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As someone asked above, do you expect someone transiting at an airport to count as having visited that country?
What about air crew who have flown into / out of a airport? |
Mmmm flair. See you all at Chotchkies.
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Originally Posted by meijiem
(Post 36571545)
Why have I been assigned a "10 COUNTRIES" icon?
I'm still confused about why I got it. I don't know how many countries I have been to, but I know the number isn't ten! |
Interesting! I was wondering what was going on!
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Originally Posted by DeathSlam
(Post 36569552)
Ibjoel has already said that 100 countries badge *is* coming (which is the point I came to this thread to make but has now been asked many times and replied to three times)
I think it is necessary as I can honestly claim 50 countries, but I am just a fairly lightweight holiday traveller. Many of the great and good here are well north of 100 and it doesn't seem right that I have the same badge. It does seem to get exponentially harder to tick places off the list once you start getting above 125, so I can see a point to having those higher badges, but you have to remember what they are for. They are not there for a competition to show off for the top people, they are there to make people feel good about what *they* have achieved so they engage with the site more and generate additional advertising revenue. So there needs to be a large cohort with the top badges. I presume this is also why the other badges are as they are. They are there because it's what the advertisers think is useful for their demographic and for them. A lot of people never leave their own country which will skew the global travel statistics and some geographies make totting up the early badges almost trivial. So 10 countries might seem like a lot to someone in Kansas, but someone from The Netherlands would probably wonder why you didn't get out more. But as pointed out, here on FT there are probably enough with 100+ to make it a useful badge. On the flip side, x million milers seems to be mostly a US thing. Because non-US airlines tend not to give rewards based on total mileage I don't think people elsewhere count it as often. I'm one of those 100-125 Countries folks and I couldn't hold a candle of knowledge compared to ironmanit, hauteboy, danielw, and rankourabu just to name a few. Maybe 125+ should be the highest level, one would needs to really starting going off the Map to hit that level.
Originally Posted by DaveS
(Post 36569563)
What about some other badges? For example Lounges visited/IDB's/Op Upgrades/Lounges barred from - must be lots of other ideas for this. Also I need the 100 countries badge.
Originally Posted by Palal
(Post 36571089)
Would be good to add the number of countries ... 195 UN total, so maybe, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 195+
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t's not very unobtrusive when accidentally rolling your pointer over a badge temporarily blanks the screen so it can pup up a tiny useless message. That message should just be a normal unobtrusive roll-over message if you really need it at all. What's up with that?
This is on my mac, desktop safari -David |
Originally Posted by DenverBrian
(Post 36571474)
I'd hate to see your resume. :D :D :D
One issue on the desktop: Info on the left now has headings in regular type and the actual info in bold. Should probably be the other way around. Bolded type takes up a lot of space. |
Originally Posted by Xyzzy
(Post 36568518)
Interesting feature. I've been to over 100 countries ... there are almost 4x your max of 50 of UN countries (and it's not clear whose country list applies here). Y:eek:u need an option for more than 50.
I’ve been to 173 countries 6 million airline lifetime miles please adjust this; I almost want to remove my badges because it’s not reflective of my real totals. |
Originally Posted by beltway
(Post 36571380)
From a design POV, the badges are visually overwhelming on the PC site. The badges grab your eye and make the actual content less important. It's like we are now focusing on ourselves and not the (usually) valuable information and communication that we come to share among ourselves. While it can be seen as ageist to gamify the site with badges, it is also a bit ageist in the reverse direction to think that those who have traveled more, and are often older, are the ones who should be listened to more. This is nonsense. Badges are commonly used in competitive online games, we are here to share, inform and communicate, not compete. IBJoel I appreciate your efforts and am not hating on the idea of badges. Just don't make it a competition. I say this as someone who has flown over 10 million actual, butt-in seat, miles. Does not make me better or more necessarily more knowledgeable, I come here for information just as others do. Thank you for listening and your work, IBJoel. :) |
Originally Posted by uanj
(Post 36571917)
Thank you for listening and your work, IBJoel. :) |
Originally Posted by SPN Lifer
(Post 36569904)
Some FlyerTalkers are displaying 10, 20, 30 & 40 countries visited.
Once the 100 countries badge is available, perhaps that series of badges should be reprogrammed so that only the highest selected is displayed? Edit to add: How about a variable country numbers badge? So if someone has been to 87, they can just choose 87 from a drop down box. And the background colours to the badge can be coded in bands e.g. 1-25 one colour, 26-50 the next and so on. |
Originally Posted by tr3k
(Post 36568996)
Hmm, wonder why countries end at 50. Where is the challenge? :)
All I can say is that these seem to add to the clutter in the desktop site version (but I am sure we'll all quickly adjust and learn to ignore them, much like the rest of the "flair"). |
May I suggest that the badges can be viewed not on every post but by clicking on or hovering over a username. This keeps the badges and also keeps the threads/posts clutter (badge) free. :)
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Originally Posted by rockflyertalk
(Post 36572261)
May I suggest that the badges can be viewed not on every post but by clicking on or hovering over a username. This keeps the badges and also keeps the threads/posts clutter (badge) free. :)
I don't mind the gamification, I do mind the visual clutter. Please can it be toned down if we're not going to be allowed to turn it off. |
Originally Posted by rockflyertalk
(Post 36572261)
May I suggest that the badges can be viewed not on every post but by clicking on or hovering over a username. This keeps the badges and also keeps the threads/posts clutter (badge) free. :)
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Originally Posted by AviosTreasureHunter
(Post 36571314)
How does FT know how many countries I have been to?
I have been to 117 but it shows as 40. How has it worked this out? |
Originally Posted by DenverBrian
(Post 36571474)
One issue on the desktop: Info on the left now has headings in regular type and the actual info in bold. Should probably be the other way around. Bolded type takes up a lot of space.
If the bold takes up too much space, then make everything non-bold.
Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36571832)
Good point and I have already put in a tech ticket to fix
What's broken is the ability to double-click the globe icon for this forum at MyFlyerTalk to mark all posts as read, like I can do for every other subscribed forum. Any chance of getting that fixed? |
Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36570276)
My final reply is that this is simply an incredibly outdated point of view :)
Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36571148)
OK, so achievement badges have been popular in online gaming for 15+ years (and for 40 years if you want to count high score boards in arcade games). The average gamer is in their 30s and the average female gamer may even be in their mid-40s.
Likewise, "Flair" has been a staple of the world's largest forum community since as long as I can remember. So your demeaning of badges as being for "cub scouts" is ageist in and of itself and simply out of touch. These badges in no way interfere with your ability to source information on the site and you're free to carry on doing that. Lean into your competitive advantage of this being a 20 year old kinda internet side full of old farts. If you try to make FT into a Reddit.... why would people not just go to Reddit? |
Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36571148)
OK, so achievement badges have been popular in online gaming for 15+ years (and for 40 years if you want to count high score boards in arcade games). The average gamer is in their 30s and the average female gamer may even be in their mid-40s.
Likewise, "Flair" has been a staple of the world's largest forum community since as long as I can remember. So your demeaning of badges as being for "cub scouts" is ageist in and of itself and simply out of touch. These badges in no way interfere with your ability to source information on the site and you're free to carry on doing that. But this is not a democracy anyway and forums are a dying breed. This all started with the removal of trending plus the fact that the old fogeys here liked the clean, badgeless, flairless layout that we had forever. The only other forum I frequent is the Ars Technica ones where they have resisted all the 'enhacements' that seem necessary nowadays. Anyways, I know my engagement with this side is decreasing as the 'features' keep increasing, I guess my profile is not in their desired parameters for their model. |
Thought I'd just balance up some of the -ve comments here. I quite like them :)
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Originally Posted by uanj
(Post 36571917)
I am still confused what we are supposed to be communicating about hotel nights. And somewhat unclear on the overall purpose.
From a design POV, the badges are visually overwhelming on the PC site. The badges grab your eye and make the actual content less important. It's like we are now focusing on ourselves and not the (usually) valuable information and communication that we come to share among ourselves. While it can be seen as ageist to gamify the site with badges, it is also a bit ageist in the reverse direction to think that those who have traveled more, and are often older, are the ones who should be listened to more. This is nonsense. Badges are commonly used in competitive online games, we are here to share, inform and communicate, not compete. IBJoel I appreciate your efforts and am not hating on the idea of badges. Just don't make it a competition. I say this as someone who has flown over 10 million actual, butt-in seat, miles. Does not make me better or more necessarily more knowledgeable, I come here for information just as others do. Thank you for listening and your work, IBJoel. :) Could we have some badges that are not stats-based? Maybe based on potentially one-off accomplishments/events, like a round-the-world trip or a hangar tour, or on preferences, for example favorite continent, airplane type, always fly east. |
Originally Posted by uanj
(Post 36571917)
It's like we are now focusing on ourselves and not the (usually) valuable information and communication that we come to share among ourselves.
This is nonsense. Badges are commonly used in competitive online games, we are here to share, inform and communicate, not compete. |
Originally Posted by Fabo.sk
(Post 36572745)
Dude you're running a bulletin board style discussion forum. The very concept of FT is "outdated".
Lean into your competitive advantage of this being a 20 year old kinda internet side full of old farts. If you try to make FT into a Reddit.... why would people not just go to Reddit? There is a lot of "Why isn't FlyerTalk as vibrant and busy as it once was?" There are obviously a lot of outside factors to that, like the state of the industry. But there are internal factors that we can affect to draw them in. We are a business and we don't have a guaranteed "replacement generation" like other industries that skew older. If we don't make the effort, FlyerTalk can and will close at some point. I've seen 9 communities close since I joined the Travel team. They were all more niche interests than travelling, but make no mistake that 1. FlyerTalk is not immune to that and 2. Us doing things like this is proof of my commitment to keeping FT viable, healthy, and engaging. |
Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36573005)
If we didn't change anything, why wouldn't they still just go to Reddit? If you make no attempt to cater to an audience, they're not just going to come to you.
There is a lot of "Why isn't FlyerTalk as vibrant and busy as it once was?" There are obviously a lot of outside factors to that, like the state of the industry. But there are internal factors that we can affect to draw them in. We are a business and we don't have a guaranteed "replacement generation" like other industries that skew older. If we don't make the effort, FlyerTalk can and will close at some point. I've seen 9 communities close since I joined the Travel team. They were all more niche interests than travelling, but make no mistake that 1. FlyerTalk is not immune to that and 2. Us doing things like this is proof of my commitment to keeping FT viable, healthy, and engaging. Besides, if you want to encourage engagement with FT, then the "achievements" should be relevant to engagement with FT, not a one-time fire and forget honor system badge set for external accomplishments. |
Originally Posted by meijiem
(Post 36572944)
I had an idea inspired by these reflections—
Could we have some badges that are not stats-based? Maybe based on potentially one-off accomplishments/events, like a round-the-world trip or a hangar tour, or on preferences, for example favorite continent, airplane type, always fly east. And for the record, I do not see these as competitive whatsoever. Are postcounts competitive? Only if you're weird and you make them competitive. I've only been to 11 countries and I'm proud of that. I don't care how many more countries someone else has been to, because I didn't have that experience. Likewise, if someone counted a layover as having been to a country, I think that's stupid. But I'm not going to make a fuss because I'm displaying my badges my way and they're doing it theirs. |
Originally Posted by Fabo.sk
(Post 36573026)
The point is, that trying to attract new audience while alienating the existing one is a fools errand.
Besides, if you want to encourage engagement with FT, then the "achievements" should be relevant to engagement with FT, not a one-time fire and forget honor system badge set for external accomplishments. As for your second point, I agree and we're working with the team that developed the badge product to create more badges that can be tied to site accomplishments universally. The original product had a lot of badges for donations, military service, etc. A big hurdle is that FT doesn't use the supported Likes system (the one we tried in 2021, if you remember that). |
Id recommend https://www.logmytrip.net/ for those with badging needs. That's how it's done.
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Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36573051)
You're not alienated! The site functions the EXACT SAME WAY it did on Monday. All the content is still there. The UI is the same.
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Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36573035)
Are postcounts competitive? Only if you're weird and you make them competitive.
Remember the original twitter. Gloriusly simple. Now look at it. |
Originally Posted by FlyingHighlander
(Post 36573059)
Id recommend https://www.logmytrip.net/ for those with badging needs. That's how it's done.
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Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36573133)
Could you post a screenshot of how the badges on that look? I'm interested
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trav...-logger-6.html Thier badges are achievements/awards. Auto generated based on data you log. I have not updated it in a while as i ceased frequent travel https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0c9f1b85bc.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a4d9480afc.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c7751240e3.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0038eb4b7e.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e5a4231aa4.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b46da38972.jpg |
Originally Posted by FlyingHighlander
(Post 36573174)
Thier badges are achievements/awards. Auto generated based on data you log
And there are logs generated by your activity on different vendors as well (e.g. BA records and shows all your countries and miles). That's not really the same thing as badges on a general social media platform IMO. As others have mentioned the ability to link to your detailed travel profile already exists on FT (if you wish to expose it to others) via your home page etc. I think the FT badges are deliberately meant to be a lot more lightweight. |
I didn't realize this would trigger so many of the old farts. :D :D :D
The discussion does kind of remind me of the good old days when we had a TalkBoard and at least a sense of input and control over new features and such. |
Originally Posted by Antarius
(Post 36569041)
The whole concept of mileage running is foreign to most regular folk.
Originally Posted by DenverBrian
(Post 36573447)
I didn't realize this would trigger so many of the old farts. :D :D :D
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Originally Posted by IBJoel
(Post 36573133)
...
* "Yearly Hotel Reward Nights" is really meaningless. For example those generally using "Accor Live Limited" are at a disadvantage as such are not a thing with that program. (A) "Yearly Hotel Bed Nights" would be a much more indicative metric for a frequent traveler. AND What is a "Lifetime Airline Mile"? (B) Is that lifetime miles flown in a aircraft? Or, is it an Airline Mile (or point) earned from a reward program? Until clarified, I will be populating my relevant badges as: (A) "Yearly Hotel Bed Nights" & (B) "lifetime miles flown in a aircraft" |
I agree that the hotel badge makes no sense as currently labeled. It would be better if it was consistent with some of the other badges, which measure lifetime achievement. So I recommend it be changed to be total number of nights spent in a hotel in your lifetime.
As for airline miles, the only metric that makes any sense is lifetime miles flown. Of course I can only estimate how many miles I've actually flown because I have not been tracking all of my flights back to the dawn of time, and since AA used to track all miles for million miler purpose they don't have a reliable measure of my actual miles flown before they changed how it works. The only other possible meaning of this could be the MM achievement, although people already put that into their Programs tag. |
Airline miles is earned or butt in seat? I think I prefer BIS but both could be an option.
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I am disappointed that there is no badge for Bronze Swimming Certificate, Gold Swimming Certificate,
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I quite like the badges but would like to see number of countries visited allow actual number and for a badge showing number of airports flown in or out of.
But that’s because I have tracked most of mine…. |
I think the badges are unattractive clutter that adds almost nothing to the user experience. I think it safe to assume that many contributors here have flown a lot, stayed in lots of hotels and visited lots of countries, and I (personally) really don't need to know the details.
I accept that the badges are here to stay, but it would be nice if the empty placeholders could be the same colour as the background - i.e., invisible - rather than grey. I'm never going to select badges to appear in my profile, so I am stuck forever more with a row of empty, grey hexagons beneath my name. And that appears as clutter on everyone's screen. |
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