- dibbs089
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- Elder Mythic Member
I think there are a few really proven ways to add value to an account.
The first is straight up paying for it. If you invest money into something (so the theory goes) you're less likely to behave in a way that will damage or destroy the thing you paid for. I'm certainly not in favor of this option but it is a proven way to add value to something.
The second would be increased features for amount of time invested (for this website I would imagine a second clause would be "within a set standard of behavior and/or history of contribution"). I believe this way is the best solution to the account value problem here. Titles bars have been attempting to fulfill this purpose for a while (and are, imo, moderately effective in adding value to an account) but they aren't exactly privileges as much as they are just identification badges. With this option you tread a thin line. On one hand you want users to come into this website and not have to jump through hoops to get integrated, but on the other hand you want longtime, loyal members to get that extra something. One way to address this is to keep posting privileges exactly how they are now for anyone who joins, but long time members would gain access to things that we have been asking for (sent box, ignore feature, no anti-spam filter, etc - just something that will add that something "extra" to accounts that you wouldn't otherwise have).
The third way would be a combination of the first two, that is paying for those extra features. The best comparison I can use is the SA forums where if you pay money, you can get rid of advertisements, and edit other user's posts (I believe there are other features you get for paying as well but since I'm not a member, I don't know what the are). This isn't really the best of ideas imo, because users can choose whether or not they want to add value to their accounts or not as opposed to having it built into the system (via increasing rewards or paying to have any access at all).
The fourth is what Foman suggested; that is providing some piece of unique identification in order to register so that alt accounts become much more difficult to create. I think this is the best way to prevent the negatives which arise when accounts don't have much value, but that it is not as good of a way to actually add value to accounts as option two is.