We are excited to announce our re-vamped points and badging systems – together, they are the program that converts your activity to elevated status in IBM Community.
So, how does it work?
Community health is entirely dependent on valuable content and conversations – the more a community has, the better off its users.
The badging and points systems reward you for performing actions that create value for your peers. As you continue to engage, your point total and badge count will grow.
How do I score points and where can I track mine?
View a breakdown of your points via Your Profile>My Contributions>Summary:
You can score three types of points in IBM Community, all of which add to your Engagement total:
General Engagement – earned for actions like joining groups, registering for events, connecting to new contacts and networks, adding profile information, viewing content and rating resources.
Contributions – earned for posting threads/questions, writing blogs, uploading library resources, replying to questions and commenting on blogs.
Reputation – earned when users recommend your content and when your discussion responses receive Best Answer marks (points earned via these actions also reflect in Contributions).
How do I get badges and where can I track mine?
To see your badges, head to Your Profile>My Contributions>Achievements:
Badges are more than just a chronicle of your accomplishments – they can be a quick means for other users to get a sense of how you use/engage with the community and disseminate expertise.
There are multiple badge types:
Progress badges
- Explorer | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3
- Prodigy | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3
- Leader | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3
- Hero | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3
- Legend | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3
You earn Progress Badges for scoring Engagement points – progressing from Explorer Level 1 to Legend Level 3 by crossing various thresholds along the way.
If you opted in to emails from the community, you will receive notifications when you earn a new badge (see #2 in the Things to Remember section at the bottom of this blog for instructions on disabling these emails).
Collectible Badges – Leveled
- Inquirer | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3; awarded for …
- posting discussions/questions
- Open Book | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3; awarded for …
- adding to and, eventually, completing your profile
- Archivist | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3; awarded for …
- posting Library resources
- In the Know | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3; awarded for …
- joining communities and subscribing to their digests
- Conversationalist | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3; awarded for …
- responding to discussions/questions
- Problem Solver | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3; awarded for …
- discussion responses marked Best Answer
You earn Level 1 badges after reaching the first milestone associated with performing that badged action – you then level up when reaching two additional milestones per action.
Collectible Badges – One-time
- Neighborly; awarded for …
- @ mentioning another user
- IBM Champion; awarded for …
- earning IBM Champion status
- IBMer; awarded for …
The number of One-time Collectible Badges is subject to grow over time, as we create badges for campaigns, events, contests, etc.
Weren’t we already scoring points, here?
Yes, the community’s default scoring system was in place upon launch, in March 2018, and you were able to view your points under that system via Your Profile>My Contributions>Summary, as well.
Points tied to the actions you performed from March through implementation of the new program are included in your current total – in fact, your point total most likely increased quite a bit, because we weighted high value actions like posting and commenting more heavily than did the default system.
And what about my points from the IMWUC.org community?
If you were active on the IMWUC.org site that migrated to IBM Community in May 2018, your points transferred at that time and, upon implementation of the new program, converted based on your individual actions (in the same manner described above).
The same also goes for badges; i.e. if you posted a Library resource in the IMWUC.org community several years ago – or posted a Library resource to the current community in June – and never engaged in any other way, you now have the Archivist Level 1 badge.
Things to remember …
- While community content is public, you cannot score points in IBM Community if you are not logged in. Clearly, you must log in to comment and post – but, over time, you can score a lot of points for viewing content. So, if points and badges mean something to you, remember to log in when you visit IBM Community!
- IBM Community will send email notifications when you earn new badges – if you do not want to receive these emails, go to this page and toggle Group Emails to No.
- We will track system-gaming and zero out point and badge totals for users who display a pattern of purposefully performing activities with the sole intent of scoring points (i.e. posting numerous discussions that do not pose legitimate questions or thoughts).
Please respond with any questions in the comments (remember, you need to log in via the Sign In button at top-right on this screen to comment), or reach out to us via email – happy scoring and badging!