Using Insided Point System to Find Super Users

  • 7 April 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 120 views
daniel.balan

Hi Insided Community!

I am currently working on developing a super user reward program and one of the ways I am thinking of determining who is and who is not a super user, is based on the total number of points they have accumulated. I have looked at most of the communities built on Insided to understand what would be the average points the top 4 super users have - just to get a rough idea. The average numbers that I came up with are around:

Nr.1 - 11K points

Nr. 2 - 8K points

Nr.3 - 4k points

Nr.4 - 3k points

Now one of the challenges in building a Super User Reward track based on the point system - and using other communities as references is the point system is customizable. So in that regard I would like to ask fellow community managers and enthusiasts: what is the point system structure they are using? And what would be a good point system structure look like. 

 

Currently what we have is the following: 

30 Points for an answer

5 Points for a reply

2 for receiving a like or giving a vote

1 for giving a like or a vote

15 points for creating a topic.

 

Hope this question makes sense, and looking forward to hearing from you.

2 replies

Blastoise186
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Hey there @daniel.balan !

I’m actually just a volunteer myself and I don’t have access to Control on any community. However, as a Super User on my home base, I can definitely give you some of my own insights from a user viewpoint.

I can see where you’re going with this idea, but there’s actually more hidden secrets to how each community is set up than meets the eye. While I’ve figured out pretty much the entire system for both here on inSpired and at my home base, I don’t reveal that info to help prevent abuse.

It’s also worth being careful with ranking up purely based on points alone. While it can be beneficial for certain cases, it does open up a greater level of abuse risk if someone decides to start point farming without actually making legitimate contributions. What works best though is often down to individual circumstances - there’s no magical sekrit sauce that works for every community at once! :innocent:

In actual fact, keeping the details as to what actions score points and how many you get secret adds an air of mystery to it and makes it more fun.

For the most part though, Super Users usually earn the rank not via how many Points they gain, but as a result of triggers based on their activity (this is also easier to figure out how to set up!). A common example being that if you get X number of Best Answers, you’ll rank up to the “Top Volunteer” rank and automatically receive the Super User Primary Role as a result. Just because I have over 1,000 points doesn’t always mean I’ve actually helped out after all! :wink:

The other thing to note is that if you get power users who manage to blast the points system to oblivion, you could end up with more Super Users than you might have expected.

Then again, I will admit that the never ending points battle between the massively overcompetitive @Julian and his colleagues on inSpired such as @daniel.boon are hilarious to watch, but I sometimes get the feeling they make use of their… Abilities… To play with the numbers...

Bug blasting absolutely everything... The Blastoise Way
Julian
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Hi,

first of all welcome to inSpired and thanks for sharing your question! :)

Regarding the point values which you have defined so far: If your community is focussed on providing peer-to-peer support, then this should work. Your gamification strategy should always promote activity that supports your main goals. I second Blastoise’s comment that such rules are better not visible for your end users though. Even if a user might be able to deduct these numbers simply by observation, you should never make it too easy for them to find quicker ways to climb up in the leaderboards. Nothing wrong with vague hints to guide them though. ;)

I see why you would like to define certain levels for top superusers. This is not a bad idea, however don’t forget that there will be more and more points gained the more your community grows. At one point, you will have to adjust it as there might be users with e.g. 30k-40k points and many many more on levels which once only a handful of users reached.

But there is another important thing I want to mention in this context:

Points and superuser programs / rewards do not necessarily go hand in hand. Yes, they are a good indicator of user activity, but most Community Managers do not just look at the sheer activity alone.

Do you plan to have a program which is visible and accessible for all users? Or do you want to have a small, select group of advocates which you want to engage with closer e.g. in a hidden area on the community?

By far not all communities offer physical rewards to all of their users - at least not explicitly. If users are only active to collect points in order to get a reward outside of the community, then this is usually a risk for the quality of content as well as the user experience. Also, it might affect sentiment as it could be interpreted as corrupting users opinion in favour of your company. So if you are looking into such a way of incentivation user activity, I’d recommend you to be aware of this.

This does not mean that this cannot work - for example the Koodo Mobile Community successfully runs a public “Mobile Masters” program for several years now where top users can earn something based on points gathered. A really cool & recent example of an open super user program can be found on the Zapier community.

What most communities do though: They hand-pick a number of users where they recognize a good balance between the quantity and the quality of a users content. Of course most of their super user candidates show a lot of activity, but they also need to be trustworthy and their content needs to have at least some value for you and others. They should also be trustrworthy, especially when they get early access to information or products, or simply more permissions than regular users.

I can recommend you to browse around on our community around the topic of super users, we have plenty of content on designing programs here. One topic I’d like to share is Ditte’s “Superuser one pager” which should give you a good outline of what I consider the most common characteristics of such a program. But I am also happy to share more examples and help you further with more questions if necessary!

 

Then again, I will admit that the never ending points battle between the massively overcompetitive @Julian and his colleagues on inSpired such as @daniel.boon are hilarious to watch, but I sometimes get the feeling they make use of their… Abilities… To play with the numbers...

 

I can only speak for myself when I say that I am earning my points the proper way. I don’t have to rely on changing a bunch of idea statusses to get my points. :wink:

I follow my nose, it always knows

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