Yeah this is the crux of the "problem" with the hardcore streak. There might be very valid reasons you skip a day or two. But it's hard to define what exactly that middleground is.

Thanks for sharing 🙌

One the one hand the streak is just a number in a database, but on the other hand it also represents all the hard you put in over the years and the consistency with which you did so.

So I think it makes a lot of sense that you grow an attachment to that number and so it hurts when you lose it.

I think those are the two sides to the metaphorical streak coin. It motivates you to keep going and the longer you keep going, the more invested you get, and so the power powerful that sense of commitment becomes.

But when you do eventually lose it, it has the opposite effect. It's really discouraging and based on anecdotal observations it seems like many members kinda start to tune out of WIP after that. It just seems like an insurmountable mountain to get back to that number.

That's why I'm considering alternatives to the current streak system. Not necessarily to replace it, but something to augment that hardcore easy-to-loose streak with something more forgiving.

A karma system is an interesting idea, but implementations always seem rather arbitrary to me. If completing a todo gives you +10 points, how much would a comment be? Etc.

But perhaps I'm overthinking it, and it's not about getting it exactly right. Just reward people for doing cool stuff in the community.

I'll give it some thought the coming weeks. I do like the idea of badges for concrete achievements. Getting the top streak. Losing your first streak. Adding your 5th project. Etc.

I considered cheat days (duolingo calls them "streak freezes") but they raise a bunch of additional questions like how do you earn them, how often can you use them, are they enabled by default or not, etc.

Not necessarily unanswerable questions for any individual, but I think hard to find something that works well for a majority of the group.

For example many members have a regular work/life balance, might not work on weekends so they'd need to be able to skip at least 2 days a week. And then they still don't have any flexibility to miss a work day.

Whereas for other people skipping 2 days in a week might be considered an unproductive week.

So while I like the idea of having a cheatdays (as it seems like many other members do based on the number of likes your comments got), I do wonder when it comes down to actual implementation if there's enough overlap between how people would want to see it specifically implemented. Maybe I'll run a poll to find out.

Yes, has having a user-defined difficulty level might be the way to go.

The main drawback is that it introduces conceptual complexity. It makes it harder for new members to understand what a streak is, how to get one, etc.

The credits where you can miss a day (or "streak freezes" as Duolingo calls them) raise some additional questions like how many do you get, how often can you use them, etc.

I might settle on having two streak systems. The current hardcore one (lose a day and it resets), and the more forgiving one (skip a day and it decreases by 1).

I love a good steak too! 🥩

I charge in USD and have Stripe deposit the revenue in USD to my USD-denominated bank account. Despite my business being based in Singapore where they typically use SGD.

I think Stripe only supports this for a handful of countries however. For most countries Stripe only supports depositing in the local currency.

I wouldn’t overcomplicate things and just start using one from the list you mentioned.

As people use it or you try to implement it you’ll get a better idea of what you want out of an editor. Then you can adjust if needed.

For me SEO is the biggest driver of traffic by far. But it took me a few years to grow the domain authority (backlinks, etc) to a reasonable level. Then again, I'm by no means an SEO expert so if you got an experienced person on your team to handle that I expect it will go a lot quicker.

Seriously though, whenever you feel like it’s getting out of control just start closing them.

If you think you might need the page later (you probably won’t) just bookmark it. I use “Reading List” in Safari which means I just need to hit a button and it’s saved. Then I can close the tab and always come back to it later.

Also keep in mind that you should be able to find the page again using history search.

If you’re concerned you might forget about the page, ask yourself if it’s truly important? Time is limited. You probably don’t have time to visit those 100 pages in the future. New tasks and tabs will crop up. If it’s important you will remember.

If you absolutely must, save the URL somewhere in your todo system and close the tab.

Don’t use browser tabs as a todo list. Unless you want to. In which case having 100 open tabs should be fine and not something to worry about.

Close the tabs