First 14 y/o to appear on the moderation leaderboard?

@ajcooke01 sorry but you are not! That honor belongs to @captainsnowball who achieved that a while back. Is this what is important to you? Reputation points and badges? Really?

@nick at the time when you had all your achievements, you were about the same age weren’t you?

I had to turn on a laptop for this response since I can’t type on my phone. Hopefully this post gets my message across. I will build upon this at a later time, but for now I want to get my initial thoughts out there. This isn’t an attempt to hurt your feelings, but I need to be fairly brutal to get my point across in an effective way.

Even if I did it happened so long ago I'll never remember. I'm not upset about this and my response will make it clear why.

This response is going to tackle 2 topics:

• The value of results over badges and leaderboard placement
• How I feel about it (and why I never tracked this, even back then)

The first (and arguably most important) one to nip in the butt is if I’ve tracked it: NO, I never did. It wasn’t important enough to track for me, even back then.

Why I didn’t track it+my thoughts: The reason I never bothered tracking it because while achievements are great and all (I’m going to sound like an old man, so bear with me) it’s the equivalent to a participation trophy. The trophy behind the accomplishment is meaningless when you do not do anything of value to earn it. A leaderboard spot is about on par with a trophy your parents complained to the school to get you so you don’t feel “left out”. The intention is there, but it doesn’t help the kid (contrary to what the parent thinks). I wouldn’t want something I know I earned because the parent complained loud enough and the school caved. Either way you spin it with participation trophies and unearned ones, they’re both equally worthless. While this example isn’t 1:1 with iFixit accomplishments, it’s basically the same. The accomplishments to be proud of are the ones you actually earn - not a measly leaderboard mention. There’s a difference between a BADGE and LEADERBOARD MENTION.

In the real world, what matters is results; not meaningless accomplishments. The same applies to iFixit; I DO NOT CARE if you end up on a leaderboard because you did enough to get there. I want to see good content and a effort to earn it.

Why I feel results are more valuable then badges and leaderboard mentions: Personally what I look at when I judge someone’s success is 2 things

• Your real world achievements vs. meaningless ones
• The results of said achievements

There’s a huge difference between achievements like getting on a leaderboard and being able to make a successful guide or successfully answer a question in Answers. I value an excellent guide or answer more then a leaderboard spot and that will NEVER CHANGE. Being able to tell someone what they can/cannot do and the extent of their situation (Ex: Laptop liquid damage needing a new mobo and potentially palmrest with a keyboard since they generally don’t survive the spill) is more helpful because the OP knows what they are in for and others who made a similar mistake also know the possible extent of the damage without asking a new question (hopefully). If my answer helps the OP and others in a similar situation and my warnings about cost and complications like a potentially damaged keyboard also needing replacement help more people then just the OP, I’ve made more of an impact then bragging about making it onto a leaderboard.

The results I’ve gotten out of helpful (but brutally honest) answers that will guide the OP through a repair (or be a practical lesson that gets them a parts system) answer are more valuable. This has always been the case and that will never change.

An example of this in action: If you make a guide and fail to do something right, how do you handle it? Do you:

• Pick up your toys and leave
• Figure out what went wrong so you can get it right next time or fix it now
  • Do a major whole guide revision at some point

If you pick up your toys and run without seeing where you went wrong you'll never get better; likewise the person who figures out why will get it right the next time and be successful or have a significantly better chance the next time. The resson for this is since they failed before, they now what to do next time. I use this as an example because a lot of my old guides are terrible. However, a lot of of is things I included for silly reasons (Ex: Hard drive brand reliability warnings) at the time because I felt they were worthwhile years ago. As these things age I even begin to question my intentions and consider it for removal later on if it's just not worth keeping after giving it a 20/20 hindsight checkup.

While that is usually the case and I've revived a lot of them over time (eliminated the killer issue or redid it partially/completely bbecause it was bad and needed a redo), often with the original link. Some just aren't worth trying so I've hidden those until I can properly rework it later as a from scratch restart or never mess with it and look at it as a lesson on not what to do.

I have to say, people were aggressive with their responses.

For me, when I did moderating, it I felt like it was being helpful, I gradually did become one of the top moderators because if I came across a post, whether it had a ridiculous amount of spam answers, I would spend hours doing it.

usually they end up being auto denied because no one would touch the extremely long list of moderation that I left.

being around ifixit did improve my social skills too which is really helpful for me.

I too was surprised to see you on top, but you have been working very hard and your skills are improving every day. A little youthful enthusiasm is to be expected. Keep up the fine work ;-)

Congrats! Maybe not the first but that’s not important, you’re doing an awesome job!

Thanks for your contributions, I know I wasn’t nearly as helpful on the internet in my day!