Reader Badge Not Being Given

Forum Feedback
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Platform iNat Forums

Browser, Chrome

URLs Reader badge: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/beware-ai-images-on-inat/44346

Description of problem:

I’ve read through quite a few posts with over 100 messages, but I haven’t yet been given the badge of “reader.” I was wondering if maybe something had to be registered for it to count such as a copied link or a like on the comment I went through this post and payed attention to read every comment. After, I went through again, read all the comments and doubled checked the replies to make sure I didn’t miss anything and liked a few of the comments made. Still the badge has not been given. I’ll also mention again that this isn’t the first time that I’ve done this.

Something I noticed when checking out the badge was that it hasn’t been given since May and quite a large amount of topics with over 100 replies have been made since then so I’m wondering, is the badge simply not registering and not being given? Has anyone else experienced this?

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Thanks @tiwane! Good to know stuff like this should go in Forum Feedback.

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I received the Reader badge on December 19, 2023, and people are in fact still presently getting it. One was granted on March 13. See Badges: Reader for a list of recipients.

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I’m not sure why it hasn’t been awarded, but I don’t think badges are particularly important, they’re part of the standard Discourse offering but they don’t affect one’s ability to use the site so it’s not something that I think is particularly worth investigating.

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Notice that when you scroll through the posts in a discussion thread, the number at the end of the URL in the browser’s address bar changes. That number represents the sequential number assigned to the individual post in the thread. If you reach the final post in a discussion, you may need to scroll all the way to the very bottom to get the number of the final post to appear. Perhaps the Reader badge does not get awarded if you don’t scroll far down enough down for that final number to appear. It is too late for me to test that hypothesis.

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Ah, when I saw “Mar” I must’ve read “May” thanks!

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Thanks! I’ll double check again to make sure!

Ok, yeah they aren’t really important I just wanted to make it known incase this really was something that was happening. It isn’t a problem to me so if you don’t feel like looking into or don’t think it is worth it, quite frankly I agree.

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Yawn alert: While, as with all of us, my main motivation for participation in this forum is interest in the natural sciences, particularly from a biological perspective, the tech nerd part of me finds this issue interesting. So if anyone beginning to read this feels an oncoming sense of slumber, I will take no offense if you read no further. :wink:

It seems likely to me that the most effective way for the system to conclude that you have read all posts in a thread that has at least 100 posts is for it to keep a tally of what URLs you have visited within the thread. After you have visited all of the URLs in the thread, the process of awarding the badge is initiated and completed. When there are some short posts at the end of a thread, it is possible to read the last one without its URL appearing the address bar. However, there is a remedy for this.

Note that when you have scrolled past the first post in a thread, and it has scrolled off the top of the window, the URL in the address bar ends with a number, a slash, and then a final number. The first of those two numbers is the sequential number of the thread, and the second one is the sequential number assigned to the post within that thread. If there are several short posts in your window at the same time, the URL displayed seems to be the one corresponding to the post in the uppermost portion of the window. Therefore, to display the URL of the final post in a thread, you need to scroll up sufficiently to vacate all the preceding posts from the window.

So, @cs16-levi, note that as of this time, the final post in the “Beware: AI Images on inat” thread that you referenced above belongs to you. Its URL is the following:

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/beware-ai-images-on-inat/44346/121

For the system to determine that you have read all the posts in that thread, you must scroll down far enough for that URL to appear in your browser’s address bar. You may even need to scroll past that post.

The tech nerd part of me, and possibly those of a few others here, would be interested in learning of how this works out for you. :slight_smile:

Happy reading!

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part of me finds this issue interesting

Hahaha, the reason I posted this was in fact because I thought it was interesting.

The tech nerd part of me, and possibly those of a few others here, would be interested in learning of how this works out for you. :slight_smile:

I’ve just done so and made sure to watch the url change with every comment and then I scrolled down past the post, which actually didn’t change the url it already loaded as soon as I finished the post. :disappointed_relieved: Sadly, I still don’t have the badge, but it was fun to read the same comments for the fifth time ;)

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Sometimes there is a delay before a badge appears. Let’s check back in an hour or so …

The suspense builds …

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Hmmm … I just noticed what seems to be a gap in the sequence of URLs in the thread of interest. Try visiting this address:

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/beware-ai-images-on-inat/44346/5

Note that there is a post number 4 and a post number 6. There probably had been a post number 5 that was subsequently deleted. Could it be that the system won’t issue the Reader badge without your visiting the missing URL? If so, that should probably be considered a bug. But this is nourishing food for a tech nerd. :wink:

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Are you suggesting to read the topic from that link? If so I have done that. Also, it has been almost an hour since I read it and still nothing. https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/reader-badge-not-being-given/49670/10?u=cs16-levi

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No, I’m just trying to identify a possible bug in the system that might make it impossible for someone to achieve Reader status even when they have read every existing post in this thread. If the post numbered 5 was deleted, you can’t read it, and that’s obviously not your fault. It disappoints me to be unable to find a solution to this problem.

EDIT:

By the way, I believe there are no missing posts in the thread What’s your least favorite taxa to see while iNatting?. The final URL there is number 113, which might be the locking of the thread at the very bottom. :wink:

EDIT (March 20, 2024):

I now see that the final URL in that thread ends with 115. The status of the hypothesis that a gap in the sequencing of post numbers in a thread may present a challenge to the granting of a Reader badge via reading that entire thread remains uncertain to me. At this time I will leave it to others to provide additional insight regarding this issue.

To all readers of this forum, best wishes for happy reading go to you, regardless of whether or not you are pursuing the challenge of a Reader badge. There is much content worth reading here in threads both short and long, whether they contain only a single post or as many as 1699 posts (for example, the “What is your Favorite Lifer from this week?” thread). :book:

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Congratulations, you got it!

Welcome to the Readers club. :book: :book: :book:

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