Board Thread:Policies/@comment-1038387-20180310213434/@comment-18172179-20180311032232

@Arise - Guess who got an screenshot of the exact moment when the Superman badge popped up? (Three years ago now... time flies...)

Seeing myself climb the leaderboard was quite thrilling... but also extremely demanding. Almost torturous. Sure I earned the spot among the top 10, but the pride lasted only for a year. Being mostly inactive in the past months, the spot has been taken by the only user who is actively creating pages for the weekly new issues; which is how most of the top people earned their spots on the list anyway. Not a really fair system, imo.

For people like Tupka, among the top 5 in the list, badges are meaningless. They've earned the spot and it's hardly ever going to be taken by anyone any time soon. For old-time users featured in the leaderboard (like me), badges are tokens of pride and notoriety among all users, but they're also a reminder of abandoned efforts and past times. You look good to internet strangers, but you don't really feel good about the "achievement". For some new users, badges are the primary motivator to edit, but once they realize all they do is become part of an ever-increasing list of badge-holding users and the empty, hollow and shallow "reward" that they represent, they drop it.

Bottom line, anyone's willingness to edit must come from a higher purpose other than earning tokens.

Badges? Kill 'em all!