The key to this line is the underlying meaning. Yes, very few people actually join for the badges, but the badges definitely keep people motivated as well as adding more systems and recruiting more computing power. It was very nice to see (last slide if anyone is curious) that higher badge levels is a significant concern.

Recognition goes a long way towards keeping people happy and I am very glad this one did not just slip under the radar. Hopefully with a rework we will see expansion in both directions such as one very easy badge and many extremely difficult ones.

PS Falconet - I'm one of 4 women within the WCG team :)

That's great! Tedi, ErikaT, you and ?

Great to know!

I was reviewing the report and was liking what I saw until I came upon this tidbit. What an inane (ie: lacking significance) comment to make. I can't believe that there are 2% who joined to earn a badge, I thought it would be less.

The conclusion that someone might make in error is that only 2% like having the recognition provided by the badge system. That conclusion is not supported by the report.

What bothers me is whether this misleading statistic is being used to reduce the importance of RECOGNITION of our work. Now there is a word that I didn't see in the report. I saw 'contribution' but no recognition.

Badges are a symbol that recognizes our contribution. I would readily blow off the badges that only recognize 32 years if I could print out a Certificate of Recognition for my 106 years, 130 TFlops and 229K results.

One day to design the certificate by a skilled IBM graphics designer and one day to write the code by an equally skilled WCG Tech. They already have all the software tools they might need. Not a big investment WCG.