28

Given that Stack Overflow is close to its fifth birthday as a public site, has any thought been given to a 'semidecadian' badge for people who have:

  • been registered with the site five years (a semi-decade, hence the name),
  • scored more than N points per year on average (where N might be 1000).

The idea behind 'average of N points per year' is to allow slow starters to gain the badge eventually, rather than ruling them out in year 1. The details are obviously subject to tweaking.

This might be a gold badge (the platinum version would be the decadian badge, with a larger value of N required — and no-one eligible for another 5 years or so).

These would complement the current Yearling badge (which is silver).

Improve this question
9
  • 6
    Frankly if yearling is silver this has to be gold
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 19:52
  • 3
    I think that gold badge for five yearlings in a row would be enough and more simple, pretty similar to Fanatic which is given for being consistent member.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 19:54
  • Should be a platinum/diamond badge for a "yearling" of consecutive days first...
    – Jon Clements
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 19:56
  • @ShaWizDowArd the problem is yearling will award based on rep averaged over x years and not rep per year. I could create an account, leave for 4.5 years, and in that last 6 months, earn 1000 rep and get 5 yearling badges in a row. I don't necessarily think that accomplishment is worth a gold badge.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 19:56
  • 1
    @psubsee2003: Yeah, but you'd have to have a good memory, and a better-than-Twitter attention span. Maybe that's deserving of a gold badge.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 19:59
  • @RobertHarvey I didn't necessarily mean doing that intentionally.... I just meant doing it more or less by accident. I just think if it were the gold version of the Yearling badge, you should some show consistent dedication to the site. I think the "N" should be higher than 200/year for 5 straight years.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 20:02
  • @RichardTingle: Agreed — proposal adjusted. To a large extent, I regard the details as 'up to the Stack Exchange team'; the basic idea is recognizing 5 years contributions — at somewhat more than the 'yearling' badge level of effort on average, at least (and I won't be upset if it is 1000 points each year rather than on average).
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 20:05
  • @JonClements "Should be a platinum/diamond badge for a "yearling" of consecutive days first": I agree. (meta.stackexchange.com/q/122976/6309). 1573 consecutive days (with at least one answer posted). And counting.
    – VonC
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 13:33
  • I've been up over 700 days consecutive (not absolutely sure that there was an answer each day — but probably) a couple of times, but each time I then went visiting overseas and ended up not being able to connect for a period of over 24 hours, breaking my sequence (APs who can't remember their wifi password — grrrrr!!!).
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 14:39

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
24

This is my proposal on how the loyalty and commitment gold badge could be:

Lustrum badge will be given to people that have 5 consecutive Yearling badges and have an overall score over 3k (or 5k or 10k the best amount could be decided here). In any case the score should be higher than the 1k that is necessary for the 5 consecutive Yearling badges.

The badge could look like this:

enter image description here

I went for the word lustrum since I think it sounds good(at least better than semidecadian or quinquennium) and represent 5 years in one word.

enter image description here

Also this could be awarded multiple times much like Yearling, thus in 2018 on stackoverflow there could be people that qualify for two Lustrum badges.

Improve this answer
2
  • "over 5 consecutive Yearling badges" so you can't earn the Lustrum badge until you've already earned 6 Yearling badges, AKA you really only earn it on your 7th anniversary?
    – TylerH
    Commented Feb 9, 2016 at 20:52
  • @TylerH Fixed it thanks
    – Eduard Florinescu
    Commented Feb 9, 2016 at 21:53
10
+50

The name for such a badge doesn't have to convey "5 years"; the duration is just a criterion, as is the points threshold.

I think a better name is "Veteran", which would look like:

enter image description here

"Veteran" better conveys the meaning and significance of the achievement, without necessarily conveying the quanta used to determine it.

Regarding the points requirement, consider at least 1K (maybe 2K) in a year to make that year count towards the badge, rather than an average per year which could lead to people briefly using a old, even dormant, account to crank out 1K in a couple of weeks to game the badge.

Improve this answer
9

My biggest beef with this proposal (apart from the time I'd have to wait :-) is the name!

Decadian? I'm not sure. This question was the only page on Google that mentioned it.

Taking centenarians, nonagenarians etc I'd have thought we'd be looking more at the Latin root, so decemenarians?

However, after internetzing some people (1, 2) agree with each other (probably because they cribbed it) that someone between 10 and 19 is a denarian. Though dictionary.com and my copy of the OED don't have it, Wiktionary (not the most reliable source) also agrees. It doesn't seem to be much used, though the form for 20-29 proposed by these sites (vicenarian) seems to be widely used, which makes them seem more trustworthy.

Apparently the progression as follows1

denarian
vicenarian
tricenarian
quadragenarian
quinquagenarian
sexagenarian
septuagenarian
octogenarian
nonagenarian
centenarian

So, Semi-denarian? Extensible! See yourself as a quinquagenarian SE member!

1. Everything has the same but this was officially copied from the linked Wiktionary page to avoid copyright issues :-).

Improve this answer
8
  • 3
    Decadent, of course.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 21:12
  • @Gilles wrong math. Divide by two - semidecadent
    – gnat
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 21:13
  • Will you be demi-decadent or semi-decadent @Giles :-)?
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 21:13
  • @gnat But using words that say what they mean is so… what's the opposite of decadent? Let's just say passé.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 21:17
  • I'm somewhat attached to the idea (not least because I'm at 4 y 11 m at the moment) — but the name is infinitely fungible. If it's to be a fun name, I'd go with 'semi-decadent' at the moment — but I have no qualms about a 'semidenarian' since it seems to have better Latin linguistic roots. I didn't bother to look and see whether I was creating a new word — it sounded apposite and didn't need a lot of explaining.
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 21:22
  • @Gilles what's the opposite of decadent would make a fun question at EL&U.SE (can't guarantee it would be compliant with their rules though)
    – gnat
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 21:24
  • I suppose the proper term for 'every five years' is quinquennial, and then there's quinquennium for a specific period of five years. The quinquennialist badge, perhaps?
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Sep 12, 2013 at 1:57
  • 1
    What happened with this proposal ?
    – Eduard Florinescu
    Commented Nov 10, 2013 at 19:04

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .