You’ve logged into Centreon’s user community The Watch and you noticed there are points, badges, ranks… Stop scratching your head. This blog post is your insider’s guide to understanding how rewards in The Watch work, and how they contribute to creating a fun and meaningful experience for community members.
For the purpose of this post, we’ll make the assumption that you’ve read this short intro into Centreon’s The Watch and the 7 Things Worth Doing in Centreon’s The Watch Community.
Ranks, points, badges… Why?
What’s the purpose of points, badges, or ranks in Centreon’s The Watch, you may wonder? It serves to reward community-minded behaviors: engagement, collaboration, collective growth, and altruism. The process also allows to highlight the most active contributors and those that have developed a particular expertise. It communicates to other users their interlocutors’ credentials, with just enough friendly competition to drive everyone to hone their skills. Ranks, points, and badges are part of a delicate balance system made to reward quality over quantity in community interactions.
How are you being recognized and rewarded in The Watch, exactly? Here’s your guide.
Earning points in The Watch
How can you earn points within The Watch? You earn points in The Watch when you achieve various actions. The most altruistic and helpful gestures get the highest rewards. Here’s a top list of actions that get rewarded in The Watch.
What badges can you earn on The Watch?
While points reward behaviors, badges in The Watch serve to acknowledge milestones in a Watcher journey. These can be earned through various actions (ex., your first reply) and some can even be awarded in specific circumstances (ex., you’re part of a beta testing group or participated in a specific event like the Centreon Summit). Watchers that have been part of the community from its inception have a special Pioneer badge.
Here are some of the typical milestone badges you earn in The Watch. Keep in mind new badges can be added at any time to reward event or situation-specific milestones.
Remember that badges will not give you more points, they serve to mark your own achievements and participation in The Watch.
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How are badges differing from points? Easy! Points reward definite actions, while badges provide a more user-centered level of recognition.
Ranks: Recognizing user progression within The Watch
We’ve seen that points play a significant role in The Watch, while badges recognize milestones in the Watcher journey.
Now ranks are a distinct mechanism that recognizes the progression of Watchers as exemplary community contributors. So, if points reward specific actions, ranks are attained in The Watch through the correlation of various factors. It’s not just the frequency of your interactions, it’s their quality, their usefulness, and the appreciation of other users over time that make you progress across the various The Watch ranks.
Newbie is where you start, progressing to Steward, Builder and then Ranger. Besides the “Newbie” rank, there are three levels for every rank, for which completion is marked by an asterisk, for example:
People who work at Centreon have their own rank, Centreonian.
The rank system, in a nutshell, encourages members to debut their Watcher journey by interacting frequently, then transition towards a more supportive role, helping others by answering questions.
The leaderboard: Keeping track of points in The Watch
The leaderboard showcases the top users who have accrued the most points. To make it more dynamic, we maintain two leaderboards: a “weekly leaderboard” and an “All-time leaderboard.” The weekly leaderboard is refreshed every Monday at 12 a.m. CET.
Remember that the leaderboard marks points only, so don’t be surprised if as a Steward, for example, you show above higher ranked Watchers.
Reputation Bar: Keeping track of the appreciation of other Watchers
A unique feature of our community is the reputation bar, which is displayed next to your avatar. The reputation shows the total number of likes you have received on your posts and replies. You need to move beyond the 5-like mark for the reputation bar to appear on your profile.
Fill it up!
As you earn more likes, this bar fills up, marking the growth of your reputation within the community. This is how The Watch acknowledges its most appreciated members. This bar also serves as a signal to other Watchers that you know your stuff!
Join us on The Watch
At the end of the day, Watchers and Centreonians value every interaction enriching our community. So don’t be shy, whether you’re a Newbie or a seasoned Ranger, your contributions help us all to learn and grow. Remember it’s a journey where there’s always a bit more exploring to do, new friends to make, as well as new learning and coaching opportunities to capture.
Read more on The Watch: What it is, How it works.