Co-Mods, if you need to edit this post, you'd have to temporarily raise the # of images and/or emoticons allowed per post. That setting's in the forum admin panel. Please revert to the previous number when you're done editing this. Thanks!

Curious about the hats, badges and/or monkey images that appear under some Portkey-ers' forum avatars?
RELATED TOPICS:
Portkey Award graphics - more images that appear under many members' forum avatars
Portkey Moderating Teams past and present - dynamic lists

NOTE JUN 8 2008: We've put the mod hats back, yahoo!!!! Have added explanations for the Art hat plus the group badges, which Bec made recently. I've also linked those hats to this post. - gal-texter


Purpose of M Hat Images? How to identify Portkey Mods?

I got a PM from a Portkeymate today. Her question was NOT silly at all. I figured I'd copy it here as others must be wondering the same thing.

Dec 2004 Private Message from a Portkey member to myself:

I was browsing around Portkey and I have been noticing that the little picture icons under our user names have been changing.

What are all the different colored hats for?

They don't link to anything, as far as I can tell, and not everyone has them. I've seen red, green, and purple, with "talk", "fic", and "chat" under them......it seems it should be self explanatory, but I'm just in ditz mode or something, and I am confused.

Thanks in advance for filling me in!

EDIT JUN 2008: I'm slightly editing my original answer to that 2004 PM.


The hat + badgecombination will tell you which Portkey-ers are:

- part of the Portkey (PK) mod team staff (including admins);
- on active duty or on RL leave, so to speak;
- which sections they are/were assigned to.

The badges (graphics below our avatars) indicate which staffers are on active duty or on RL leave. All mods on temp or permanent RL leave have the Guarding Muggle Minister badge.

Any other badge + hat combo means that PK-er is on pretty much active duty, although some keep very low profiles in the forums as they work mostly behind the scenes. Also, mods may switch from an active duty badge to a Guarding Muggle Minister one and back, depending on their RL.

The hats indicate which PK section does that staffer handle or has handled at some point, as explained below.


Significance of hats:
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• "fic" - given to a Portkey Moderator (Mod) in the Fanfic Archive; i.e, handles author applications;
  
  
• "talk" - given to a Portkey Mod for the Forums;
  
  
• "chat" - given to a Portkey Mod for the Chat section
  
  
• "art" - given to a Portkey Mod for the Fanart Gallery and its earlier incarnation, PK Media
  
  
• "recs" - given to a Portkey Mod for the Fic Recommendations section
  
  
• monkey - given to the techies who've done some techie work for the site. More information here.

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The caps and hats were primarily intended to make Mods easier to identify, in the hope that it will promote staff-to-staff and member-to-staff communication. Many mods have two or more caps.



CREDITS:

• Mod Badges: Basic designs by PurEvil of Invisionize.com
  
• Mod Hats designed by: Imran aka NAPPA and/or James
  
• Some Mod Hats modified by: Harry/Hermione 4eva and Jorael
  
• With Advice and Suggestions from: PhoenixWriter
  
• For Portkey Mods' Amusement: history of mod hats and badges

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Co-Mods, if you need to edit this post, you'd have to temporarily raise the # of images and/or emoticons allowed per post. That setting's in the forum admin panel. Please revert to the previous number when you're done editing this. Thanks!

Curious about some graphics that appear under people's avatars?
RELATED TOPIC: Moderating Team graphics - M hats, badges, monkey


Portkey Award graphics:
edited early Feb 2009

We've awarded graphics on the forum posts for many Portkeyers who've voluntarily and frequently assisted PK or its members in some way or have done much to make Portkey a fun place.
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• piggy banks - given to Portkey's cash sponsors, without whose donations there would be no Portkey! *worshippy* Note that some donors have opted not to show any piggy bank image.
  
  
• <-- As helpful as Hermione.
  For people who've voluntarily assisted Portkey or Portkeyers in plenty of things, not particularly focused on a specific area. Examples: have coordinated and/or served as judges in one of our contests or have been guiding PK-mates in navigating the site.
  EDIT Oct 2009: We're also starting to give this award to people who've offered to be beta readers. Some of our staff deserve award for being helpful way before they've joined our roster.
  
  
• <-- for those who've made plenty of reviews (esp. insightful ones) in our fanfic or fanart section. Flames don't count.
  
  
• <-- for those who've lent their artistic talents to Portkey or its members &/or have made fanart tutorials for PK and/or have approved artist accounts in our fanart gallery;
  
  
• <-- for those who've posted many essays or well-thought out theories here in Portkey. Say, at least 2 or 3 well-received essays, or one that's extremely well-received and is often cited until now;
  
  
• <-- This guy's a detective. We displayed this image for those who've entered 10 or more rec-compliant fics in our fic recommendations database and/or have consistently assisted Portkey-ers in our Lost & Found - HP fanfics area.
  
  
• <-- for those who've made us laugh with their jokes, fics, art, vids, HP quizzes, or games (mostly in our Exploding Snap! area).
  
  
• <-- Troll Wrestlers Army "knights", ie, those who welcome Portkey newbies or returnees
  
  
• <-- for those who've won our official PK contests such as for fanfiction or poetry writing
  
  
• <-- for those whose work was nominated by other members in our official PK contests.
  
  
• click on it to see which of that PK-er's fics have been recommended by other PK-ers!
  
  NOTE to awardees: we haven't used an exact search for this field in order to make it display stories you co-wrote with other people. If you'd like to see other rec-engine entries added to or removed from the resulting page, then please contact us recs mods, ie, those of us with "Recs" hats + active-duty badge. See explanations down this page about hat+badge combos.

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Because these graphics consume bandwidth and other site resources, we compromise by disabling some board features such as this, restricting guests (people not logged in) from reading topics in most PK forums (but they can still read the topic titles), and enforcing sig and avatar rules.



CREDIT FOR THE "AWARDS" IDEA:

These graphics sort of revive NAPPA's Dec 2003 idea to give awards to certain Portkey members. Portkey mods can read more about the awards' history here. Those original awards were displayed in a pop-up though.



HOW TO SUGGEST OTHER SMILEYS:

If you guys can suggest better emoticons for the awards, feel free to tell us by email or PM or posting here in Forums Help. To save on resources, the graphics need to be as small as as these ones and must not be animated (ie, show movement).



WHY DON'T SOME PK-ERS HAVE THESE GRAPHICS?

REASON 1: We've only started displaying these graphics for the people concerned, so please don't be offended if we haven't displayed them for you YET or others you know! We'd appreciate it if you could let us know (by posting here or by email or PM) which deserving Portkeyers haven't gotten these "awards" yet. Please give us their member ID # (here in the forums) or the link to their forum profile.
We'd especially welcome nominees for the award as we've always encouraged people to give constructive feedback about our fanfics and fanart.


REASON 2: Many PK mods don't have these award graphics as we have the M hats instead (explained below). Majority of us became mods precisely because we've been doing these things before we joined the mod team.

However, we've displayed graphics for some mods who've done these things outside their assigned areas.

EDIT FEB 21 2009: On second thought, we might display these graphics for PK staff to give everyone an idea of the roles they've played in PK. However, keep in mind that some roles demand much more time and/or skill than others, which leaves many PK staff with little time to do other tasks. Hence, some staff might have fewer award graphics than others.

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I just reliased I had a little Hermione icon in my profile. I think I am going to cry with happiness!! lol!

I love PK as much as my home at SCQ!!! <3 all around

Yep, you got it for volunteering in the POTM project.

As for the thumbs up icon, I first tried an exact search for that but it wouldn't include your collaboration story, so I've used a less than exact search to work around that issue. It would mean less work for us rec mods too -- don't have the eloquence to explain it atm.

hey that is so cool and cute at the same time!!!

thanks

OME![/b] I have this icon in my profile! I saw it just now! *squeals*. I'm so... this feels... I didn't... How did... *squeals again!!*

Portkey!