Regarding medals, the rules are simple:
- The first person to report any kind of idea/bug which makes it into the game receives a medal.
- If I list a bug as fixed but it’s still broken, the person who first reports it can get a (2nd) medal.
- You can only get a medal for bugs present in the publicly released version.
Now, I fully understand that not all contributions are equal. I originally considered adding different medals for different levels of contributions (e.g. “trivial” for typos, “standard” for one-line fixes, “major” for game-breaking bugs or new content, etc.). However, that opens the floodgates for debates about should and shouldn’t go in each category (especially borderline cases). As it stands, it’s sometimes not even clear-cut whether I should award a bug or idea medal.
I’d rather not over-complicate the medal-awarding process. It’s time-consuming enough as it is. In my opinion, the benefits of simplification outweigh the drawbacks (mis-sorting, farming).