Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 27 replies
  • Subscribers 635 subscribers
  • Views 1901 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Points & Rewards

dougw

I am always trying to think of ways to increase forum participation...

The points system is one of the reward systems on the forum.

For some members it doesn't mean much, but for some it is quite satisfying to reach the various point levels.

It is also a type of participation leaderboard, but to get to the top of the leaderboard currently requires amassing points at a significantly higher rate than the current leaders, and maintaining that pace for a long time. This is not really feasible for most, so it diminishes the incentive to try to top the leaderboard.

I think a useful way to increase the incentive provided by the points system would be to create a shorter term leaderboard - say points accumulated in the last 60 days. This would allow new members to have the possibility of making it onto the leaderboard. For those who find it to be an incentive to appear on the leaderboard, it would increase participation on the forum.

It is probably non-trivial to keep track of running totals for each member, but it may be similar to metrics already used to quantify forum momentum or it may have value along the lines of quantifying forum performance, in addition to providing more incentive to participate.

Are there other ways to leverage the points system to incentivize increased participation?

Parents

  • I like the old liner from Who's Line Is It Anyway: "the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter".

     

    The point thing and leader-board is nice and all, but there are, or will be, folks that will just click away and post a comment everywhere just to boost their rating.  Just because someone is at the top of a points list does not mean they are any better or more knowledgeable than a person with less points.  It just means they more than likely spend more time in the forum posting than another.  However, I guess for some this is important.

Reply

  • I like the old liner from Who's Line Is It Anyway: "the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter".

     

    The point thing and leader-board is nice and all, but there are, or will be, folks that will just click away and post a comment everywhere just to boost their rating.  Just because someone is at the top of a points list does not mean they are any better or more knowledgeable than a person with less points.  It just means they more than likely spend more time in the forum posting than another.  However, I guess for some this is important.

Children
  • in reply to jomoenginer

    That is a good "point". Points don't indicate performance, knowledge, effort, or quality of one member versus another. They really don't provide any measure that can be used to compare members in any way, not even how active they are. The same point totals could be achieved by just liking content or by just commenting on content, or by just creating content. The number of points does not indicate what was done or contributed to collect those points.

    Points can indicate to you what your participation level is relative to your participation style - a personal tally. If a member is very selective about what they like or comment on, their points will reflect how relevant the content is to them. If a member likes all content where the author spent significant time producing the blog, then their points total is more a reflection of how much effort is going into content.

    It might be interesting to find out what different members use as criteria for "liking" content. I am sure there is quite a range of criteria.