Points & Rewards

Interesting suggestion. I like it and I think it would work.

As others have mentioned, it acts as an incentive. I think for points to act as an incentive it needs to be transparent and then promoted properly.

For example. There has been some recent discussion over failure of some people not completing Road Tests. Now if it was promoted as part of the road test that a returned road test equates to XX points and if you get and average rating of above average (to ensure quality) then you get an additional Y points then this acts as an incentive to do a good job. Maybe some roadtests get more than others depending on complexity etc.

The amount of points for different things might need a bit of tweaking too. For example, I posted a blog. You get just 15 points (not that I was doing for the points) where I can get the same number points in half the time by doing 3 actions at 5 points each.

So certainly for Road Tests I would like to suggest we push up the value of points and promote on the road test the value gained to encourage more returns. Will definitely encourage more, especially if we have the "sprint" or short leader board.

It has come up before that points are not proportional to the amount of effort expended, and this causes some members to ignore the points system. I would prefer a more proportional system as well. However it isn't quite as bad as it looks at first glance. If you take the time to publish a nice blog, it can result in lots of likes which earn points without any further effort, and these points can continue to accumulate for months. If you have enough great content published on the site, you can earn points on days where you didn't do anything. Another factor is that the number of points you can get by liking other members work are limited, whereas the number of points you can get from other members liking your work is unlimited.

I agree with BigG that the points gained for posting a blog seem rather small, compared with the amount of work involved in writing the blog in the first place.

I also agree with you, Doug, that, hopefully, more points will come later, and usually do.

However, I feel that there ought to be a better balance, with more points awarded for the initial posting - most people like a bit of instant gratification - especially when you consider that a simple reply or comment can often earn a substantial number of like or helpful points.and will have cost a fraction of the effort of a blog.

Finally, when you mark something as helpful, why should you get 10 points for doing so? It would be more appropriate to only get 5, making it the same as liking.

My thoughts

Neil

I agree with BigG that the points gained for posting a blog seem rather small, compared with the amount of work involved in writing the blog in the first place.

I also agree with you, Doug, that, hopefully, more points will come later, and usually do.

However, I feel that there ought to be a better balance, with more points awarded for the initial posting - most people like a bit of instant gratification - especially when you consider that a simple reply or comment can often earn a substantial number of like or helpful points.and will have cost a fraction of the effort of a blog.

Finally, when you mark something as helpful, why should you get 10 points for doing so? It would be more appropriate to only get 5, making it the same as liking.

My thoughts

Neil

I definitely agree that the initial points for a blog should reflect the effort better, but just to illustrate the potential for follow-on points lets use this simple blog as an example.

So far it has been viewed only 213 times which includes multiple times by several members.

It has generated 74 likes for the members who are participating in the discussion. That is 740 points for the comments that were liked and 370 points for the members doing the liking.

It has generated 36 helpfuls which is 360 points for the comments that were helpful and 360 points for the members who clicked helpful.

It has generated 17 comments which is 85 points for replying to a discussion.

This blog was not intended to be a points generating engine, it was investigating the incentive potential provided by the points system, but it still has yielded an opportunity for members to rack up 1,915 points - so far. The originator (me) got around 555 of those points because I was actively thinking about and commenting on all the comments. 500 points for a small blog is way better than the initial points.

This example may be a little unusual in that the members contributing to this discussion are putting a lot of thought into their comments and the number of likes reflects the quality of comments, but it still serves to show that a blog can generate quite a few points just because it is an interesting topic.

I don't publish many discussion blogs like this - maybe one or two per year.....hmmm... maybe I should do more ....

Actually I don't need more points.... I'm just pondering forum issues and participating while building up the nerve to attempt another design project.