Hello, this might sound childish but I want badges. Just things that appear on your profile after you achieve certain things. Could be attaining certain numbers of characters/words; going over certain durations of time spent in a day/week; using skritter every day for a month; getting a hundred right in a row etc. etc. There should be lots and some should be mysteries.

Ta,
J

That sort of "reward" system has been discussed but somehow we still don't have anything in that direction :(

I would definitely like that sort of thing as well...would definitely help my motivation. (Would be a lot better than seeing my learning curve going down after having studied half an hour longer than usual;)

David

A hundred right in a row? Is that even possible? ;)

Yup, we need "achievements" like all Steam apps seem to have these days. If it feels and plays like a game, I'll get even more hooked.

@Nick I've been looking at Kibotzer and it looks like it would be quite useful for Skritter. Any chance you guys could integrate with them to send them our stats at regular intervals?

I agree! Skritter should have these things. We're still working on other stuff right now, though.

I got perhaps a hundred tones right in a row once. It was right after I had turned on the hidden pinyin for tones thing. I freaked myself out. Only happened that one time, though; the next practice I was back to forgetting some tones.

I think if we were to do a Kibotzer-style goal system, we'd just build it into Skritter. But to try it out, I would be willing to hook up a very simple email, like the reminders email, in the format Kibotzer would need for you, if you would be willing to help facilitate the setup with the Kibotzer guys.

They have a great idea. Unfortunately Kibotzer's signup page says

"There is currently more demand than we can handle, so additions are first-come, first-served. Enter your email address to add yourself to the waitlist."

James

It doesn't have to be anything to complicated, how about a simple 'badge' system on your avatar after you reach so many words? 100 words and you get a bronze badge, 250 gets you silver and 500 gold. After that, a bronze rosette for 1000, silver for 1250 and gold for 1500 etc.? It would be a simple thing and everyone could see where people are whenever they add to a forum as their avatar would show their current level.
Not that we do this for other peoples adulation of course ;)

I don't much like the idea of uglifying the avatars with badges. Other forums do that and I think it looks very tacky and in many cases somewhat conceited. (One web site for people who study lots of languages allows people to call themselves "diglot" up to "nonaglot" which I think is extraordinarily annoying.)

People all have different ideas of what they think is important. I am less interested in the number of characters than the number of words, for example. Any badge system will be completely arbitrary and will probably cause endless "bronze is too easy" sorts of discussions.

I think a user page with ALL the user's stats (opt-in of course) would be more useful and less open to debate. That would also allow us to run our own competitions (currently limited to what shows up in Twitter) and would provide a place for the user to describe where he/she's from, reasons for studying, link to a blog, etc.

James

I agree with jww1066 about how a user's stats page is a good idea. You could also include a section to that page where you could see all of the achievements someone has unlocked. That is kind of a fun little idea. I don't think it is that important, but a lot of people are achievement crazy. It might inspire some people to study harder.

If there was something to be put on a forum page, just put the icon for the last two or three achievements earned below the person's avatar. It could constantly be shifting depending on what they just earned while not cluttering up the person's photo. If not that, then just do a straight score ala X-Box360. (I don't own one, but I hear everyone loves just having the e-score put below their avatar.) I don't know if the score is a good idea, though.

I agree with James' thinking regarding a user page with stats and other info. Except for the other info, a simple "make public" option on the current progress page would suffice.

Can't say I am much fussed about competing against other people. I'd rather compete against "the board" itself (i.e. Skritter).

I just wanted a way of structuring the repetitions with a few sub-goals and nice surprises in there to make it psychologically easier to digest.

I mean, for Japanese, even if you learn 20 characters a day, that is still three months of daily slogging to get through the 2000 daily use ones, plus further time to consolidate them. So there needs to be something to spur on the weak-willed amongst us, or as soon as you fall of the treadmill that'll be that.

J

@ Dert - I am afraid that kind of misses the point of Badges/achievements/whatever you want to call them. As Frozenpea pointed out, people like to have those little things to strive for. A simple show stats button wouldn't satiate that urge. I want a leader board, even if it is anonymous. That is a separate issue, though. If you really wanted to play up the badges, here are a few examples for Chinese:

1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 Characters known (Add catchy names for each)
1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 10,000 words known (Add catchy names for each)

Know 1000 simplified and 1000 traditional characters (call the badge 什么都会）

know 100 words that come from lists that have the geography tag (call it Roads scholar)

Study 20 minutes a day for 30 days straight (Call it "Ironman" or "test of endurance") If you really wanted to mess with people, add another one for 1 hour a day for 30 days straight. (Call it 他上瘾了 or 他疯了.)

Using the information in the post above me, you could make a Japanese one that clicks off when you have 2000 characters. Call it something like "Daily life ready." (I admit that last name is lamer than the rest but you get the idea.)

I have never quite understood badge collecting, but a lot of people do love it.

@west316 I'm all for leaderboards as well as detailed stats. The only thing I am against is cluttering up the avatars with badges.

I agree that it shouldn't clutter up the avatar or other parts of the profile. But I do think it would be fun...getting 50 tones right in a row, practicing each day for x minutes for a month, first person on skritter to have learnt some obscure character...one could of course have a separate page for that to compare achievements, but personally I would be doing it more for myself. Doesn't of course mean that one can't have a stat's comparison page.
I wouldn't want to force either of these onto all users, however. It should be an option you can switch on for yourself or with the pages it should be something you go onto...not everybody appreciates such whacky things..

I'd prefer to get a kind of Skritter diploma where it says that I have learned e.g. 1000 characters. Somehow a special Skritter Progress Reminder.

@jww

I like your idea of leaderboarding; to offer different perspectives I think it would be fun to have a totals page as well as a weekly/monthly gain section so that those who join later can still have a meaningful comparison.

@frozenpea
The idea of opt-in would address this issue. In the end its about taking the laborious and making it fun, which could then become possibly addictive even!

@Skritter HQ
Guys, thanks for considering this. I know you've got lots on your plate but this would really make the sessions more fun.
Also would appreciate if the 'time spent' statistics could be extended to show me time spent since joining or monthly, etc instead of only the last week

To clarify
I know the stats will show say for the past year, but it bunches it up into months (and into weeks for the month view)

Would be nice to encourage myself with the progress from a daily view