Adjust the use of the Medallion icon

Having a medallion icon showing activity is nice, but is rather useless due to many people spamming the forum with bad posts.

It may be more useful if it tracked something like the amount of "Like"s a person has received.. That way when a person sees a post by someone with a high medallion count, they will know the information should be a little more reliable.

~ Thoughts?

Then they would simply and arbitrarily spam the like bottom regardless of the post's actual content. Can't you still "like" your own posts here?
I do have a question though. They seem to cap at gold/silver/silver/silver/silver. Is they true? Why?

As far as I know, liking your own posts is no longer an option

It would seem so.
And I just answered my other question too. Double gold at 2k.

I think it's pretty pointless to make the medallions be based on simply the post count. We can already see the post count, so there's no need to also have it represented visually. I think it would be better if it was based on likes received, or a function of post count and amount of likes.

Personally, I'd remove them entirely. They don't do much except encourage the kind of post count circle-jerking that plagues many forums, and as already mentioned every post lists someone's number already anyway. For my part, I just shut them down with adblock, and have a filter in place that removes the join/post info too: square-enix.com#dl(class=userinfo_extra)

Thanks for the ideas everyone! Definitely some good ones :) We will be implementing a variety of new features as time goes on, so please look forward to them and continue to let us know your opinions!

the problem with the medal icons is they correlate directly to post count, which is listed right below the medals. If things like the total number of likes people have given your posts were included, they would have more meaning. (you can't like your own posts anymore, so this is fine)

People are probably going to spam regardless of the medals being tied to their post count or not. For some reason some epeen over how many posts they have. The like button idea wouldnt be a bad idea since you cant self like your own posts anymore.

The only problem with that though, is that it takes 2 people collaborating with each other to spam each other's posts with likes.

For example: Akujima and Panthera. Those two agree on anything they say, so I wouldn't doubt it that they like each other's posts. I know they did it in that one thread that they were arguing against everyone else there.

Make medals change based on more than one thing; makes it pretty hard to manipulate meaningless thing for imaginary benefit then.

Maybe just make it reflect activity rather than a total of posts or likes.

Not crazy about the like idea being linked to medallions... then again I'm not crazy about the medallions at all. If they are going to keep them maybe link them to something in game like playtime, levels, or missions.

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Originally Posted by Hoshi

Not crazy about the like idea being linked to medallions... then again I'm not crazy about the medallions at all. If they are going to keep them maybe link them to something in game like playtime, levels, or missions.

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I like that idea best so far. Nice way to identify old timer FFXIers if linked to how long you've been a POL member.

You taru's get off my lawn!

Yeahhhhh, link medallions to ingame death count! Or ballista medals would be kinda cool though ultimately pointless since hardly anyone does ballista anymore.

Playtime would be nice if it was represented.

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Originally Posted by Hoshi

Not crazy about the like idea being linked to medallions... then again I'm not crazy about the medallions at all. If they are going to keep them maybe link them to something in game like playtime, levels, or missions.

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I don't care for medallions being linked to the number of likes.... that should be separate statistic. Let's not turn this into a popularity contest.

I do like the idea or representing game stats to forum statistics. This way, we get an idea of just how experienced the poster is, similar to FFXIAH.com's ranking system.

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Originally Posted by Panthera

I don't care for medallions being linked to the number of likes.... that should be separate statistic. Let's not turn this into a popularity contest.

I do like the idea or representing game stats to forum statistics. This way, we get an idea of just how experienced the poster is, similar to FFXIAH.com's ranking system.

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Nor do I. Linking Medallions to the like button only enables LS mates and other FF website hooligans the ability to like each others post regardless of the content to boost their medallion count. I would rather see medallions linked to accomplishments made in game. If medallions are to be separate from FF stats and only reflect forum interactions, then the only people that determine the accumulation of medallions should be the devs and community reps. Break out your reading glasses folks.

"Medallion icon will now be granted depending on the number of "Like!" player has received."

Sigh...

I know first hand how troublesome "playtime" can be. There are a variety of factors involved in determining how long a person has played the game, more so then just "when did you start?".
a. you can't use in game /playtime as it is not a viable reference to how long a person has played (24/7 bazaars).
b. you can't use initial date due to sporadic players who have played 1-11 months a year(or less) since they activated at launch.
c. how do you judge a person's knowledge and experience in relation to a date they began to play, or amount of time they have played?

Back to the initial point of the post, post count is already listed, and abused.
"Like"s may be abused, but are a little more challenging to do so. As I stated above, they are simply a better method to judge the reliability/usefulness of a person's post, nothing more.

And yes, they my be spammed by LS mates, but doesn't happen often. I know I've never asked or been asked to rate someone up, on any forum, ever since pol launch.

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Originally Posted by Cetra

I know first hand how troublesome "playtime" can be. There are a variety of factors involved in determining how long a person has played the game, more so then just "when did you start?".
a. you can't use in game /playtime as it is not a viable reference to how long a person has played (24/7 bazaars).
b. you can't use initial date due to sporadic players who have played 1-11 months a year(or less) since they activated at launch.
c. how do you judge a person's knowledge and experience in relation to a date they began to play, or amount of time they have played?

Back to the initial point of the post, post count is already listed, and abused.
"Like"s may be abused, but are a little more challenging to do so. As I stated above, they are simply a better method to judge the reliability/usefulness of a person's post, nothing more.

And yes, they my be spammed by LS mates, but doesn't happen often. I know I've never asked or been asked to rate someone up, on any forum, ever since pol launch.

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Chances are people with high "playtime" from bazaar's are either:

A: not posting here

B: were playing on another account while that mule sold their goods.

In any event the "like" "dislike" "report" feature used on many FFXI websites over the years has been so badly misused by trolls, and people with a chip on their shoulder towards who ever posted or created the thread that the results of those three options hardly ever truly reflect the intentions of the website creators.

Playtime on the other hand is static. Even if the account had seen limited usage from 03'-11' that player has witnessed the evolution of the game we're all playing. Relating forum medals/titles to ingame achievements seems more logical, and rewarding than encouraging people who have over 9000 post count who chime in on anything, and everything somehow thinking that in itself is some sort of achievement.

I respect your opinion, even though I do not fully agree with it.
The problem is knowledge, there is no true means of knowing if someone will be more accurate on something then someone else. There are many methods:

Forum Based
Post count
Like count
Post to Like count ratio
Moderator removed post (negative impact)

In-Game
Playtime
Account time
Level count
Gear rank (not currently used)

I'm sure there are other items that could be considered too..

One thing to note is linking anything forum based to anything in-game based would be costly and time consuming (we all know the history on those items)

I welcome any other thoughts or suggestions =)

They have most of that information on the Linkshell Community Profile. While the amount of jobs leveled hardly shows skill any longer (if it ever did) the point you make about gear rank is very interesting. Or possibly members could submit gear set's for different modes such as:

Tp set
WS set
Eva set
-pdt/mdt
Enfeebling
Nukes
Cure set
etc etc...

Their "gear rank" for each set could have a point total associated with it.

This seems like the right place to mention that the medallions do not appear on the mobile version of the site.

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Originally Posted by Volkai

This seems like the right place to mention that the medallions do not appear on the mobile version of the site.

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May want to open a thread on the Website Bugs section in relation to this
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/fo...3-Website-Bugs

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[NA]Forum Features Updated (Jun. 8)

The following bug on the forum has been addressed along with the maintenance performed on June 7th.

* Medallion icon will now be granted depending on the number of times player has pressed the "Like!" button.

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Wow, they took what could have been a more useful feature then post count, and devised a way to make people want to spam the like button? I hope this was a mis-type...

Being based on ratings given rather than received is much better plan in my opinion. Circle jerking could still be a future problem but that sort of thing would have been a possibility anyway.

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Originally Posted by GlobalVariable

Being based on ratings given rather than received is much better plan in my opinion. Circle jerking could still be a future problem but that sort of thing would have been a possibility anyway.

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Open every thread, like every post. The ease of this, to have a high medallion rating, degrades the purpose of the Like! system in it's entirety.

Fictitious bogus troll post:
"They should delete Ninjas cause they can Duel Wield faster then my Whm can hit with a staff!"
Like count: 397

what's the point of having a system like this?

A sad day indeed

I like how they've changed awarding medallion icons. Maybe some people will spam like posts to gain medallions but I bet there will be quite a few people who only like posts that they agree with (I'm not going to like a post I disagree with just to get a gold star next to my name).

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Originally Posted by Cetra

Open every thread, like every post. The ease of this, to have a high medallion rating, degrades the purpose of the Like! system in it's entirety.

Fictitious bogus troll post:
"They should delete Ninjas cause they can Duel Wield faster then my Whm can hit with a staff!"
Like count: 397

what's the point of having a system like this?

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Still beats what they were doing with the system.

the system doesn't seem to have changed at all...
the breaking point on gold medallions seems to still be 50 and 2000 posts.
I think they gave us a digital placebo.

I disagree with you in entirety GV, any system of rank in a community should be an average consensus by the community of the validity of the information you have set forth.
Anything else is just a waste of coding time.

I like having the cute lil' gold medal next to my name...it makes me feel important lol (kidding)

On a serious note...I have never understood why if the devs have time to play around with cosmetic things on these forums, they keep telling us for various things that it would take too much time or effort or w/e....I personally would be willing to sacrifice a little cosmetic forum-ness for some of the changes I've seen the devs say would take too much time.

PS. Maybe the medals would be more useful if they reflected how many likes your posts have gotten? That way they'd be a measure of the overall quality of your posts.

I think it's a simple matter...

They have a plan, set forth by the idea team...

Dev Team:
alterations are out of budget...
player feedback is out of budget...
suggestions are out of budget...
enhancements not listed in the plan are out of budget...
quality of life is out of budget...
anything listed in the forum's "Jobs" section is out of budget...

forum editing/alterations/upgrades/downgrades must fall under a different team

hehe

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Originally Posted by Cetra

I disagree with you in entirety GV,

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Maybe you aren't getting that I don't like the medal stuff at all in any form its been in thus far? Because I'm pretty sure we agree in that this isn't optimal. It's like a "lesser evil"; any evil is still evil.

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any system of rank in a community should be an average consensus by the community of the validity of the information you have set forth. Anything else is just a waste of coding time.

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Basing it on anything the user (or their friends/puppets accounts) can exert control over is still gonna have problems any way you slice it. SE should always decide whats final, not consensus by the players it has to moderate.

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I think they gave us a digital placebo.

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Look player, shiny object! ;)

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Originally Posted by GlobalVariable

Maybe you aren't getting that I don't like the medal stuff at all in any form its been in thus far? Because I'm pretty sure we agree in that this isn't optimal. It's like a "lesser evil"; any evil is still evil.

Basing it on anything the user (or their friends/puppets accounts) can exert control over is still gonna have problems any way you slice it. SE should always decide whats final, not consensus by the players it has to moderate.

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This I do agree with, my stance on the matter is that they may as well make it something that can be abused the least since I'm sure they'll never actually get rid of it.

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Look player, shiny object! ;)

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YAY!!!!


oh wait..


curses, fooled again!!

Whats the point in the Medallions again?

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Originally Posted by Korpg

Whats the point in the Medallions again?

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That's a very good question, possibly a method to track abusers of the Like system...
That would be a funny thing, 1 week from now...
"the top 50 Medallion holders have been banned for blatant abuse of the forum"

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Originally Posted by Korpg

Whats the point in the Medallions again?

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Non serious answer:
Shiny object.
It is the only known weakness of the MMO player you know.
See also: dynamis map thread, lol


Serious answer:
Many other forums tend to have something similar based off post count. Zam uses stars. This thread seems to have made them decide not to base it off post count.

If they really want to get creative and create a lot of extra work for themselves, they could make each medal show based on some kind of complex point system based on certain in game achievements. I'd probably have just made it based on how long you've been a POL member since that seems an easy non abuse-able thing (as an admin elsewhere I've ceased being shocked at what people will do for imaginary things that don't matter and if were me I'd not want to babysit the system).