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In 2011, the Gaming Stack Exchange hosted an event called Hat Dash, where users earned "hats" for their gravatars by completing certain tasks (analogous to badges):

enter image description here

Certain actions would trigger the user receiving a hat, which their gravatar could then "wear". For example, editing a post would yield an editor-themed hat (fedora with pen) to the editor.

This year, Stack Exchange is expanding the promotion to any site that wants to participate.

Here's the run down:

  • The event will run from 19 December 2012 to 4 January 2013.
  • Users will be able to see their entire hat collection on http://winterba.sh. That site will also have a landing page, explaining the rules and other details of the event.
  • Individual users who don’t want to participate, don’t want to see hats, and/or are generally anti-hat will have an "I hate hats" option available..
  • The only visual change to the site itself will be the presence of the hats and the "I hate hats" button in the footer.

We need to let Stack Exchange know by 28 November 2012, so vote away on if you want hats.

We have told Stack Exchange that we want hats. We will be getting hats to wear.

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  • 1
    Yes, I wan't a hat! Can we have a 'scout' like hat where you have your badges 'pinned' to it? That'd be cool
    – Deco
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 2:07
  • 9
    Wow, it's like badges, only…the same? :)
    – user4051
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 9:33
  • @GrahamLee Hats are badges you can wear! (Erm, um, that your gravatar can wear.)
    – Laura Staff
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 14:57
  • Wowsers, I can let others have hats and not see them if I don't want to? Totally makes sense, so I'll have to vote against it....
    – user53019
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 15:57
  • You can think of these as transient badges. The time-limits enable criteria that would be problematic for badges (many things that can be somewhat challenging to achieve in two weeks become trivial in a month or a year).
    – Shog9
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 17:46
  • When do we get our hats!? :P
    – Dynamic
    Commented Dec 17, 2012 at 23:03
  • @Dynamic On the 19th - Wednesday.
    – Thomas Owens Mod
    Commented Dec 17, 2012 at 23:13
  • 1
    Today is Dec 29 - And the notice "Winter Bash" ending in 6 days caught my eye. How could it be ending in 6 days. In Maine we just had our 2nd snow storm and many more to come until at least until end of March. How are you able to say winter bash ends in 6 days? It has just begun.
    – שינתיא אבישגנת
    Commented Dec 30, 2012 at 2:05

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Yes, we want hats. We like hats and we like to wear hats.

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  • 9
    I'd be more inclined to agree if this wasn't a blatant lie, the fellow who answered this question clearly has far too formal a dress-code to ever have worn a hat. In the words of ash, it's a trick, get an axe.
    – Jimmy Hoffa
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 2:29
  • 1
    @JimmyHoffa The night the picture was taken, I was totally rocking a fedora. I wonder if any of those pics are on the Internet anywhere...
    – Thomas Owens Mod
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 19:02
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(I realize this may be a bit late)

There is a meta post about changing the background to something more professional. There are meta posts about the word 'professional' in faqs and site charters. The underlying theme with all of the posts and others (denied (for technical reasons) or otherwise) is a desire for more professional related questions.

When taking the above into consideration, the answer to "do we want to wear hats" should a simple "no."

In trying to present a more professional appearance, we should avoid changes that lead to a less professional one.

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    Changing the background of the site has been status-declined by Stack Exchange. In addition, other sites geared toward professionals have opted in - I believe The Workplace, Electrical Engineering, and IT Security have (or have strong community support) for opting in. Note that it's a temporary thing. Based on overwhelming support for opting in here (+22/-2), we have already signaled our intent to participate to Stack Exchange.
    – Thomas Owens Mod
    Commented Nov 16, 2012 at 18:13
  • @ThomasOwens I understand the graphic redesign was declined. However, the reasoning behind the request had to do with the appearance of professionalism on P.SE.
    – user40980
    Commented Nov 16, 2012 at 19:41
  • 1
    And, you know, you can shut it off. It's not mandatory. And I believe the default is that you have to opt-in.
    – casperOne
    Commented Nov 23, 2012 at 17:13
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Warning: Shameless self-promotion alert

Little ole me won the leaderboard for hats on P.SE!

enter image description here

Woo-hoo!!!

And now we have the link to see how everyone else did. Summary stats indicate that:

1,489 users from this site have earned a total of 2,857 hats!

Pretty cool for a little bit a fun.

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