Roleplaying badge.

@Derpy Whooves  
You’ll have to forgive me for not knowing what SVG is, or why it’s so hard.
 
But, as for the appearance of the badge, how much do we need to redesign it if that’s what we’re going to use? Should it be any noticeably different? Or, do we like it overall the way that it is?

@Zaknel  
A .svg file is a “Scalable Vector Graphics” file - it’s an XML-based open standard for infinitely scalable images, which means it looks the same no matter how big or how small you draw it. It’s similar to PostScript, but was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (with Adobe’s assistance) and is not a proprietary format. You have to have Inkscape, GIMP, Illustrator, InDesign, or a similar vector graphics program to create them, but some of those applications create versions of .svg that “break” when they hit some browsers.
 
I don’t remember the details right now, but it sometimes takes a few tries - or a whole bunch of tries - to get a version of the .svg file that actually works on all the platforms that we support. Imagine trying to draw a circle, and when the circle is viewed in a browser instead you get a box. Or nothing. Or an exploding heart of a star that consumes your computer.
 
There are about 2,500 SVGs on the site, so they definitely can work, but when you start scaling things down like we do for badges sometimes unexpected results are found. Like, the ponies eyes end up on the next page.

@Derpy Whooves  
They sounds grating just thinking about it. I gotta admire the artists who keep making such dedicated contributions to the site.
 
So, Pizzamovies has to be able to properly design the SVG file such that it works on all browsers, and doesn’t glitch out on us.

@Zaknel  
Or at least get it to the point that our development team can finish it. I don’t expect Pizzamovies to know or even have access to all the different platforms, but the file should at least be uploadable and presentable on the site before it gets put into the proposal. If it shows up ok after being uploaded here, then hopefully that means it’ll work when scaled.
 
There’s a testing phase that is way way way out - putting the proposed badge in a row of other badges and making sure it’s unique enough that it doesn’t look like something else (example: making sure the Magic Ink Well wasn’t mistaken as the Artist badge, even when seen on cell phones), and making sure that the badge being at the beginning or ending of a row of badges, or the only badge, doesn’t result in unexpected behaviors.
 
This is web stuff, so all it has to be is one pixel too tall and fun results.
 
But making sure it works on the site is a step far down the road. I’m only mentioning it has to be .svg up front to make sure someone doesn’t make a beautiful badge in PhotoShop thinking that will be the final design, and then someone else has to start all over to vector it.

Based on PMs I’m receiving and comments that have been made elsewhere on the site, there appears to be some confusion.
 
Today, there is no badge that is only given out for role playing on the site. However, many have received “Thread Starter” badges because of their role playing activities, and many received either “Equality” or “Condensed Milk” badges because of their excellent Role Playing during the April Fool’s event this spring.
 
So - people have received badges because of their role playing. But there is no badge specific to role players.
 
I have been helping Zaknel create a proposal for such a badge, but developing new badges can take months or even years.
 
Even once the criteria is defined, and the artwork has been created and the site has permission to use the artwork from the artist, new badges require development resources to get them integrated, tested, and working properly on the site on all the themes and platforms that we support.
 
So far this year, we’ve already created new site-wide badges for the Site Collaboration and for the April Fool’s event, which brings us very close to the number of new badges that we create in an average year. Investing more time into another new site-wide badge is only going to be considered if there’s already a great proposal in place, including criteria everyone agrees with, and artwork ready to go.
 
Today, there’s no proposal - the Role Players haven’t got consensus on criteria, and there’s no artwork.
 
To try to help create that proposal so that such a badge might be considered in the future, I have been contributing my time to help Zaknel find consensus amongst RPers on the site for a description of what such a badge might look like, and what it’s criteria might be.
 
But even with a proposal, getting any new site-wide badge created would be very difficult and unlikely. As an example, the “Magic Inkwell” was a badge that was first brought up 3 years ago, and it took a very long time to work out the criteria and the artwork to a point where it not only made sense and worked well with our site, but became a great idea that everyone got behind and made happen. Right now, the idea of an RP badge is at about the same point that the “Magic Inkwell” was three years ago.
 
So this is not a sprint. If this is going to happen at all, it is going to take a couple years of patience and slowly improving the proposal and artwork in response to feedback and criticism from the community and the site.
 
Right now, there isn’t even consensus from the RP group for such a proposal.
 
And without a proposal that everyone can get behind and that excites everyone enough that it makes sense to devote developers and other resources of the site to make it happen - something on the order of the Site Collaborations or the April Fools event, it is not going to happen.

@Creepa-Bot Inc.  
Cast this back into the fire from whence it came

@Creepa-Bot Inc.  
We have no plans to have a badge related to roleplaying on the site or elsewhere.

@Pizzamovies  
@The Smiling Pony  
Oh……….and I had such good names for it…