Why does there need to be rewards for just simply participating, and wouldn’t this risk encouraging more low effort/spam posts for users to try and achieve those rewards.

It also feels like it would play out more in favour of just role plays of this fandom and not other sub groups like fanfic writers, theorists, meme sharers, and especially people who love reading the discussion and participating in polls and maybe does edits but never actually posts or comments.

@Rosie. Geee

“Award” might not be the best word — it’s really just a way to congratulate someone for reaching a milestone.

As for the second paragraph, it’s no different from how wiki editors edit differently. Some make major edits that take time; others do quick updates. Naturally, they’ll reach milestones at different rates, but that doesn’t make one more valid than the other and there has never been a problem.

These templates don’t grant authority and gaining them is not competitive. There’s no real gain from spamming to get them, especially since low-effort posts get removed and can lead to admin action. So why would anyone risk it.

I agree with @Rosie. Geee . I suspect I must have reached some kind of milestone, just because of how long I’ve been around, but that isn’t something that I really feel is much of an accomplishment. People should post because they want to, not because they’re seeking recognition. If we add the milestones, we probably will have to deal with a lot of spam and nonsense posts.

Ooh awards, sounds fun!

I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other. It's worked for editors, so I suppose it could work with the discussions as well, even if post quantity does have no real meaning- though one could argue that it makes more sense to reward edits than posts, since editing builds the site while posts are often just a way for people to socialize with little effort.

If you want to make this your project, I won't oppose it. But I'm not sure if I'd be willing to look through people's posts and award them myself