- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: SketchFactor
I know exactly what you mean and this is something we've been kicking around for a while... how do we "reward" our longstanding members who contribute positively to our site? Avatars could be one way of doing that. This idea is one thing on our long list of stuff we'd love to do someday. Unfortunately it's not quite that easy...anything I dream up, Achronos has to figure out how to actually implement. =) What other stuff do you think would be cool?
For example - a "private" forum, only accessible by members who achieve a certain rank? The ability to use color signatures? Special avatars? Special titles?
The tricky part is also creating and managing the system that decides who is what "rank." While being a member for X days, months or years is certainly part of it, it's not the whole picture. We want people who are contributing - making worthwhile forum posts, helping people out, submitting news and are just active in general on the site - making our overall community a better place.
I think that such rewards for meaningful and positive contributors to these forums is a wonderful idea. In terms of how to go about choosing such individuals, maybe it can be done in a trustworthy, downstream effect.
For instance, there are moderators of these forums that have been chosen by Bungie, correct? Therefore, I think they would also be the perfect candidates to choose these meaningful and positive forum contributors for rewards. (I think this idea might work best if they're volunteers and not paid Bungie employees because this might be extra work that might not be considered "productive" enough for their paychecks, but that's just a wild assumption.)
I also think this job, for the forum moderators, can be broken down further like this.
If this might be too much for already-in-place forum moderators to handle, maybe the current moderators can have two categories. They can choose positive contributors (who receive special benefits), but then they can also choose positive contributors who can in turn choose other positive contributors to receive these rewards.
So you can almost think of it like this.
Tier 1: Bungie employees
Tier 2: Forum moderators
Tier 3: Meaningful and positive forum contributors (who in turn can choose Tier 4 individuals)
Tier 4: Meaningful and positive forum contributors (they just receive the positive contributor benefits, but cannot choose others)
Obviously, Tier 1 people can choose Tier 2, Tier 3, or Tier 4 people. Tier 2 can choose Tier 3 or Tier 4 people. And Tier 3 people can choose Tier 4 people. Maybe you can even give the Tier 3 people a set, or limited, number of people they can choose, just to keep things under control. And, of course, Tiers 1 and 2 can remove Tier 3 or 4 people at any time. I wouldn't think because of a sudden lack of contribution, but maybe for mis-behavior.
Sound like kind of a good idea? =) Maybe?