Growing Successful Communities

[#1]

Based on user feedback, we are thinking of changing our rank structure to use registration age in place of number of logins for one of the parameters for our ranks.  Does anyone else do this?  If so - how do you name your ranks? 

For example, right now we have users that are Members, Regulars, or Veterans based on their number of logins.  The problem is that the bar was set very low a long time ago and now I don't have a good way to scale it, in addition to the fact that users can and have inflated this metric on purpose. 

I'm trying to figure out what terminology I might use to denote registration age - I like Member and Veteran but Regular doesn't really fit the same mold.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

Thanks,

Laura

[#2]

I use the "number of logins" and minutes online" for the first couple of ranks.

[#3]

Indeed, we also use Minutes online, combined with messages read, in order to unlock the ability for users to give Kudos.

[#4]

I use registration age in some places, but it doesn't mean much in terms of a user's activity. I would only suggest using this if your previous system was being abused. For instance, ours used to be set relating to post count, minutes logged in, and messages read--mainly on post count. People were just spamming nonsense and abusing the system in other ways, so it had to be changed.

If you can use the metrics that give ranks more meaning, then I would certainly suggest that!

[#5]

Registration age is good to use for a time metric because it is the least 'game-able'.  A user can login in over and over to get that count up, but they can't control the passage of time.

I like to use time-based metrics to recognize passive participation. Since a majority of community members are likely to post infrequently if at all, you need to pick a metric that works for them. After all, you want to keep those users as part of your community as well, and seniority is a worthwhile attribute to recognize.

[#6]

Our community has been around for many years and our users do not try to game the system for the most part.  Lucky me, I know!

We use post count as our primary metric and this has worked very well for us.  A secondary metric has always been the number of log ins.  With recent work that we are doing to integrate community activities from other areas of our site into our forum ranks, the users reported that they are not happy with the number of log ins metric and would much prefer registration age as a secondary metric.  I am trying to think of ways to indicate registration age in our ranks.

For example, we currently have "Members" for a low number of logins, "Regulars" and then "Veterans" for a high number of logins.  This is combined with post count and average rating (which is obsolete now) to form a rank name. An example rank name right now is "Proven Active Veteran".

I am interested if anyone uses registration age, do they call it out in their rank names?  Either I was not specific enough in my first question or no one seems to be doing this

Thanks,

Laura

[#7]

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Laura wrote:

I am interested if anyone uses registration age, do they call it out in their rank names?

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We don't specifically call it out...but we have prefixes to the Rank names, like the first step would be "Pligrim", and the next step up is "Super Pilgrim", then "Super Mega Pilgrim". But no, we don't specifically call it out. Are your members clamoring for this to be captured in your Rank? Seems like an odd request.

[#8]

Hi,

Fairly new here as a poster, but have been lurking for awhile.

We recently changed our structure. Depending on how far up the food chain, we use a combination of

*Number of Posts

*Views

*Logins

*Minutes

*Kudos

The logins are set fairly low, and the minutes progress as well as the number of posts, views, and kudos.

[#9]

Hi Laura,

We use:

• Posts
• Logins
• Minutes
• Kudos Received
• Kudos Given
• Accepted Solutions
       AND
• Tags

We chose a metallic structure similar to what Dell uses (since we sell so many diverse products and services) realizing that using a product specific naming convention would not work.  For example:

• Gold
• Silver
• Bronze
• etc.

Cause most people understand the Olympics and what the different metals mean.

Hope this helps.