your book entry progress in a graph.

If you wrote a review, particularly a thoughtful one, after completing a book, I think those actions have badges associated with them. I’m not sure on this because it isn’t the way I use LT. I have almost no reading date data because I don’t enter it. I usually have a couple books I am working on.

James

24Nicole_VanK
Bewerkt: aug 14, 2022, 10:02 am

I wouldn't be adamantly opposed to this. But it would serve no purpose for me. I've never kept a track record of books I read over the decades anyway. Should it be just about the number of books read? No matter how many pages? How about reading in multiple languages? How would digging into Spinoza compare to reading a Spiderman comic? So, meh. Not interested. But, whatever.

25MarthaJeanne
aug 14, 2022, 7:08 am

>23 Keeline: There is no badge for writing reviews.

26rosalita
aug 14, 2022, 10:19 am

I don't think a system-wide badge system is the way to go, based on the many thoughtful explanations of people opposed to it. But it also seems clear that there are people who would very much like to have some sort of acknowledgment of meeting a goal, based on the many thoughtful explanations of people in favor of it.

I wonder if a compromise might be for LT to develop a way for members of the various reading challenge groups (the 50-Book Challenge, 75-Book Challenge, the ROOT Challenge, etc) to earn some sort of medal or icon to display (or not) on their profile if they choose?

I have no idea of the technical feasibility of developing such a feature but it seems to me that sort of solution could address both sides of the issue by not forcing anyone opposed to the idea to participate. And there would be no site-wide lists of "winners" or anything similar — nothing visible site wide outside of the individual member profiles and perhaps the group page.

27Crypto-Willobie
aug 15, 2022, 8:33 am

There should be badges for number of books shoplifted and number of books burnt.

28Cynfelyn
aug 15, 2022, 10:33 am

>27 Crypto-Willobie: Number of books looked over in a bookshop before ordering online.

292wonderY
aug 15, 2022, 10:55 am

Can I get a badge for downsizing my personal library. It’s agonizing!

30Felagund
aug 15, 2022, 11:35 am

Number of books lent to someone who never returned them.

31Keeline
aug 15, 2022, 12:16 pm

OK, how about badges or graphs to show the relationship between books read from the "to read" stack vs. books purchased? Probably not merely a few LT members buy books faster than they read them. :)

James

32MarthaJeanne
aug 15, 2022, 12:23 pm

The problem isn't buying books faster than I can read them. I could read them all except that I borrow books and ebooks from the library as well.

33bnielsen
aug 15, 2022, 12:31 pm

Being a mathematician I don't see the problem. If it takes a year to read what you buy in a day, there's still a one-to-one mapping between days and years, so every book will be read some day.

Running out of books would be so much worse a problem :-)

34MarthaJeanne
Bewerkt: aug 15, 2022, 12:45 pm

"Running out of books would be so much worse a problem"

Well, of course. But I'm not worried quite yet. Even after lockdowns closed both libraries and bookstores, I still have over 200 books in my To Read collection. I should be OK for a few months.

(And Hush! I have been known to reread a book.)

BTW, Are you saying that we can take, at least our books, with us?

35EGBERTINA
aug 15, 2022, 12:59 pm

>1 handshakes: In defense of handshakes suggestion, which I realize based on the comments below, will never happen- I agree that a sense of fun can be gained from such a suggestion. I sometimes wished in college that I could get "merit badges" for some of my subjects. A 4.0 and diploma is all well and good- but, a merit badge is much more fun. Is it generational? as one person attempted to suggest? Perhaps. Is it psychological? Ehhh. I still enjoy the concepts of tree houses, secret forts, and collecting useless treasures.

My library sometimes awards physical decorative buttons for reading contests. It also offers virtual ones. I enjoy them. I am not going to have meltdown without them. Before I was married and went on to have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, I used to collect both stamps and buttons. Stamp collecting is seldom demeaned as some kind of personal, generational failing. Its just a fun quirky activity. Why do any of us, here, collect books in the manner that we do? Others on the planet don't share our enthusiasm. All my books will be deposited hastily in the trash upon my demise. Nobody will bemoan the pleasure I derived from them.

Knowing it is neither possible nor desirable to the majority- I still say buttons/ awards can be a fun concept to enhance the other quirky benefits our brains derive from reading.

I especially would enjoy a big button for having read all the newberrys- a project- started by my fifth grade librarian. My mom read all the New York bestsellers- I don't know why- it was just "her thing"

36AndreasJ
aug 15, 2022, 1:11 pm

If you’re just trying to encourage yourself to read more, you can treat the books read and reviewed per year graphs as badges of a sort. Every year the bar is higher than last is a badge gained!

37EGBERTINA
aug 15, 2022, 5:40 pm

>1 handshakes: Another way of looking at it- is to compare it to the resume.

On a resume, you are asked to list awards, certificates, employee of the year certificates, special branches of study, etc.

Lots of schools/ businesses hand out completion of task type certificates that can be equivalent to training or college credit equivalencies.

I barely see any difference in this suggestion and that. It is just for fun. and don't we enjoy the concept of fun for no reason each time we do a library hunt?

38Aquila
aug 16, 2022, 10:41 pm

>31 Keeline: I have solved this by now just putting books in once I've read them. Which means there are uncatalogued books lying around my house. Aue!

39krazy4katz
Bewerkt: aug 22, 2022, 11:01 pm

>1 handshakes: Hi Handshakes. I agree with others on this thread: perhaps you could look at your data on how many books you have read each year and go for a bigger number each year. Or increase reading a particular genre or what ever you want to do. It is unlikely the LT people will ever get to this even if they wanted to. If you want to make it competitive, you could have a special reading group where you try to outdo each other’s reading rates.

40gilroy
sep 19, 2022, 7:16 am

>16 handshakes: No, see, gamification is used to TASKS that people DON'T want to do, or for UNPLEASANT TASKS that NEED to be accomplished. If you aren't in school and aren't required to read something, then YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ. No one is going to force you. If you have a job that requires reading, they should be awarding you to read.

Video games are something people want to play, so yes, they go for the badges, because it's part of the game.