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For some reason or another chatting is encouraged by two badges:

But no gold one to complete the series, why is that?

Chat rooms are a great place to talk about subjects that are Not Constructive for the main site (debates are chat's middle name after all) and even Too Localized or Off Topic.

I have read Special badges for chat? but there isn't much info on this and has only one ♦ answer.

From my side I saw the chat at least points the lost soul in a good direction, maybe the ones helping in chat should get some reward (first 2 levels are incentivised but the commitment level is not).

Must note: messages get starred in chat for ~3 main reasons:

  • helpful for the asker (but not anybody else, and usually get canceled)
  • insightful
  • funny (hope the bold there makes it clear enough)

The last 2 get most of the stars, so maybe (in case this gets done) the number of stars on a message shouldn't count they don't count for the first two badges now.

Proposition: Posted 100 messages in chat that were starred by 50 different users

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  • 2
    do it do it do it – NullPoiиteя Apr 23 '13 at 5:48
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    They were talked out of it. – Lance Roberts Apr 23 '13 at 5:49
  • @LanceRobertsyes something every chatter wants..... – NullPoiиteя Apr 23 '13 at 6:07
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    I hang out in chat a lot and I'm not sure this is such a good idea. The last thing we want are hordes of people pouring in along with all the help vampires. – Mysticial Apr 23 '13 at 6:11
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    i am really want see badge for that – NullPoiиteя Apr 23 '13 at 6:13
  • @Mysticial if they're not coming in for the silver or ever the bronze, why would they come in to get the hardest of em all? this should award the helper not the asker, I learned lots of stuff from people who share their insightful knowledge, they should get a +gold – CSᵠ Apr 23 '13 at 6:17
  • @kaᵠ Because gold badges are different. Because they are rare, people will try harder to get them. The whole mess that the Steward badges caused is evidence of this. Nobody cared about the silver reviewer badges before hand. Once the system got revamped and they added the gold Steward badges, things got really bad very quickly. – Mysticial Apr 23 '13 at 6:19
  • @Mysticial I did not know that, guess you have a point there. Not sure if the 'bad' would outweigh the 'good' this will do. – CSᵠ Apr 23 '13 at 6:26
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    @kaᵠ I doubt it. Even a single help vampire is enough to wreck an entire room until we manage to ban the user. If they started offering gold badges, I can imagine hundreds of people swarming in puking all over the place in an attempt to fish for stars. I bet the first thing that will happen is that every single established room will go into permanent gallery mode. – Mysticial Apr 23 '13 at 6:29
7

Proposal

The "Toast Master" golden badge.

Posted 150 chat messages with a score of at least 5, starred by 25 different users, over at least 150 days.

On chat room myths

Lucifer: Adding this badge will encourage more users to ask question in chat rather then on site, which is totally not acceptable.

Mystical: The last thing we want are hordes of people pouring in along with all the help vampires.

This already happens for questions that would otherwise result in being closed as TL on the site and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. More importantly, I don't believe users would surge into the chat room to chase a gold medal by posting questions. Why? Because questions don't get starred!

Mystical: Once the system got revamped and they added the gold Steward badges, things got really bad very quickly.

The review process is far less intimate than posting in a chat room. Instead of trying to game the system, you now have to game people and I can assure you the latter is more difficult to achieve unless ... you're a real toast master :)

Difficulty level

It would take at least 150 days to achieve, similar to Legendary, though the latter arguably requires more effort.

Additionally, the regular chat users should be able to spot when someone is trying to achieve this medal by starring seemingly random posts and report them to the room owners.

What if I get my friends to star my posts?

Assuming they're willing to do this for 150 days, you still need to get 25 friends to be awarded; if you have that many friends in the chat room, you're a lucky man :)

Why no replies?

A toast master earns his title by starting from nothing.

Why not images or links?

Does a toast master make you watch a funny cat video?

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  • If this would be implemented, I will be the first to earn this. :) – hims056 Apr 23 '13 at 7:18
  • It's actually not a bad idea, unless everybody starts out to get it – CSᵠ Apr 23 '13 at 7:21
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    The problem is that there's not enough effort spent in getting it. – Jack Apr 23 '13 at 7:23
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    @hims056 Agreed. I've updated my view on this topic :) – Jack Apr 25 '13 at 2:37
5

Add a Gold Badge for Chat

From my point of view we really do not need this badge.

Reasons,

  • Stack Overflow is mainly Q/A site so it doesn't require to chat that much unless users are postting too much comments on the given answer.
  • Adding this badge will encourage more users to ask question in chat rather then on site, which is totally not acceptable.
  • This will surely increase unnecessary data load on chat server.
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  • Adding this will encourage users to visit chat room more than regular site. – Lucifer Apr 23 '13 at 5:57
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    Any time a gold badge is added, some folks work very hard to earn it. I don't think it would make the servers sweat more, but it would probably lead to a lot of folks visiting established rooms to do only what is required to get the badge - I'm not sure if that would be a very nice thing to do to our chat regulars, nor am I sure the badge seekers would have a good experience in the process ;) – Tim Post♦ Apr 23 '13 at 6:17
  • @TimPost I bet that happens too, but I have a hard time seeing how one would get stared if it would annoy the community, and the other way would only be helpful. Still, this would apply at once to all that are long-time chat users. my2c – CSᵠ Apr 23 '13 at 6:22
  • @TimPost, one of the biggest drawback I can assume is that, ratio of asking question on site will come down very much as new users with atleast 20 reputation can directly ask question in chat. – Lucifer Apr 23 '13 at 6:26
  • @Lucifer That's not really a new problem in some rooms. People are regularly directed to ask on the main site from the PHP room, for instance. I agree that those sort of disruptions would probably increase, though. – Tim Post♦ Apr 23 '13 at 7:12
  • Oh the cost of progress on a site that uses gamification. – nickhar Apr 25 '13 at 2:44

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