Question

Maybe it would be good to keep track of medals awarded to others who are not fans and reward this activity within some limit?

Answer 1

I'm not exactly following you. I mean, we track all medals awarded to everyone, but what kind of rewards did you have in mind?

Answer 2

I mean track medals that are awarded by a user to others for questions not posed by user and then reward this activity.

Answer 3

Ok, gotcha. Presumably so that people are encouraged to award medals in other people's questions, as well?

Answer 4

Thats the idea, with a reward of a medal for having awarded x medals on this basis (and perhaps with a daily limit of how many medals u can award in 1 day)

Answer 5

And perhaps excluding medals awarded to fans.

Answer 6

Anyway, just a thought...

Answer 7

Yeah, that's interesting. The rules may be too complex, but the core concept seems like a really good idea. I'll bring it up so we can discuss it, thanks!

Answer 8

OK, maybe to simplify it, u have to award quite a few medals to get a medal.

But pals awarding each other medals might be a problem.

Answer 9

hmmm .... in my opinion, any type of reward system is going to be inherently flawed. It tends to be biased towards the "amount of time" one spends using the site as opposed to "how smart or useful" a person is.

I got no good ideas as to how to make the grading system better tho :)

Answer 10

@amistre64

I tend to agree with your assessment in general.

Still think it would be good if more of that time was spent on activities that do not necessarily garner medals on the basis of snappy one liners.

Answer 11

Well, buddies awarding each other medals is not really something we're likely to have a technical solution for (though there is some interesting research in that area). The real key to that is vigilance and application of suspensions or bans for those who do it.

Answer 12

One of the main ideas we're thinking of to make medals maybe a little more valuable is to have two or three different medal types, with one that is more valuable but can only be used, say, once a day.

Answer 13

i do believe in the end, that it is the interaction between questioner and answerer that defines the merits. There are sometimes when a person asking a question just has a mental block and a long detailed explanation is more of a hinderance; and there are times when the questioner needs to be "schooled" in the basics becasue they never actually learned them to begin with :)

but i might be rambling lol

Answer 14

Awarded for outstanding valor, bravery under fire, that sort of thing...:-)

Answer 15

"i do believe in the end, that it is the interaction between questioner and answerer that defines the merits"

Agree with that too, there are often several answerers though..

Answer 16

true, and that is beneficial as well since it provides multiple ways to address the problem. I tend to have a very knock down, drag out, fight for an answer. Which usually could be solved in fewer more delicate means ;)