Badge & Points FAQs
Badge FAQs
Here's where you can get some questions answered about the badges and points system. For the list of bages, see the Badges & Points To Earn page.
What are badges, and
how can I earn them?
Badges are recognition for participating in howtosmile.org. They can be earned for doing little things like logging in regularly and making lists of activities, and for recognition by the community for useful comments and lists. Find out what kinds of badges you can earn and how you earn them here.
What are points, and
how can I earn them?
Points represent how many people like your comments and lists. If someone votes up your comment, you get 10 points; if someone marks your list as his or her favorite, you get 10 points. We hope this encourages everyone to contribute and participate, and helps the community identify the really useful ideas for everyone to see. In the future, points might also unlock additional user privileges.
What if I don't like competitions?
If you're not the competitive type, don't worry about badges and points — you can contribute as much or as little to the howtosmile.org community as you want, and the points and badges don't matter. Points are our way of providing some incentive to participate with the hope of getting everyone more interested adding their collective ideas to improve informal STEM activities, learning, and teaching.
What is a leaderboard?
To reward individuals for helping with the community building, we created a leaderboard to help to identify contributors of useful content to howtosmile.org. Rankings are just one more approach for encouraging participation.
Where did this idea come from?
We were inspired by a community called stackoverflow.com, a site where computer programmers ask and answer each other's questions. Through community participation, a shared repository is created of canonical questions and answers about computer programming. For more on Stack Overflow, watch this video by its creator, Joel Spolsky.
Isn't this a risky online experiment?
This is the fun part of building online communities! The potential for interesting lists of activities, adding how-to tips, and sharing improvement ideas are created by people like you – informal educators who have limitless energy and ideas.
