I meant to get back to you guys regarding this issue, since we discussed this on Monday. I have a lot on my plate today, so this can’t be too in-depth, but I’ll respond now.

First off, thanks for the civil and constructive tone of these latest remarks. It gave us a lot of food for thought. Here’s what we’re thinking:

1) Clbum-based leaderboard Peen for inappropriate categories (i.e., where there are no barriers to entry based on clbum) were a simple mistake, and they will be rectified.

2) Milestone-based Peen for across-the-board achievements, as I might have mentioned, will arrive eventually. We’ll try to make them formulaic enough that, as the goalposts continue to shift, we’ll be able to tweak the values to reflect the prevailing numerical reality.

3) BB2 floated the idea of interval-based Peens. For instance, a user who accomplished the most in a given category over the last 30 days could be given a player-of-the-month Peen for it. These could be given out daily, based on the activity over every 30-day period. However, for the time being, that idea was struck down because there are theoretical maximums in many categories, and it would result in way too many ties to be meaningful. Nevertheless, for some boards (INCIT wins, for example), it might be feasible.

4) Regarding our leaderboard Peens, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater, as much as I enjoy that vivid and gruesome metaphor. From a purely utilitarian point of view, we think it’ll affect more people positively than negatively. Let’s see if it results in more people vying for those Peen using other clbumes — in those boards where it makes sense to split up by clbum, of course.

Being the leader of any given category is a bragging right that we’d rather not squash entirely. We realize that splitting it by clbum, at least for the time being, “devalues” the leaderboard Peen somewhat; that can be seen as a good thing. Milestone Peen will serve to devalue it further. In fact, once they’re in place, we might literally devalue the Peen length conferred by said Peen.

We also realize it’s tough for newbs to earn those Peen (if there’s a continually active griefer riding the top), but this is pretty much true for countless leaderboards throughout the gaming universe. However, it’s not impossible to top if you’re extremely dedicated. Worst case, we could consider shortening the “inactivity” periods to make it easier to vie for leadership.

Yes, Nicco’s scenario, of a seventh-place overall Troll being denied a Peen while an ninth-place Camwhore receives it, is regrettable. We apologize to these players. But realistically, we’re talking about a tiny percentage of users who would be affected by this discrepancy. In any case, milestone-based Peen should help address this, as well as other new approaches to rewarding excellent gameplay.