Tweak the message of the "Member" badge?

I just got the Member badge, and the text of the notification says (emphasis mine):

This badge is granted when you reach trust level 2. Thanks for participating over a period of weeks to truly join our community. You can now send invitations from your user page or individual topics, create group personal messages, and have more likes per day.

The bolded part —especially the “truly join” bit— makes it seem a little elitist, as if users who haven’t earned the badge yet are not recognized as members of the community (The “our community” there doesn’t help either, as it reinforces the us/them distinction).

I realize this does reflect real-world social dynamics, but in the real world there isn’t a well-marked threshold of being a member or not; the transition is more gradual and seamless.

How about something like this?

This badge is granted when you reach trust level 2. Thanks for participating over a period of weeks and engaging more deeply with the community. You can now send invitations from your user page or individual topics, create group personal messages, and have more likes per day.

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On a related note, the system message I got with the promotion could use a little tweaking too:

Congratulations on your trust level promotion!

We’ve promoted you up another trust level!

As an experienced user, you might appreciate this list of handy tips and tricks.

We invite you to keep getting involved – we enjoy having you around.

I don’t think the “promotion” wording is a good way to phrase it, and some of the “we”-based language, especially the last sentence (“we enjoy having you around”) sounds hollow and insincere, since it is an automated message.

Perhaps something that doesn’t attempt to be as personal might work better:

Congratulations on unlocking a new trust level!

You have achieved another trust level!

As an experienced user, you might appreciate this list of handy tips and tricks.

We invite you to keep getting involved – it’s great having you around.

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Yes, I think some of the text needs to be tweaked to reflect that this isn’t a discrete community in itself, it’s a communication tool for the existing OSM community.

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Most wording can be changed from the admin interface but note that it also needs to be updated in every language.

If there are important issues with the current wording my suggestion would be to form a group to:

  • Identify all problematic wording and why/how affects this forum and post it for community discussion.

Once there is agreement and the changes are approved:

  • Come back with a proposal with the changed wording for review.
  • Coordinate the translation of those changes to at least the top 10-12 languages communities use here.

Cheers.

I wouldn’t consider the issues I raised above as critical, nor I am aware of widespread similar issues in other such messages. If anyone is up for forming a task force to review all messages, I’m happy to contribute to the effort within my limited availability, but otherwise I would rather not spearhead such an initiative, as I definitely don’t have the bandwidth or energy to do so at the moment.

So, unless others wish to engage in that larger work, I would ask for just these two messages to be adjusted, as an incremental improvement. I am willing to make the same adjustments in the Portuguese version of the messages, if there is one.

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