FlyerTalk Badges Launch
 

Hi everyone!

We're very happy to launch our latest feature: Badges.

These are viewable in both desktop and mobile skin and signify your personal accomplishments in the world of travel. While some, like your time on FlyerTalk, are automatically assigned, others are on the "honor system" and you may assign the travel badge that best corresponds to your milestones at your leisure.

We have more in the works!

I'm sure someone will ask, "Can I turn it off?" The answer is no, but we have made every effort to make them as unobtrusive as possible within our supported usage guidelines.

Very interesting. Note that the Secret Santa Badge has gone missing.

Ugh, thanks for the head's up!

Understood that they can't be turned off, but is it necessary to have these blank placeholders where badges haven't been earned/chosen? That seems to add unnecessary clutter.

On another note, is it intended that the date earned for badges only starts in October 2024? For instance, someone who joined the site in 2015 theoretically earned their 5-year badge in 2020, not 2024.

How exactly do you add badges? Where is this located?

We tried fixing the placeholders, but just couldn't come up with a solution. It's still being worked on.

I'm not really sure what you mean regarding the badge. The next level up from 5 years is 10 years, so someone who joined in 2015 hasn't been on the site long enough to get the next badge. That badge category is determined by "Profile age ≥ N-days"

Link is in my first post

click on the link in the first post

I think this would be a very useful change in both reducing clutter and helping make sure the many empty placeholders don't lead many people to just scroll past the badges altogether.

This is what I'm referring to. I've been on the site since 2015, so in theory I earned my 5-year badge in 2020, but it says it was "obtained" in 2024.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4ee35236e5.jpg

I'm not fussed, but I imagine some people might be sensitive to this

For the ones we choose ourselves, I suspect some people might also want to display when they actually crossed that threshold, e.g. someone who flew their millionth mile in 2017 might want people to know that happened in 2017, even though they only added that badge to their profile in October 2024 (I'm assuming for the self-selected badges, it's choosing the date based on when you add it).

Interesting idea. I'd suggest that you may need to add higher options for the countries visited badge, I am far from the most widely travelled Flyertalker and have hit the badge limit at 50.

Should add a badge for X number of post likes. Such information and wit from yours truly shouldn't go un-noticed.

We definitely have some stuff in our back pocket (100 countries, 25 years on site, new categories). Any Likes-based badges will require migration to a different Likes system (like we tried in 2021). Another one that we don't have logic for is contribution to different sub-forums (British Airways, Hyatt, et cetera)

Oh yeah, that's just going to be the floor for all badges. We don't have retroactive attribution options

interesting from a gee-whiz standpoint, but I’m not a fan of the implementation — suggest reducing the left column width to accommodate only two (rather than four or five) badges

this will reclaim some screen space for displaying info that’s actually useful (i.e., thread/post content)