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When I make badges, aren't Members receiving badges retroactively?

  • 16 May 2019
  • 7 replies
  • 473 views

Example:



Everyone gets a badge when posting the first idea. The badge has just been created, but I already have many members who have posted a first idea. They don't get a badge at the moment until they post an idea again?
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Best answer by Julian 22 May 2019, 13:56

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7 replies

@Moller Toma



Not sure if it works the same for you, but we experienced something a bit similar to this when we introduced our new badges. We wanted to create a clean slate for everyone (in an attempt to stimulate our old members), but this wasn't an option.



What happened with us, was that when an "old" member logged on our Community, they automatically received every badge they were eligible for. In the screenshot an example (iamPuk):







Hasn't been online for quite some time, but was very active a couple of years ago. Now he received every badge upon logging in again.



Perhaps this is the same for your members?
Userlevel 2
Badge +3
Hi,



what David says is how the system works:



Every time a user logs in, the system will automatically re-calculate the statistics. Usually this has no visible impact. However if you change the rules for Badges or create a new Badge, the system will then automatically grant a Badge to a user if their activity meets the requirements.



This actually is regarded a means to re-activate older community members, as you can set up a notification for this Badge which the user will receive. This can trigger a new visit and hopefully new activity by that user.



@David T-Mobile I understand that you had a slightly different goal with the Badges, as you expected that these users would have to post new comments, solutions etc. in order to get a newly created Badge?



You can still do that, however I would recommend to look at the activity of top users and then apply rules which are higher than that activity. Same as with ranks actually - if the top users hit the ceiling, it is time to give them a new goal. 😉
@David T-Mobile Thanks for your information.



@Julian I had a colleague log in again, but it doesn't work. He hasn't received any badges, while his activity meets the requirements.



PS the status of the badges are 'active'.
Userlevel 2
Badge +3
Hmm, interesting...



I had a quick look, you have a lot of colleagues on your community. This is awesome, but makes it hard for me to check. :)



If you pm me the user and the Badge, then I will see if I can find out why it's not happening.
Userlevel 2
Badge +3
Hi @Moller Toma,



thanks for sending over the details. I see he received his Badge now!?!



I had a chat with a colleague today, and received a hint that the Badges are rewarded retroactively once a user shows new activity (e.g. posting a comment). We actually point this out in our how-to as well:



⚠️ If your community’s full of high achievers, and some members already qualify for the badge before you create it, then they'll only receive the badge as soon as they make a new comment, topic, etc.



So this probably was the reason why this user did not receive his Badge. Please let me know if there are more questions / issues, or mark it as solved. 😉
Hi @Julian



What's the reason behind that? I would assume that if you create badges, and members are entitled to them, you can inspire your community to come back to the community. This gives the community extra motivation and for us an oppurtunity to reactivate them.
Userlevel 2
Badge +3
Hi,



yes, I see your reasoning behind this.



I would assume the reason of doing so is related to performance - on very large communities the automatic calculation (after every edit of a Badge) if someone should receive a Badge could cause problems. I had a conversation with our team to find out more about the reasons, however I was informed that it would take some time to properly investigate this. :/



I agree with you that this way of processing changes in existing / creation of new Badges would benefit the re-activation of users. This surely is something which we will keep on our radar to improve in the future. Hopefully we can touch this when we are working on Badges again.



We will actually work on Badges again very soon, as stated in my reply to the popular idea to manually grant Badges to users. This improvement will most likely also help you to achieve your goal to target inactive users, at least until a certain degree.



I will keep an eye on development to check on the process of assigning Badges automatically once this happens, to make sure they will look into this. If I learn the answer to your question on the way, I will share it here with you.

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