It's something I'm testing and playing with at the moment. It's mostly a piece of software that's been cut into the site in anticipation of some of the custom programming that's coming. BP will (not sure when yet) have built-in support to help us run large-scale weekly pick'em contests, bracket challenges, and the like. So one of the uses of the system is to support that.
Another (that I've toyed with), are community contribution awards. It's critical to point out that the medals as displayed currently are NOT just about sending money in. I've always said that we're not going to have 'classes' of citizens here, particularly not divided up by who sends a couple bucks and who doesn't. While I greatly appreciate everything sent in by those folks, I *equally* appreciate every other contribution. Coxew took pictures of the WHAC that we all enjoyed. Nutty and 86 have turned the recruiting forum into (IMHO) one of the best recruiting resources on the web, LordJeffBuck has come on in there to help continue to improve it. 3yards does a great job every day on the News, and has spearheaded the blogging effort with 86, and the bloggers themselves (too many to name, but so far osugrad, exhawg, LJB and others) have written some fantastic articles/blogs for us all to read, and I only think that area is going to get better. BIATCHabutuka talked us up on his site, provided a link, and brought over a ton of people -- something that will make a tangible difference come the Fall and we're ready to really get nuts about football chatter. Mililani has done great work with PHP, and developed a lot of terrific tools. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
So this was and is a difficult issue for me to address. I wanted a way that would 'thank' everyone who went above and beyond for the community, without making their experience on the site different than anyone else's. We're all of different free time and means. There are OSU students on this board (for example) who are just trying to make ends meet while in school, are swamped with classes, and just get on to post or lurk here and there. They shouldn't enjoy BP any differently than someone who sent $20 in to help pay for the programming, or any differently than someone who has the time and energy to try and develop unique content for the site.
Medals (particularly when *all* forms of 'above and beyond' contributions are lumped together in equal status), seem like a good way to handle that. But I could be wrong, lol, this is still something in testing. I haven't decided how to display them yet. Maybe they should only be on user's profiles. Maybe they should be on the profiles, and in the postbits like they are now. I just don't know. I probably need a mechanism to allow people who have been awarded, the option to not display them at all.
Like anything else, this new code, and the little medals are another small effort to really flesh the community and its features out a little bit. Some of these changes are going to go over well, some aren't. Like anything else, I rely *entirely* on the broad community feedback on the issue. This code was something I tried to hack in back in April and failed. I had some ideas about where I went wrong, and took some time a few days ago and tried again. This time with success.
So really -- I'd like to hear from everyone. With medals, or without. What do you think? What would make it better? What other medals/awards should we have? Should there be something for great posts like on OZ? Should they (all the awards) look different? Is it tacky? Is it a reasonable means of the community recognizing people who make the Planet what it is, and help drive it towards what it's going to become?
Any and all feedback (positive or negative) is more than welcome.
--edit--
Just as an FYI to all, we now have an ETA for the 'stats engine'/content management system. It figures to be completed and in place by the end of July. I am entirely excited about this, and I think it's going to be the biggest step forward in our genesis to date.