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What Are Accolades?

Posted by Kim on August 3, 2010, 9:52pm

Quote:
ac·co·lade”‚ ”‚[ak-uh-leyd, -lahd; ak-uh-leyd, -lahd] ”“noun

1. An award, honor, or laudatory notice: The user's suggestion received accolades from excited programmers
2. A ceremony for conferring knighthood upon an honored individual

The strength of a site like this is always in its community, and that will only become more true in the coming weeks as new ways of communicating and interacting are rolled out. But even back at the very beginning of the site, when it was just a primordial soup of basic widgets and one template, when there wasn't even a way to send personal messages - and for a little while there, not even a way to browse through characters! - you, our users, were still the site's greatest asset. That's not just marketing fluff, either. The Repository has come a long way in just a few months, in large part thanks to all of you. Many of the best changes and new features were a direct result of your suggestions and observations about the ways in which you use the site (or want to use it). You've also caught many bugs, both critical and simply annoying, that snuck past our first rounds of testing. Heck, often even the questions you ask point to areas that could be improved to be more intuitive. Even when something has been suggested many times before, and might even be on the "upcoming features list", repeat suggestions can help clarify what the next production priorities ought to be. In short, your feedback is pretty much always valuable.

Although I've attempted to send individual thanks to everyone who has sent in helpful feedback, I really wanted to find a way to highlight how great the community is and demonstrate my sincere appreciation for your contributions. That's why accolades were included in the recent redesign of the notifications system, as a way to reward those who have contributed. I hope, also, that seeing how much it's appreciated will encourage others to get involved in community discussions, or give them that extra motivation they need to spend two minutes filling out a bug report when they discover something annoying rather than just living with it or hoping someone else will point it out.

Of course, we won't be able to give an accolade to every piece of helpful feedback we receive to avoid spamming the site, but rest assured that you always have my deepest gratitude. An accolade is just a bit of public icing that will happen on occasion, a fun random surprise, and whether you get one or not doesn't change one bit how fantastic you are.

If for whatever reason you don't want to see accolades at all, feel free to visit "Your Settings" from your dashboard and turn them off. I'll also be on the lookout for other ways to build gratitude right into the site in the future, to take the pressure off people's notification streams.

You guys are our white knights, defending and expanding the awesomeness of the RP Repository. Thank you!

Comments

Pyrroglaux

August 6, 2010
9:14am

I saw the first one appear already! 8D Definitely a good idea. It's a great way to get people, who have comments or ideas but normally don't feel the need to say anything, to speak up. And there simply are no downsides to this, because if people don't like it, they can simply turn it off. And this provides another way to get in touch with people too. I always click on a player's name if it appears somewhere, to see their profile and characters. You never know, you might just stumble upon the ideal RP partner. XD