Rolling points?

[Former Member]

What about introducing the concept of rolling points?

As in, you get to keep points for up to 12 months but after that they drop off? (but perhaps they could be kept in a 'lifetime points' category, so you'd have 'current points' and 'lifetime points').

This would:

1. Encourage newbies (such as me) to contribute knowing that I have some chance of mixing it with the 'early adopters'. I think Thomas is way up there on over 6500 points at the moment, and thats a lot of good forum answers for me to contemplate (given my one blog effort seems to have been given the gong, how do I get points for that?).

2. It would keep people coming back to make sure their points tally ticks along rather than resting on their laurels (heaven forbid).

3. The lifetime points category would mean that long termers wouldn't be discouraged by disappearing points.

What say you?

[Former Member]

Hello Brad,

The moment you say 12 months, somebody else is going to say 6 months and the idea of setting this time frame becomes rather debatable.

And if this idea is to be considered seriously, instead of getiing your current points' tally to ZERO at the end of 12 months (and putting all those points in the lifetime achievement), it is more practical for people to expect the points earned in the last 12 months, that would keep getting updated everytime points are earned.

Also, most of the top contributors have earned most of their points in less than the last 12 months. For instance, Craig had earned about 2300 points in just the last 30 days!! so people like me (us???) would anyways be at the bottom of the list

And I have realized that if you want to really want to make it to the top, merely answering forum posts will not do. Otherwise Craig would have had to get 230 10-pointers in the last 30 days!! I daresay, that is not likely at all.

The gold-mines are with weblogs / technical articles etc.,

Good Luck.

Regards,

Anand Mandalika.

[Former Member]

Hi Anand,

> And if this idea is to be considered seriously,

> instead of getiing your current points' tally to ZERO

> at the end of 12 months (and putting all those points

> in the lifetime achievement), it is more practical for

> people to expect the points earned in the last 12

> months, that would keep getting updated everytime

> points are earned.

This is exactly what I was proposing. Thats what the concept of rolling points means. Points could drop off after they become older than 12 months. So points earned on April 28 2005, would drop off on April 28, 2006. (although if you earned points on Feb 29 you could keep them for 4 years)

I know lots of people have earned their points recently, so the rolling effect would not have a large impact today, but if you join SDN in 4 years time, are points going to motivate you? Not if you need 50,000 to be in the top 1000. You'd probably just give it a miss.

Brad

[Former Member]

Hi guys,

I think SDN is on the right track now, they just need to bump the tab order of the new "Top Contributors" section around and show the "Last 30 Days" points first and leave the "Overall" at the end.

Most of my points come from weblogs, articles and my participation with presentations at SAP TechEd and SDN Meets Labs.

In a given month though there's a good chance I may only get 30 to 120 points and most likely it's because I wrote a weblog. In which case that Last 30 days is a nice thing for "newbies" to see first off.

You guys should check out my "Challenge" it's a great reason to write a weblog and win something

/people/sap.user72/blog/2005/04/27/challenge-are-you-ready

Everyone that particpates gets points for the weblog they write and a winner walks away with something nice to boot.

[Former Member]

Hi Craig,

> I think SDN is on the right track now

I'd say the same thing if my business card said: "Total Points: 7493". [Just kidding ]

Not sure I'm up for the challenge, but I'll try and get some more blogs together. I been thinking that perhaps I could do something about the mysterious Miraculix (we call him Getafix in English). If you don't know what I'm talking about then look out for a blog from me in the coming days (early next week latest).

Brad

[Former Member]

You've got my attention already So I'll be watching for the blogs!

[Former Member]

Hi Craig,

Did you perhaps have some inside info on this one...

I guess I can close this off now.

Brad

[Former Member]

With the new "Top Contributors" listing I'd say SDN has heard the users and let's see how things work from here on out

[Former Member]

Hi Brad,

I have started contributing to SDN for about 2 months and i am upto 2000 points. Mark Finnern and his team does a great job assigning points. Your points for weblog will eventually show up..it takes about 2-3 weeks. There are plenty of weblogs which get posted every month. Your ideas are great and i think it would be great if SDN implements it. I think Thomas,Craig and Detlev do deserve to be up there because they have been contributing for so long and maybe SDN could start a hall of fame sort of thing where it shows most contributors along with their picture.