I think it would be cool to have a board awarding system, based on total games played.

Something like
  bronze star: 100 games played
  silver star:  500 games played
  gold star:  1000 games played
  platinum star: 5000
  diamond:  10000

I know similar things have been discussed, but thought it should be brought up again.

I was thinking of something small, like a 30x30 image to over the upper-right corner of the board image thumbnail or next to the board name.

that'd be cool. 

Here's another thought, what if the board's designer got a gold medal, diamond, etc added to their profile as well. to show that he created an awarded board? 

that's a cool idea although my niche boards wouldn't qualify haha

I like, but I'd be much more interested in seeing things like on a page with Ratings, Board type, Difficulty, and Riskiness integrated into a directory. Things are getting unwieldy and something needs to be be put in place that helps players cull through the ever growing list of board choices. 

yeah, that does seem like a more pressing matter

That's next on the list after the alerting system is done.

Tom, are you considering those subjective rating types that I mentioned above, or are you just going to go with raw statistics and perhaps the one rating scale that we have now?   There was quite a bit of discussion about it a few months back, and I don't think much consensus was reached.

I guess it would be helpful to start discussing this now. I am thinking of something which combines the following stats and filter mechanisms. I haven't really thought through how it will work in practice so this is an idealized view of what it would allow you to sort / filter on.

Automated / Mechanical Stats

Most popular by number of games played per day / week / month / all time
Board size (some multiple of territories / borders to automatically calculate this) 

Player Stats

Top rated (i.e. by the board rating system)
Most favorited (i.e. by how many people have made the board their favorite) 

Filters - used to restrict what is visible in the board list

Designer
Number of Players
Size (number of territories)
Simultaneous vs Regular
Teamplay
Default Fog
Duel maps (i.e. 2 player boards)
Release date 

Tags - another way of filtering what is visible in the board list

Abstract
Arcade
Classic
Duel
Fictional
Geographical
Hordes!
Terrain

Difficulty (set by review team)

Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced
Exper

I like Difficulty by review team (in consultation with the designer), although there should be some ability to go back and change it.  I can imagine that a game gets out there, and something the reviewers thought was an easy board turns out to be complicated for noobies.  Most of the time, and over time, the team will get better at this.

Oh, ..and how about a Twisted tag so there's a way to categorize Risky boards. 

I assume this thread is hijacked then ?  Before that happens completely, I like Alpha's suggestion, and think that it would fit in well whenever an Achievement system is put into place.

As for the hijacked piece, I'd be a bit concerned that the Filters (and even potentially Difficulty) is going to be a bit difficult due to multiple Scenarios having what would be different sets of Filters from each other and/or the base Board.

I wouldn't say completely hijacked.  I was just thinking that one logical place for the Award System would be the Board Organizer page.  But you're right, someone should probably start a Board Organizer Page thread seeing seeing as Tom's getting geared (pun intended) to put it up.

BTW, - I agree about scenarios.  In fact, I think are a whole host of issues related to Scenarios.  Stats and ratings are near the top of the list.  I haven't made any for my boards yet (haven't had the time). I'm still trying to get my head around how far I can take out a scenario before I should just call it a different board.  For instance, what if I change the actual geography of a board?

Oops.  Did I just try to hijack the thread again?

How about this: http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1442/Board_Sorting_Discussion ; (I can't move your posts M57)

No worries, hijack away, but back to the discussion.

Jigler, I like your idea that designers get some award along with this which fits into the larger achievement system (thanks Yertle for the reminder).

Viper, I am sure that some of your boards will make it into the bronze or silver category.

As for the hijacking, your proposal sounds good tom and I will comment about it in the correct forum (thanks again Yertle).

Whatever happened to the idea of monetary designer awards?  Or am I hijacking the thread yet again? 

On a more relevant note.. How about scaling the medaling criteria?  The problem with a set scale is that over time you may end up with a lot of platinum boards that have achieved their status just because of their longevity.  I propose that the system looks at something like the data from the last 18 months for all boards.  From there make it such that at any point in time, x% of boards have achieved Bronze and scale accordingly.  For instance you could make it such that the top 40% of boards are awarded Bronze status. 

40%: Bronze
20%: Silver
10%: Gold
5%: Platinum
2%: Diamond

Additionally, you could make it such that once a board has received a medal, it can't be taken away or "downgraded".  E.g., once a board has achieved a Gold medal, it retains it in perpetuity (or perhaps there could be a Hall of Fame for popular boards that fall out of favor). 

M57 wrote:

Additionally, you could make it such that once a board has received a medal, it can't be taken away or "downgraded".  

I would vote for that type of system, rather than a fluid one like Rankings.

Agreed to this new approach, but I think longevity is not that big a deal.  There are several boards that have been around for a while and seen very few plays.  At once a week, it will take a long time.

Alpha wrote:

Agreed to this new approach, but I think longevity is not that big a deal.  There are several boards that have been around for a while and seen very few plays.  At once a week, it will take a long time.

It may not make much difference, but it think it will give the site a "lived in" feel. Right out of the gates a good assortment of medals will be out there for players to consider.

One thing that needs to be worked out are the numbers.  Of course, mine are arbitrary.  Do we want a lot of medals (starting bronze at %50), or should we make medals a bit more coveted (starting bronze at %25)?  I kind of split it down the middle.  One nice thing about the system is that we can always change the numbers.  So I would propose that we start with stingier numbers like 25%-30% , with the idea of lowering the bar if it feels wrong.  That way, no trophies will be subject to a non-downgrade.

The % really depends on how often you are going to award medal. 

If the time scale is 18 months, then there will be little change in the boards overall "ranking" on a daily basis, so once a month seems appropriate.

If you are going to award a medal every time a board makes it to the top 25% then lower is essential, otherwise there will be a large percentage of boards with a bronze medal in a short time (the bottom of the list will change a lot month to month.

I guess I have actually change my mind on the percentage approach.

My original idea was to reward board designers with a system similar to the old record sales system.  I agree that medals should never be down-graded, but I still like a fixed number of games played in the last 18 months (or even last 12 months) rather than a percentage.  There is little expectation that a board will go platinum and probably only Wargear Warfare will ever be diamond, but that will change as the size of the site increases.  The percentage approach would be giving out awards too often as the number of boards increase (at least this is my opinion). 

Currently, there are about 160 boards, so 25% would represent that 40 of them would get a bronze and 5% would be that 8 of them would get a platinum award.  Those would be the three standard maps, spys, ants, Europe, Five, and USA.  When we reach 300 boards, that would be 16 of them and the top 16 should change a little so that in a years time there may be 30 boards of the 300 with a platinum award.  This is what seems high to me.

Alpha wrote:

 There is little expectation that a board will go platinum and probably only Wargear Warfare will ever be diamond, but that will change as the size of the site increases.  

 It could be argued that we would be giving out too many awards using this paradigm as well.

The percentage approach would be giving out awards too often as the number of boards increase (at least this is my opinion). 

 Just because there are more boards as the site grows doesn't mean that more aren't medal-worthy, but as proposed, neither system guards against this.

If we are looking for a static number of medals, we could still use either method. I don't think the results would be that different depending on how they were structured.

Let's say we want only 30 medals awarded at any given award period.  Simply calculate the correct percentages or caps to achieve this. Right off the bat, I can't think of how to consistently scale it using static goals (I'm sure there's a way), but using percentage goals I can easily envision the use of a simple halving process.

For instance, if Bronze comes in at 38%, then the rest follow down the line:

S: 19%
G: 9.5%
P:  4.25%
D: 2.125%

As for having an ever growing number of medalling boards vs. a static number as the site grows, I don't really have a strong feeling one way or the other.