I my years of community experience, the point systems do work and some uses will go above and beyond to get the points. AT few of my gaming communities I have worked at, the point system was a game in it self.

As far as internal community I don't see why they will not work, people will always have Ego.  I always ask people what is the first thing you looked at when you went to the community? Most of the time the response is the top members.

Is that a special rank you got there. or will we all get the medals. I have been thinking of creating a status level based on groups not points and assigning that to my community leaders to give them some distinguishing mark.

I had to doublecheck on the medal icon the first time I saw it here.

My first thought was it was a reputation kind of marker.  The Citrix forums use icons like that for their reputation system.  Actually it's cool how it works...

When you ask a question in the forum, you assign the question a difficulty level.  The more difficult it is, the more points it's worth.  If someone answers the question completely, you mark it answered and give them the points.  If it's more of a collaborative answer, you distribute the points among the people that helped.

Participants get certain icons next to their name depending on how many points they have from answering open issues.

Interesting, I thought the medal meant you were a high level contributor or was related to the ratings of your contributions... i've only been playing on the site for a hour though... but just my first impression.

There are many ways to structure your points and names. You can relate your names to you products or user general terms like pro guru....We are currently renaming all of our rank systems as we went kinda of generic for the first launch. The point system I have set up many diffrent ways over the years. When I first launch the community I like to make the points a little bit higher to give my early adopters a little bonus for joining early. Hope this helps.

Would appreciate the help. Here is our first take and what we launched with:

Principles we followed:

1. Tiers should grow logarithmically, with early tiers making easier to gain status (see progress) and later tiers representing a well-earned, quality achievement.

2. Use graphics that indicate progress and communicates that there are award levels yet to be earned. This ; not this

3. Choose names that related to community and would work internationally.

Note: the most difficult name to come up with was the first, 0 - 99. Something that didn't offend, indicated that user was just getting started, but also a name that a user would want to leave behind -- no honor or dishoner in it.

Hi Carl,

You worked it out beautifully. My only change from an internal point of view is to allow the "Newbie" to become a "Contributor" more quickly. The almost instant "reward" pays off in that they notice their status change very quickly from the start.  Something along the lines of 0-5 is a newbie and 6 - 99 is a contributor.

Cheers,
Derek

Appreciate the long view -- Do you think there would be a difference if the vast majority of the users were 18-22 yr. old, entry-level associates?

I can pretty much guaruntee that demographics matter. Even here at Jive, I'm not sure how much points matter. On the various game-based communities I've run, points or int hose days, post count, was HUGELY important to many people.

"Use graphics that indicate progress and communicates that there are award levels yet to be earned. This ; not this "

I couldn't agree with you more Carl. Pretty much a requirement in my book.

I think that's a good point - as soon as a newbie puts something in, they become a contributor, so that should be acknowledged immediately.

Im somewhat suprised this has yet to come up in this discussion, such nice people it seems

theres a "flipside" to "points systems", a small unobtrusive points system for those organisations who think such would never work but have inhouse forum/none real-time communication methords can serve a good purpose for managers.

knowing which employee is "just there" working or is "-working- and commited"

post count and the "stars" system (Ala Sun's forums, also Jive based ) awarded within the teams to other members can tell project leaders/managers who are really working at the project and are commited to its growth as opposed to just "along for the ride", and give early indication of "problems", A regular contributor suddenly slopeing off -could- be having problems that they havent felt able to discuss just yet.

it -can- be an excellent barometer.

(though its important to be aware some of the introverted employee's who could be wonderful and commited may be too "nervous" to get involved on that level).