[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Reimagining the OSM.org (Issue #3785)

[Frederik Ramm]

I would advise maximum caution with anything that goes in the direction of "gamification" - anything that comes close to leaderboards, badges and so on, for three reasons:

1. Gamification is a proven motivator but it is very difficult to reward behaviour that is actually helpful to OSM, rather than just tweaked to "earn rewards". For example, if you look at the current OSM user pages there will be some users with 10,000 and mre "edits" and others with just 500 - which might well be 500 valuable, well-surveyed changesets reach representing hours of good work, while the 10,000 changesets could be mini-changesets made by a bot that corrected the spelling of a name and added little value to OSM. Introducing badges that actually reward good behaviour rather than just mindless button clicking is a challenge in itself, and a badly designed reward system can hurt much more that it helps.
2. Any form of "I am better than you" status symbols on OSM should be avoided, they will only lead to new people being disheartened by those with higher status.
3. Some people feel treated condescendingly when you give them worthless badges that some developer thought would entice them to work (even) harder. There were quite a few people complaining about the "Congratulations"-Messages they got from the new Discourse forum after engaging in what they felt was everyday activity.

Not saying "don't do it", but it would have to be thought out very well since changes to the reward and status system could  prove difficult once it's running.

-- 
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/3785#issuecomment-1304878280
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.

Message ID: <openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/3785/1304878280 at github.com>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/rails-dev/attachments/20221106/dc49fec5/attachment.htm>