Forum:Proposing: A barnstar system

Hello, everyone. Benkarnell here, back from a rather long wikibreak. During my time off, it occurred to me that it was high time our wiki joined others in having a system of Barnstar awards.

How do barnstars work? In the words of MeatballWiki, where the tradition started, "Occasionally, a person stands out above the rest and does something none of us would have thought of doing or were too lazy to do. They give a large gift to the community that shines against the background of our daily smaller gifts." When you see that somebody has done something worth celebrating, "To give an award, you just have to decide someone deserves one, and then give it to them. Don't hesitate, just give one in the typical wiki fashion."

Over on Wikipedia, I'm not exactly a super-editor, but I have earned a couple of barnstars and can say that it is a very encouraging thing. They could be given either for tireless work helping the community (I'm thinking of the people who endlessly and thanklessly categorize images) or for particularly noteworthy individual AH work.

The specific form that barnstars take depends on whether people here want to be creative. WP has one standard design and hundreds of variations, but we certainly don't need to follow that. I'd think we could have barnstars used as Roman standards, chivalrous chains, etc. etc. etc.

I'll answer possible objections to starting such a system.


 * We already have awards here, thank you very much. We have two kinds: the badges, which you get automatically, and the Sterling awards, which are given only once a year after a long voting process. Barnstars would be in a sort of middle ground between the two - a way to acknowledge quality work in an informal way.


 * You just want us to be like Wikipedia - we're not! The barnstar idea predates Wikipedia. If we want to avoid becoming too Wikipedianized we can call them something else.


 * Barnstars would just become a popularity contest. Pepole would use them to suck up to admins.  People would show off their awards in an obnoxious way.  Etc. Every system can be abused.  If someone seemed to be misusing barnstars, you could call them out on it.  But it's really about encouraging others.

What does everybody think about this?