Identify the positive contributions you want members to make and reward them with points. Points highlight the top members, points establishing an element of competition. Points let you create awards like newcomer of the month, member of the year etc…
Points should lead to levels. Levels like newcomer, member, regular, expert and VIP. Levels give members specific motivations to earn more points. A member that needs just 10 more points to move up a level is likely to be active.
Levels bond members within their community groups. These levels should be clearly visible on every member’s profile and every comment they post. Each level should require twice as many points as the previous level (at minimum). Levels should lead to increasing recognition and power. Every increase in level thus offers greater reward.
For example, you might only mention individual members in your news updates whom are regulars and above. You might only interview members whom are experts and VIPs. You might only share power and admin access with members at VIP levels.
Quick warning. Never add too many game mechanics into your community at one time. Introduce one element at a time. Points. Then levels. Then stars, comment counters etc…
if you are interested in reputation patterns, head over to yahoo: http://yhoo.it/cwar9M
Posted by: Marco Unternährer | Monday, 06 September 2010 at 12:47
Hi Richard,
I agree that levels can be used to motivate community members. Randy Farmer's "Web Reputation Systems" has a great discussion of the various important choices. Read the section here: http://bit.ly/bNDylc
But beware of leaderboards for non-competitive communities. If done poorly (without expertise and continuous tweaking), the can be negative.
Yours, Marc in San Jose
Posted by: Marcsiegel | Monday, 06 September 2010 at 16:18
There's lots of mechanics you can use - whatever's appropriate to your context or community. Yahoo's Design Patterns cover some of them, there are others here: http://www.bunchball.com/nitro/components/
Rajat Paharia
Founder, Chief Product Officer
Bunchball: http://www.bunchball.com
Posted by: Bunchball | Tuesday, 07 September 2010 at 05:20