I know this has been a popular topic over the last year or two, and a ton has been written, but I have no idea what's good or bad since I've never incorporated those sorts of elements into something I was working on.

I don't necessarily want thinks labeled as gamification, since that is pretty new and a lot of the techniques have been around much longer.

I'd really appreciate any links to articles, books, sites, HN threads, or software (esp. written in python!) that you think would be helpful.

To start things off, I've been looking at (but can't vouch for): - AskBot, a StackExchange clone ( https://github.com/ASKBOT/askbot-devel )

- Badgeville. seems like they know what they're doing, but I was a bit sketched out by having to give them contact info to find out more than superficial details. ( http://www.badgeville.com/ )

- https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/About -- This is interesting, although I may have privacy concerns which would keep me from integrating it.

- FourSquare -- I just signed up since I hadn't been using it, and it seems to be the poster child for making things into a game

Again, any help would be appreciated!