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Consumating’s Ill-Fated Point System: Nice Blog Essay

Screenshot - 11_4_2007 , 1_21_06 PM_thumb.png
This is an essay relevant to DC and other similar internet communities.  It speaks to the danger of setting up a points-based reward and punishment system, in terms of using such a thing to improve community content.

One of the things that I tell people who want to build an audience for their website is that they have to figure out a way to continually reward the people they recruit. The short story is, it is not very important what your reward is - it could be points, stickers or a nice warm feeling in your belly - as long as it feels rewarding to the members to do something that you want them to do.

I will below provide the story of Consumating’s ill-fated point system as a sort of counter-example to how you should design your own. We built a point system into Consumating because we thought giving direct feedback to people about their conduct on the site would encourage them to be nice to one another - you get a thumbs up when you are nice (treat!), and a thumbs down when you are a douche (electric shock!). It worked dramatically well in that aspect, and gave our members everything they needed to police themselves, punish trolls, and create a vibrant and unique culture. In virtually all other aspects, however, it caused serious problems.
..
The primary problem with Consumating points was that they did not actually give incentive to the members to do anything valuable.
..

http://benbrown.com/...y-chicken-wire-mommy

posted by mouser donate to mouser
discovered on http://waxy.org
(permalink) (read 13 comments)


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