When I started working here at Current TV, one of the first projects I took on was an achievements platform. We designed a rudimentary set of levels for the launch of Current:News with the intent to eventually replace them with achievements, but we never got around to releasing the achievements platform as planned. There was a lot to be done in preparation of launching achievements, so the concept never went away 100%. Now we are just a few weeks away from unleashing our first batch of achievements. How will they work? Various activities, like commenting, voting, and sharing, will count towards earning achievements. When you complete certain numbers of those activities, or perform them in combination with other activities on the site, you could end up unlocking an achievement. For example, if you comment a certain number of times on the site you may unlock an achievement based on total number of comments. If your comments rack up a certain number positive votes from others in the community, you might unlock a different type of achievement. Each achievement you unlock will come with a badge that is worth points. Some badges will be worth more than others, and you’ll be able to find a summary of points and badges earned on a shiny new profile page. From time to time we’ll unleash new batches of achievements to unlock. Some will be time-sensitive, and others will require some hunting in order to unlock. But I’ll have more on all of that in a future post. What does this mean for our existing levels? Better yet, “what about my swag?” When we launch achievements, we will simultaneously discontinue levels. Yes, we’re sad to see them go. But in many ways this overhaul is long overdue. Those of you who have worked hard to achieve levels in the system will be rewarded with badges indicating your accomplishments. The coolest part is, these old-school level badges will not be available to anyone joining the site after the new achievements platform launches. If you're still waiting on a swag pack in the mail, don't fret. You will receive your swag in due time, but we’re a little backed up right now. Consider this post fair warning if you still hope to achieve level 3 in our old school levels. There will be more swag opportunities via achievements in the future, but those of you who have not reached level 3 when achievements launches in a few weeks will be out of luck as far as swag is concerned. So get cracking! If you have questions, feel free to hit me up in the comments. I’ll have more to post about this release when launch day comes around. added by: mario_a
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