Using a Credits System (3 Viewers)

[Senkusha]

I'm not really sure if this is the appropriate place for this topic, but here goes. Credits. There's many different Credits modifications available for various software platforms. Usually, these are attached to some sort of Shop for gamification purposes. And I'm thinking about possibly adding a Credits system to my site as well. But, what benefit could I provide? Like really, why would a member want to generate Credits?

I guess the typical things could be bought, such as profile customizations, but specifically for a creative writing forum, what would the motivation be to use Credits? Maybe I'm just not looking at every possible angle here. On a site such as this one, Credits are used for things like Post Exchanges, maybe graphics work, but unless you can figure out a way to redeem this virtual digital currency for true financial power, most people would just assume not to bother. What am I missing here?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Use credits to gamify your community.

But the trick is choosing a gamification strategy that's appropriate for your target audience or community members based on their biggest needs, challenges, and pain points.

I've considered a credit system on my AAF community. Basically, those with high engagement would earn enough credits to get free generous posting services by me on their forums. Now, I have to make sure when I create new content, it's high quality and engaging on every forum I visit. I want to make sure I have a reputation of being a quality forum poster. That will make a member of forum who owns a forum want me to post on their forum, otherwise why should they be active to get some posts that might be good or might be bad?

This strategy would work on AAF because it's full of forum owners seeking great content on their communities.

Whatever your niche is or your main forum topic, consider how a credit system or gamification feature can be applied to something that your members really want to have and then go from there. But like I said, they're going to need that social proof to trust the credit system. My social proof is my ability to post great content on other forums and my own forums. I show them what they'll get.

 

[Cedric]

I really have nothing more to add than what Shawn said.

It's worth the effort of setting it up. If you can find some cool badges, items to hold and integrate it into your RPG scene, then it's bound to win.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Since your forum is based around roleplaying, why not integrate credits into currency your members can use throughout their journeys? You can have a merchant character keep track of things, like a shop keeper would in a roleplaying game.

 

[Senkusha]

Ever since I began setting up my new forum, I've been thinking about ways to encourage not only finding members excited to be there, but finding ways that would allow those members an extra incentive to contribute. Naturally, being a creative writing forum, writing content is an asset. Many of the role playing directories I'm on, have people looking for members to join their forums. One thought I had was of creating an exchange, and using the virtual tokens that could be redeemed for my time and energy in writing on their platforms. I just need to be sure that I'm comfortable with writing under some of the prerequisites of those other sites. One potential problem with this approach is that any sort of post exchange like this would be short lived. A member racks up some Credits on my site, turns those in for say 30 quality posts, then after I'm done with those, I'd vanish, unless more credits were exchanged, and that's assuming I don't get hooked on their content, which would totally negate the purpose of the gamification on my site to begin with. It's a danger.

I could implement something like the ability to purchase additional Character Slots. A member would have to post to earn say 15 credits to purchase a character to post in. Thinking about this on the fly, I'm not too sure that would work, it sounds like an awful lot of maintenance for me to track. And, I'd have to constantly create other things Players would need. Once a character is created, they're in the game. Maybe I'm not seeing the possibilities in their true depth yet. I'll need to think about this some more. Maybe I could have a "Rewrite the Plot" or something, for like 100 credits, but that could end up being a lot of work too, because if you change the history of a post, every other subsequent post would need to be modified in the chain. Yes, much more thought is needed on this.

 

[Nomad]

I was using credit for my sport forum but after the rebranding, I haven't added back. I was thinking about using credits to allow users to withdraw cash, especially for those with premium membership. I was also using it for gamification, and digital items. sadly, we did not have any sale.

 

[Bawse]

My forum started with a points/credit system. It works for some communities, not all. I felt it was making my forum too over cluttered, and it made my users confused when they didn't know how to use their credits. We no longer use a points system for posts.

 

[Senkusha]

I'm looking at DragonByte Tech's Credits and Shop extensions, and I think I may be onto something.

Credits would allow my members to earn forum currency/tokens by posting... presumably. I'm not really sure how else somebody could earn them, beyond out right purchasing them.
Shop could be configured (and I'm confirming this with the developer) to allow me to automatically increase the user permissions for the Linked Accounts extension. Like 100 credits could earn an additional slot beyond the default of three Regular members get. I also have Advanced Forms on my site. Members could pay to have access to special Character Sheets for specific role playing systems (like D&D or Shadow Run). I'm not sure, but maybe Credits and Shop could also be configured to work with the Media Library (once I can afford it). Finally, if and when I ever finally decide on stuff that I can create/sell, I could use eCommerce and it's been confirmed that Members can make purchases for real world items using Credits. If I can figure this piece out, I think that implementing a Credits system would be very beneficial to my community.