Recognising and rewarding the contribution of our members is a major priority here at Strawman, and a big part of how we do that is through Member Badges.
With a nod to the boy scouts, Strawman awards members with badges for various achievements. They’re a little bit of bling to help you better identify the leading contributors, and to show off your investing cred to the wider community.
There are three types of badges, each of which come in four tiers:
Performance
Members will earn the out-performance badges for beating the market over various time frames using their Strawman Virtual Portfolio. As our market benchmark, we use the S&P/ASX300 index as measured by the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX:VAS).
The badges (displayed above) increase in value and relate to out-performance over the past 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 12 months.
As such, it is possible for members to earn multiple badges in this category. For example, your scorecard could be outperforming the market over the past 3 and 9 months, but not the past 6 months.
By default, your member card will always display the highest ranked badge. You can, however, see all the badges you have earned on your profile page.
Community Engagement
Peer-review is central to how we provide accountability and credibility on Strawman, and and so voting on other user’s content is of critical importance. It’s also what allows us to recognise and incentivise the most valuable content.
To earn engagement badges, simply be an active voter. Remember too that ‘down’ votes (i.e. you dislike or disagree with the post) are anonymous, and just as important as an upvote when it comes to measuring the value of content.
Also, we only count the number of votes made over a 30 day trailing period. Enforcing some recency to the Community Engagement badge helps give an equal footing to newer users, and means that we better capture the consistency of user engagement over time.
To earn the Bronze Badge, you need to be in the top 75% of votes cast. The Silver, Gold and Purple badges are awarded for being in the top 50%, 25% and 10%, respectively.
Community Endorsement
The final badge category recognises the contribution members make to the community. It measure the level of endorsement your content has received in the past 30 days by tallying up all the votes received during that time.
As with the Engagement badge, you earn successive tiers by being in the top 75%, 50%, 25% and 10% of net votes earned.
Note that you’ll get credit for a vote on any active Straw or Valuation, regardless of when it was posted. It’s the net votes received in the defined timeframe that matter.
Bottom Line
It’s worth noting too that how you rank across all three badge categories plays a big part in determining your overall Community Ranking.
So crafting some good content, building a strong track-record and being an engaged member of the community will not only help you earn loads of badges, but it’ll go a long way to improving your overall rank on Strawman.
Good luck!
Strawman is Australia’s premier online investment club.
Members share research & ideas on ASX-listed stocks by managing Virtual Portfolios and building Company Reports. By ranking content according to performance and community endorsement, Strawman provides accountable and peer-reviewed investment insights.
Disclaimer– Strawman is not a broker and you cannot purchase shares through the platform. All trades on Strawman use play money and are intended only as a tool to gain experience and have fun. No content on Strawman should be considered an inducement to to buy or sell real world financial securities, and you should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.
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