I don't believe that getting all the dots around a comment or around a post gets you a badge (although it might figure somehow into mk's secret formula. The dots just let you know that you are appreciated (comments) or shared (posts). A post/comment will only get a badge if someone deeply appreciates it. And what do "badges" do?
You feel smart and appreciated for a few seconds and then get on with your day secretly hoping you can enrich people's lives again someday in the future. It's very unusual, but theadvancedapes was doubly badged recently. He was made king.
Ok, so the dots are just semi-arbitrary indicators of a posts "usefulness/appeal." That's pretty cool!
And also, more importantly, the dots tell you how many times a submission of yours has been shared. If I post something and only my (few) followers see it, but then thenewgreen "upvotes" or shares it, all of his followers will see it on their feed. So if you post something good, it's built into the system that more people will see it -- like reddit. But unlike reddit it's not based on the quantity of people who share your post, it's based on these sharers' quality, as it were. (How many people think they share things worth reading.)
So the value of your shares is based upon the amount which the sharer has, in turn, been shared? That sounds a lot like PageRank, Google's ranking algorithm, which ranks pges based upon the number of relevant inbound links from pages which in turn have a high PageRank. (tip: to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion)
That's an awesome bit of information to know about, and paints a better picture of how hubski works. Thank you for sharing that!
Well said lil. The dots are indicators of a post/comments appeal or usefulness. You can equate it to an "up vote" if that helps. As you receive more of these on your posts/comments your hubwheel beneath your name in the upper left hand corner begins to populate. Once its made a full rotation, you receive a "badge to give". This means that you can "give" a badge to one of your fellow hubskiers in appreciation of a post or comment. You can't see it now, but once you have a badge to give there will be a +! next to each post and comment that you click in order to give the badge. If you are interested in sourcing some cool content from past posts, I recommend clicking on "badges" under the "discover" tab on the left. Let me know if you have any more questions and welcome to Hubski!
Hey I was double badged ages before theadvancedapes! http://hubski.com/pub?id=22781 In fact, my first badge was actually two badges which made every subsequent single badge a disappointment.
LOL! thenewgreen I'm breaking down...I think its time to make those shirts!
Not sure how I missed this. That shirt is hilarious but I still want one that says "I know insomniasexx".