Curial Inclusiveness

[Squid]

Since I got reminded of this a little while back I've been meaning to bring forward this discussion again and Halie's quote in the milestone thread is my main justification for it.

TWC was once a niche site. Now it's made up of niche communities, I don't think that happened because people kept saying no to new things.

Any way. I agree, a small commemorative award is sufficient.

Once upon a time, this site was more or less divided into two area, the modding and the debate areas, and we can see that initial divide in how the curia is structured, you have artifex and civitatae for modding and debating respectively as branches of citizenship and Opifex and Phalera as large awards for modding and debating respectively. Now the scope of what and where people can contribute has expanded greatly but the curia remains firmly entrenched with the single split in community. To me at least this isn't inclusive as it splits citizenship into modders, debators and everyone else, which makes it seem that some things are more important than others, which I don't agree with. It basically says if you aren't a modder or debator you aren't as important.

I'd like the curia to change to be more inclusive to citizens that have earned citizenship through something other than modding or debating. To this end I'd like the curia to discuss moving from badges which display where your contributions are to displaying contributions areas in the same manner as membership in the various staff branches is done, but with the exception being that if you contributed to multiple areas for your citizenship all of them can be displayed, currently if you're a member of multiple groups only citizen is displayed if you aren't showing the badge or nothing if you are. We can add contribution areas as new niche communities, as Halie put it, form on the site that people contribute to and get used toward citizenship contributions. To be clear I'm not advocating totally removing the badge, but rather going to a single badge and allowing people to choose their areas of contributions in another manner, probably a custom profile field but that's a technical issue to be dealt with later.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

So it is moving to one badge system where areas of TWC that you contribute to are outlined underneath the badge?

[Squid]

That's the idea yes.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

That's the idea yes.

So.... for someone whose main contribution areas were say Writer's Study Local Moderation and content writing. Could they list one or maybe both of those areas?


I imagine you'all would have a preformatted list of areas to pick from then?

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

That's the idea yes.

I can get behind this, support.

[Bethencourt]

And who does decide that? And by "that" the áreas that display under the badge. And how? And are those áreas the ones that you contributed to before aplying to citizenship or actual ones?

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

If the list of choices is open to suggestion then.....

1. Content writing

2. Local Moderatation.

[Bethencourt]

Moderatation sounds stricter than moderation, like going with a punch too.

[Halie Satanus]

As that quote came from a discussion on a new award. I'd rather look for ways of awarding members for their contributions in those niche communities rather than lose the awards we have. I'd rather see more small awards given to those who contribute in those niche areas, things more in line with 'picture of the week.'

I could be wrong, but modders have become quite attached to the Artifex badge and title. I can't see removing it going down to well and think it's more likely to cause curial mistrust in the modding community. The same kind of mistrust we had here before Artifex was created and very few modders ever came to the curia.

[Squid]

As that quote came from a discussion on a new award. I'd rather look for ways of awarding members for their contributions in those niche communities rather than lose the awards we have. I'd rather see more small awards given to those who contribute in those niche areas, things more in line with 'picture of the week.'

No award is being lost, how the award is displayed is what I'm proposing to change in order to be more inclusive to all those niche areas that citizens contribute to that are no recognized currently.

I could be wrong, but modders have become quite attached to the Artifex badge and title. I can't see removing it going down to well and think it's more likely to cause curial mistrust in the modding community. The same kind of mistrust we had here before Artifex was created and very few modders ever came to the curia.

I agree that will be an issue, and I'd be the first to admit I like my Artifex badge, but IMO why should I selfishly not want to give up something so just others are forced to do without an equivalent thing. If I could do badges without usergroups I would go that route but vbulletin ties the badges to usergroup membership, which we do not want to proliferate more than necessary.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

I assume you could have one of these "under-badge headings" as Artifex? That might go some way to solver the problem.

Out of interest, would the Citizen badge need to be displayed in order to have these things showing? Or would they still show even if another badge was being displayed?

[Halie Satanus]

No award is being lost, how the award is displayed is what I'm proposing to change in order to be more inclusive to all those niche areas that citizens contribute to that are no recognized currently.

Aesthetically there would be no more Artifex badge, no?

I did cover something similar here. It's a subtle change to the existing constitution statement. But it defines the three existing awards.

Citizens: Citizenship is an award granted by the curia for contributions to the site. There are three citizenship awards.
Artifex: for those who have contributed through modding.
Civitate: for those who have contributed through debating and writing.
Citizen: for those who have contributed as both Artifex and Civitate or considered to have contributed in other forms.

[Bethencourt]

I see, "those who have". I thought it was "those who are" in this new proposal. But this is surely unimportant.

[Squid]

If the list of choices is open to suggestion then.....

It is totally open to suggestions, changes, updated, heck even removals as necessary. That's the whole point that if you contributed enough to this site to earn citizenship you should be able to show what it was you contributed.

I assume you could have one of these "under-badge headings" as Artifex? That might go some way to solver the problem.

Yes, but it could be renamed to modder, or it could even be split up to more clearly show which aspect(s) of modding you engaged in, such textures, mapping, coding, tools, etc.

Out of interest, would the Citizen badge need to be displayed in order to have these things showing? Or would they still show even if another badge was being displayed?

I'm pretty sure I mentioned it in the op, but the areas of contribution would show (all of them) even if you aren't displaying the badge.

I see, "those who have". I thought it was "those who are" in this new proposal. But this is surely unimportant.

I'm not seeing it, but this hasn't reached formal proposal stage yet, merely discussion of it before actually writing something formal up.

Aesthetically there would be no more Artifex badge, no?

Correct.

I did cover something similar here. It's a subtle change to the existing constitution statement. But it defines the three existing awards.

But that still sets up everyone who isn't a modder or debater as something less, as the also rans. You contributed but not to something we consider worthy of something extra.

[Aikanár]

I remember being a pain in the ass when you proposed that in '12 for bandwidth reasons. A lot has changed since then. I'd have no problem with having only one badge saying "Citizen" and the contribution areas beneath it like "Debater", "Modder", "Writer" or the such.

[Squid]

I remember being a pain in the ass when you proposed that in '12 for bandwidth reasons. A lot has changed since then. I'd have no problem with having only one badge saying "Citizen" and the contribution areas beneath it like "Debater", "Modder", "Writer" or the such.

This time it isn't about bandwidth, as I noted if I could tie badges to something other than usergroups I'd be all for adding badges for different contributions areas, but I can't or at least I haven't found a way to do so.

[GrnEyedDvl]

This time it isn't about bandwidth, as I noted if I could tie badges to something other than usergroups I'd be all for adding badges for different contributions areas, but I can't or at least I haven't found a way to do so.

To me its always been about the actual usergroup, not the bandwidth. The way you worded this gave me an idea. What we need here is a postbit plugin maybe a bit like this one. I have never searched for something like this before, and all I found this time was that old one for vb3, but the idea is at least solid.


If we had a plugin where we could define several postbit areas, and then in the admincp had a spot where we could select which usegroups could display which postbit setup, we could gain a lot of flexibility without adding usergroups. Processing the postbit permissions is going to be a lot less CPU/RAM intensive than processing forum permissions for extra usergroups.

So we have one postbit section that allows Citizens to select one of several images.

Artifex, Civitate, whatever else we come up with.


And another postbit section for tech staff, so they could have

Server, Vault, whatever


And one for Content so they could have

Helios, Warcast, etc


And one for gaming
Chess, Shogun, Rome II, etc

And one for whatever group we wanted to come up with.


Maybe a bit similar to your Awards plugin. Each postbit display section would have 3 small icons across, users would choose which they wanted to display. Clicking one of them takes you to a subforum.

Its a thought anyways, but since Squid would have to write it I will leave it up to him.

[Bethencourt]

I probably missed quoting Halie quote, the one that says "those who have contributed..." to make my post understandable if ever. I think in actual system you can change badges from artifex to citizen or civitate and multi vice versa depending on your feelings, so if you are contributing more now in debates you can change from artifex to civitate if it pleases you.

I think that showing your actual contribution, rather than the one you did before becoming citizen, is more interesting, or maybe all of them, kind of curriculum vitae in few words.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

I'm pretty sure I mentioned it in the op, but the areas of contribution would show (all of them) even if you aren't displaying the badge.

My bad, I'm sure you did.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

As someone from one of the 'niche' areas, I'm fine eitherway. I'm not particularly bothered by not having a specific badge like Artifex, but then again, I don't begrudge Artifex's for having their own badge. Even though TWC has a lot of different communities, modding and debating (I'm guessing) are the largest, so it makes sense to have one badge for 'everyone else', since everyone else probably doesn't constitute the whole sum of either modding or debating - although debaters seem to be less and less these days. From my community, very few folks have attained citizenship in the past two years or so. Do I feel less important because of not having my own badge? It's not something I've ever really thought about. Thinking on it now, I'd probably say no. Still, more inclusiveness couldn't hurt and I imagine some of my peers might feel more strongly than I on the subject.

In an ideal world, specialized badges for everyone would be great, but it's not something I'm too fussed about - if it can't be done, it can't be done. I generally kick up a lot of fuss about awards, name colours and general profile aesthetics (cause I'm silly like that), but surprisingly citizenship badges never really irked me. Maybe because I don't wear my badge, since the red on the badge clashes with the blue in my avatar...

The custom profile field thing sounds intriguing though. So yeah, I guess I like the sentiment behind it; I'm just a bit indifferent when it comes to me personally. Interested to see where the discussion goes at least.