What's with the medals on this forum?

[worldofneil]

There are posters here with two red medals but < 2k posts

That means one or both of their medals are "kin" medals, not post count medals. You can confirm this by selecting/highlighting their medals. The post count medals are a single image on the right side of the medals.

less popular posters such as myself with well over 1k posts but only one or perhaps no 'kin' medals at all.

You have one gold kin medal, the other gold and four silvers are your rank 9 medals (for having between 1000 and 1999 posts). In 40 posts time (at the time of writing) you'll have 2000 posts so you'll get rank 10 which is two gold medals, so you'll have 3 gold total. 1 kin + 2 post count.

Because of this possibility, I am not sure if your test can pinpoint acquirement of kin based on likes alone. I think we would have to test multiple accounts in order to eliminate other possible algorithms.

Possibly, although since that post I select hasn't post on the forums since 2015 it's quite probable that they don't read the forums at all any more (so the only action that would be happening would be other people liking their post).

[Gemina]

That means one or both of their medals are "kin" medals, not post count medals. You can confirm this by selecting/highlighting their medals. The post count medals are a single image on the right side of the medals.

Ah, thanks for letting me know how to confirm. However, I was already aware that those are kin medals. My point is that I don't think the formula for kin medals is calculated based on likes given/received alone. They could potentially factor things like playtime, subscription time, or maximum level (that's something I know it uses to determine your maximum daily post count). I don't think it's anything like that, but I do find it odd that some less active members of the forums have a higher kin count than those who are here and contributing more often. Basically, what I'm guessing is the more you post without giving/receiving likes, the more difficult it is to obtain a kin medal and vice versa.

Like I said earlier, I know my opinions are not the most popular around here, but I am far from a belligerent poster and receive and give likes regularly, and I've had only one kin medal for the last two years. I'm not bothered by that, but just using myself as an example that there might be something more at play with the kin medals.

Possibly, although since that post I select hasn't post on the forums since 2015 it's quite probable that they don't read the forums at all any more (so the only action that would be happening would be other people liking their post).

Indeed. We could keep liking that particular post, and I believe he'll get another kin medal eventually if we do. But I am willing to bet that with the same amount of likes it takes to get him there, myself or a similar poster would have individual cases, and would need fewer, or more likes being tossed around to receive another kin medal. We would have to start ruling out other factors such as the ones I mentioned above in order to determine that post count also factors in getting more kin medals.