What's it all about?
The idea is that members receive awards (little icons displayed next to their avatar in forum posts) for performing different actions.
How do I get an award?
Some awards are applied automatically by the system. Others need to be awarded by the administrator. If you believe you are entitled to an award, or would like to nominate another member for an award, please contact the administrator by email or by private message.
Award Icon Types
Subscriber
Members who have take out subscriptions get this cute little piggy bank icon.
Location
This is automatically applied when a member has placed a pin on the member map to indicate where they are in the world. Anybody who doesn't have this isn't really trying.
Competitor
Awarded for having completed entries for our monthly competitions. Hovering your mouse over this icon when it appears in a members profile will show you how many competitions they have entered. Clicking on it will take you to a list of their entries.
- awarded after entering 1 competition
- awarded after entering 3 competitions
- awarded after entering 9 competitions
Winner
Awarded for having won one or more of our monthly competitions. Hovering your mouse over this icon when it appears in a members profile will show you how many competitions they have won. Clicking on it will take you to a list of their entries.
- awarded after winning 1 competition
- awarded after winning 3 competitions
- awarded after winning 6 competitions
Photographer
Back when we had a voting mechanism in the gallery there were three levels for this award:
- for having uploaded 15+ images.
- for having 25+ images.
- for having 50+ images.
Currently however there is only a single award (level 1) which indicates that the member has images in the gallery. Hovering you mouse over the icon tells you how many images they have uploaded while clicking on it takes you to an automated album of those images.
It is my intention to reinstate the 2nd and 3rd level awards when we have a means of ranking the gallery images.
Gallery User
Indicates that the member has bookmarked images in the gallery. Hover your mouse over the icon for an image count, and click it to see what they've bookmarked.
Contributor
These were awarded by the administrator for having material used in articles in our archives. However it is my intention to write code such that these are automatically applied to those who contribute to wiki articles.
- For having material used in one or more articles.
- For having a significant piece or multiple pieces of material used on the main site and/or having presented it in such a way that it assisted the administrator in creating the article.
- For making a very significant contribution to the content of the main site.
Journalist
Awarded by the administrator for having assisted in writing up other peoples work.
- awarded for having assisted with 1 piece
- awarded for having assisted with 3 pieces
- awarded for having assisted with 6 pieces
It is my intention to write code such that these icons are awarded automatically when members create articles for the wiki.
Gallery Critic
Members used to be able to vote on gallery images and the following awards were available:
- for having voted on 10 images
- for having voted on 100 images
- for having voted on 1000 images
It is not currently possible to earn these awards as we have no voting mechanism in the gallery, however some members still have these awards.
Site Reviewer
Awarded for having left feedback for links in our links section.
- for having left feedback for 10 sites
- for having left feedback for 25 sites
- for having left feedback for 50 sites
Product Reviewer
Awarded for having a product review entered into our archives. There are no levels for this award because writing a review is a significant amount of work.
Genius
Awarded for coming up with a brilliant idea to improve the website or forum, particularly when it relates to an issue that the administrator was struggling to sort out. There are no levels for this award as we do not expect there to be that many opportunities for winning it.
Service
Awarded by the administrator for having given significant assistance in running the site/forum and/or for having demonstrated a long term commitment to TerraGenesis. Recipients of this award will probably already have earned a number of the other awards.
- Level 1
- Level 2
- Level 3
These will normally be awarded in sequence i.e. a member who obtains the 3rd class award and is then deserving of another will be upgraded to 2nd class and will require further service to attain the 1st class award.
TerraGenesist
Our highest award given only to those who have made a significant contribution to TerraGenesis. Those who receive this award will usually have obtained a number of the other awards. However, a 'very significant' achievements in any one area, such as having reviewed multiple products, or having numerous competition wins, may reduce the requirement to have excelled in all areas.