Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24235314-20150715025626/@comment-5294711-20150716175500

Geez, you guys are all taking this too seriously. Listen to some songs and be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_WGwwxxIQg

Anyway, here's my input on this:

First, let me just put this here:

Do you agree with keeping badges? Yes, we need as much bling as possible! No, kill them with fire! Or plasma laser!

Anyway, into the main issue. I myself don't think the badges are the issue, the people are. Even if we remove badges, that won't really fix things. It'll only make our wiki a little bit less interesting. If people already like to accuse people of badgehunting, they'll find something else to accuse other people of.

Also, about what you said: "Badges, IMHO, make the wiki look unprofessional. "

Well, first, even professional wikias have badges sometimes, so that argument kinda failed there.

Plus, we have never been "professional" in the first place, unless you consider a wikia where people post their wildest ideas, with a weird, childish, colorful background, a rarely updated homepage, and led by a crazy teenage girl who doesn't know s*censored* to be "professional". That being said, we are not professional and most likely will never try to be. We'll try our hardest to not let ourselves descent into complete and utter chaos, but on the other hand we are pretty laid back and are fine with whatever as long as it doesn't cause harm to the world. Or at least, that's how I myself hope our community are.

Anyway, about the good points of badges, aside from serving as bling, they also give people a sense of achievement. Even when your conceptions are not that popular or well-received by other members of the community, if you've gotten a badge rightfully, you may still feel a bit prouder yourself.

Now, about your concern with people accusing each other of badgehunting.That's not a problem with badges. Think simpler. It's just a problem with false accusations. Jerkasses are everywhere and so are false accusations. Like I said, if someone wants to accuse someone else of some supposed "wrongdoing", while it's apparently not so, then he/she will always find a reason to accuse, especially when that reason has been "imprinted" inside his/her head, as in the case of badgehunting (since badgehunting is a regularly discussed matter on Wikia at large). Simply removing badges won't solve the problems. Asking for those accusations to stop permanently is just like asking every jerkass in the world to disappear, and that everyone will suddenly have the righteous mind of Libra and Astraea, and starts judging everything in the most holy and just way possible. We can only try our best to take care of those accusations ourselves, case by case, and see them not as a problem with badges, but as a problem of people being skeptical towards each other.