h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sure they'd give you a new badge if you become active again

Are there 'blob' numbers anywhere for the old Badges?
Some of us useless old farts wouldn't mind if we could
insert them ourselves into our editable homepage content.


~jwf~

I think you are missing the point: that being that management wants to be the one deciding what badge goes on pages, not the rank and file researcher like you and I. There are ways to invent counterfeit badges, like the one that says I survived the BBC, but they won't be official.

>> missing the point: management wants to be the one deciding <<

It was ever thus.
Yes, this is as it has always been. It is a quintessential
element of h2g2. Even before the Great Vogon Detour.
Decisions are made and the devil takes the hindmost.

Gotta love 'em.

Democracy is an illusion.

Like the Roadrunner that leaps before looking,
it is an amusing comic cartoon of delusion.

~jwf~

Active volunteers have active Ripley badges and active Pliny badges.
Former volunteers have former Pliny badges. There are no former Ripley badges.

But you took away the badges we had in Ripley.

Gosh, I can't believe all the gurning and whinging of 'mature' members of this site. It reminds me of all the children who whined in first grade if they got red sticky stars instead of gold ones. You guys should have the grace to be ashamed of yourselves.

I didn't mean to sound whingey. I was just trying to establish what had happened and why my photographer badge was no longer visible.

The Photographer volunteer group does not exist anymore. All former Photographers were invited to join the new Artists group. As the Photographers do not exist anymore nobody can be an active volunteer of that group which means everybody got a 'former Photographer' badge in Pliny but we do not have these in Ripley.

But in Ripley, the Photographer badge meant that you had in the past contributed five or more pictures to the Guide. I don't understand why that badge was taken away.

The new badges in Pliny are designed to acknowledge current volunteers, past volunteers and achievements and are still being updated. It is a monumental task being done manually (by current volunteers).

The old Ripley badges are being culled for those badges that are no longer active. For example, all active Photographer badges are being removed from Ripley as the scheme is no longer active since it has been absorbed into the Artist’s scheme. Photographers that have joined the Artists scheme will have an Artists badge on their Pliny page. If you are not an active photographer contributing to the Artists scheme, you will have a Former Photographer badge on your Pliny page.

At this time, Ripley is not able to display the current badges as they are displayed in Pliny. The plan is to eventually make all Pliny badges viewable in the Ripley skins, but we do not have a timetable for that at this time. Thank you for your patience during the rebuild of the site.

Witty Moniker
Community Editor

I'm not really too worried when I get my badges but I think that's a reasnable answer.

God bless ye Gnomon. It seems as always
that Legacy and Heritage are unknown concepts
in the modern whirled.

We still didn't get a straight answer about whether
the old Ripley badges have blob numbers we could
paste into our editable homepage content - (like
many of the other non-official badges from Sign-On
Survivor to Badger Patrol, etc).

Or do we not have blobs anymore? Will they all
disappear under the cold ashes of Pliny? My own
homepage has a lot of old blobs. It's already
very unstable in Pliny.


~jwf~

I have been part of the Photographers group for quite a few years and also been Photographer Editor for a year or two (together with Skankyrich).

My own experience is this:
If you wanted to submit photos for the guide you had to join the Photographers. But you did not get a badge right away, it was only handed out if you contributed enough to the group, which means 3 or 5 of your photos got to the guide. So the Photographer's badge was a normal volunteer badge, but it was not put on people's PS unless they really contributed.

As Tav says, the photographers badge was not a sign that you were a member of the Photographers group. It was an acknowedgement of work you had done. The work still stands, so it seems odd that the badge should be taken away.

Still, no doubt there's some technical reason why giving a "former photographer" badge in Pliny prevents you from having a "Photographer" badge, which means the same thing, in Ripley. If so, well and good.

No, that is not what I said.

The photographers badge was NOT an achievement badge like the Post reporters for example.
You had to be an active volunteer in the photographers group and were awarded the badge after a minimum of 5 photos were used. That didn't indicate end of involvment nor was it an achievement badge. If you left the photographers, same as any volunteer group, then the badge was removed.
The Post Reporters badge is the only achievement badge that stays with you once you've had 5 or more articles published as is the number of EG entries badge.
Photographers are now incorprated into the artist group so you would need to be an active volunteer in the Artist group to get a new badge.

jwf - The badges are NOT the usual blobs folk use in their ps's. They're only given out/applied by the appropriate editorial teams, (as under the BBC) they're completely different in terms of coding etc. It stands to reason they wouldn't be made into blobs as that would allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to put them on their ps thus giving the impression they're volunteer staff when they're not.

The tech guys are working their butts off, in their own free time, to get things working and doing the major re-build so lets cut them some slack and show some patience while this mammoth job is being done.

As a matter of interest- is anyone giving badges to all the people who are spending their time giving us badges?

I'm certainly starting to think they should get one...but then they'd have even more work to do

My "Former Photographer" badge should be removed then. I was only a member of the Photographers Group for a few days. All my photos were included in the Guide by me dealing directly with the editors.