Sometimes there is a number on my profile picture in the upper-right corner. That means someone replied and I want to read that.
But it is sometimes a message : Earned 'Popular Link'
I consider that as spam.
Can I turn off all the badges ?
Or shall I stop using links ? I can try to remove as many links as possible in the posts that I have done in the lasts month. I can also move over to a new user with a fresh profile.
This might be far-fetched for most users, but I prefer a life without spam and even without commercials if possible.
As far as I can see, there aren't any badges based on the number of references to a post by forum members. However, there are a series based on how many incoming unique visitors there have been following a link you shared externally. This is why you will notice the forum adds your user name as a u parameter on copied post URLs like this:
I like the more granular feedback I get from the Discourse-based forum. The "karma" count provided by the old SMF based forum was a vague metric of how helpful the community found your contributions, but there was no way to know which specific contributions were more appreciated than others.
With Discourse, I can see exactly which posts the metrics apply to and perhaps try to identify what I did right there so that I might do more of it in the future.
I do wonder though whether some of these click counts are based more on bot activity than on real humans clicking the links. The thing that made me suspicious is sometimes I will see that the click counts are very close on multiple links on a post I made, even though one link was directly related to the primary subject of discussion, while another was added simply to provide a convenient reference in case someone was not familiar with the term I used. I would expect the former type of link to have a higher click count relative to the latter type.
I often remove my user name at the end of a URL, because it didn't feel fair. When I give a link to someone's post, then why would I claim the link with my user name ?
I don't care about the statistics that tell how well I'm doing. I do not go to this forum to get likes. I rely on others to tell me if I made a mistake or if they have an addition or a different view.
Off topic: On the other hand, I was the person that gave away most likes in 2021, which is very funny
This badge is granted for sharing a link that was clicked by 25 outside visitors. Thanks for spreading the word about our discussions, and this community.
I am reopening this for discussion. I think @Koepel has a valid complaint. I have received 669 of these badges. I'm not too bothered by the notifications because I get a ton of notifications in general, but I also don't see any benefit to them so I'm in support of doing something to improve on this situation.
If disabled, the badges would no longer be shown anywhere in the forum interface. The badges would no longer be awarded (and so there will no longer be notifications of the badge award). These badges will no longer be shown on the "Badges" page of the profiles of the users who previously earned them:
I like that active information because it shows me that a provided information was used (by others) also.
didn't know the 50/300/1000 rule, but sounds reasonable for me.
I agree with @noiasca. See post #2 In general I don't get many badges like that
If it's going to be changed, keep either the Popular Link or the Hot Link and keep the Famous Link.
I'm not sure how many Famous Link badges have been granted but they would never be an annoyance (for me) as it's a once off and you probably will only see them at occasion; there are notifications at this stage that are far more annoying.
It is definitely lower frequency. Here is the distribution of my badges:
Badge
#
Popular Link
562
Hot Link
81
Famous Link
26
However, if the hypothesis that there is a steady stream of non-human clicks on links is correct, the frequency of awards of the higher threshold badges might increase significantly once that background click count accumulates to the next threshold level on the older posts.
I'm willing to see if anything could be done about them if you make a new topic about that.
It's not clear to me what you mean by this. Would you mind providing more information so I can understand?
A badge is awarded any time any of the links you posted crosses the threshold number of clicks. So if you post a lot and use links in the posts then you will be awarded many of each of these badges over time. You receive a notification from the forum every time you earn a badge. For example, I have received 669 notifications from the forum in the last two years (the badge system was introduced when the forum was migrated to the Discourse framework in April 2021).
When I get this earned-popular-link "award", I usually go and check that the link still works and, if necessary, attempt to find an equivalent. I don't really treat the "award" as a great honour.
Thanks for the clarification! I understand now. The forum software does support your proposed configuration.
If supported by the community, this proposal would be implemented by disabling the "Hot Link" and "Famous Link" badges, while leaving the "Popular Link" badge enabled.
The badge award notifications link directly to the relevant page. For example, your "Popular Link" badge award notifications will link to this page:
See the many options for the first three steps. The "menu" instead has an immediate "Badges" entry, but this one does not lead to the wanted information.
).
