Hi Wikitreers,
During this time of social and physical distancing, as various health officials guide us through a pandemic, many of you are putting in extra time and effort here. That extra effort calls for extra recognition.
The tried and true method of recognition on WikiTree is through the apportioning of profile badges. Members of our community value and cherish their badges. Scenes such as this would be unheard of in our community:
Moreover, the types of contributions and participation by community members have grown increasingly diverse, and such new types of acknowledgement are needed.
So, on to the new badges.
***
Members' G2G points continue to increase, reaching new heights. Some say that "the sky is the limit", but with 13 current "Astronauts", we've already made it well past that. Moreover, the G2G training corps includes 195 in the pipeline who are "Pilots".
Soon WikiTree will be ready for interplanetary missions and beyond. Which means that we are going to need new titles for those who go above and beyond, reaching new heights, and achieving escape velocity. Enter our new class of future Kerbal Space Program explorers on G2G: The Interstellar Probes. Yes, you can become an interstellar probe. All that you need to obtain this beautiful badge is obtain 1 billion contribution points.
WikiTree is said to have a steep learning curve, so many members' early efforts might not deserve to stand alongside little Bobby's macaroni masterpiece on the fridge. But they too deserve acknoweledgement and badges! Now you can do just that with this badge.
(Please don't though... )
For those times when one of our database suggestion fixers, a.k.a. the "Database Doctors", are a little overzealous in editing, we now have a badge to honour their errors efforts. None of us is perfect, not one, so chuckle, smile, & stay ducky my ducklings!
WikiTree may be the most welcoming community of genealogists on the internet, but there's one thing that we don't welcome: Spam bots posting in G2G. Swiftly deleted, yet they persist. And we admire persistence: so for that they deserve a badge too.
Speaking of persistence, it has come to my attention that one user's perseverance (and those who follow the same path with determination) also deserves a badge. Despite Help pages that clearly state otherwise; contrary to dozens of answers on G2G saying that it couldn't be done; and out of sheer obstinance and willpower... Someone finally managed to uploard DNA to WikiTree.
We still aren't sure the purpose of your determination, nor is there a likely pay-off. But, you managed to do it somehow. (SOMEHOW!??!? I can't even explain it.) So here's a badge in your honour.
Have you ever come across a profile, or set of profiles, that is a complete melding and conflation of two or more individuals with similar names or other confusing and subtle differences? Sometimes these profiles are the result of unrestrained mergers, or simply making casual assumptions. Whatever the cause, disentangling these conglomerates is on par with disbanding a rat king. For those whose noble efforts rid our tree of rat kings, this badge has been crafted.
Oops. Sorry. Wrong image. Planning a game of Jeopardy at home. (Creativity abounds in the era of social distancing!). But then again, screw it... why not. It's a badge too now. For... err... uh... contributions to the genealogy of brewers, distillers, mixologists, and bartenders.
Speaking of potent potables, we now have a badge for those who play foolhardy games with the Jamie Nelson's Random Profile App.
Rules:
Participants take turns hitting the random profile button. Depending on the profile, different actions are required:
- The profile is a blood relative of yours (within 30 generations): Drink.
- The profile is notable: Drink.
- The profile has the Random Profile Game badge: Drink.
- The subject is named Mary or John, or a variant of those: Drink.
- The profile is unconnected: Get to work!
- Etc...
This summer WikiTree will be rolling out Descendants of Notables communities, with the aim of highlighting those members with awesome ancestors. Members of such communities will be provided with badges to demonstrate their superiority to the plebes. To kick off this new effort, what better place our first Descendants of Notables community than the Descendants of Uthyr Pendragon.
For details, please see the post in Policy and Style regarding the requirements for obtaining the "Verified Descendant" badge. It should only be slightly more difficult than getting a blue check-mark on Twitter.
It's a debate for the ages, whether a completionist is born or made, but that question bears no influence on the drive to tick every last checkbox in pursuit of their goal: ticking every last checkbox.
So to honour the commitment of those known as "Badge Collectors", we are introducing a Badge Collector Badge, to assist us in identifying, isolating, and exploiting those with this valuable trait! Going forward, our aim is to continue developing more badges to precisely manipulate direct the desired contributions from these highly exploitable useful members in our community.
In the meantime, this one's on us! (Next one will cost you)
Badges aren't the only thing one can collect on WikiTree! It seems that certain sub-groups enjoy collecting downvotes! Who knew!?
Among us we also have a few real angels: Upvoters. Folks who appreciate a question or an answer, and take time to show their appreciation! A few out there have given out upwards of 50000 upvotes.
Sure, upvotes don't cost anything, but these folks are moving their mice, clicking links, and, most importantly, clicking on those upvote buttons! That's outright draining, but nonetheless these folks persist.
We have decided that there needs to be a special badge for those fine men and women who keep things "interesting" here on G2G and WikiTree. You know who you are. Now everyone else will too!
One of the greatest contributions to the overall quality of profiles on WikiTree is by those who complain endlessly on G2G about the endless decline of profile quality (the lab is currently developing metrics to measure this) on account of the influx of n00bs whose entire experience consists of clicking on so-called "hints" from Ancestry's shaky leaves. Ugh! The thought makes me cringe.
Thankfully, for the discerning profile connoisseur, we have a badge to show that, like fine wines, you can definitively weed out the good from the bad.
Our penultimate new badge is for the social distancers in the crowd out there who are saving lives by staying home (and doing some genealogy, I hope!). These badges are a thank you to everyone who's doing their part to flatten the curve and stop the spread.
Stay physically apart (2 metres or 6 ft), but be sure to keep in touch!
Finally, we need a badge for everyone who made it to the end of this "interminable message" and who, I hope, had a little laugh along the way. I suspect that more than a few of us could use the distraction.
Happy April Fools' Day!
