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):
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.
