I know IBJoel has put a lot of thought into this, and I hope people will realise that it's simply impossible for us to put something together that reflects everyone's circumstances. The Continent of Europe has a very different travel profile from that of North America, for example, so accomplishments may vary.

So whilst a US-based road warrior might stay in hotels for 100 nights a year, they may well only visit a couple of countries on business plus perhaps another one for vacation. A Europe-based businessman, on the other hand, might well have a lower number of nights but a much larger number of countries. European and Asian airlines also don't measure Air Miles travelled in the same way as US ones do, so the reality is that unless you keep meticulous records of every flight you've ever taken then you're not going to know how much distance you've covered - so essentially, at least in my case, I'm making a best-guess estimate.

Ultimately it doesn't really matter if you claim 40 countries or 50. 10 hotel nights or 90. 500k miles or 2m. All the badges are doing is giving a steer towards members whose answers to a newbie might be considered more useful for the topic in hand. Would you take advice from the US road warrior who's only visited 10 countries if it's a question about Germany, or would you put more weight on the European guy? If you've got a question about Hilton, would you rather rely on the European guy who might at best have a low-level status in HiltonHonors, or the US guy who's a Diamond and knows the ins-and-outs of the program?

Ultimately, too, the mysteries that are Google Analytics seem to reward sites where there is known expertise with higher search rankings. We all know that FT has a lot of expertise in a lot of areas. Many of us have helped our fellow travellers over the years. Up to now, without breaching a lot of personal privacy by creating individual profiles of those we might consider "expert", we haven't had a way to show that. This is a logical step, and one which I think a lot of particularly newbies to us will find useful.

Will these badges evolve? Yes, of course, and the feedback here is important as we tweak things. But please don't try and shoot down what's been done, because overall this is a positive move to build the site's reputation for excellence.