Referrals tend to be used on my forums quite often, but on a few of them we also gave rewards for referred active members.In my experience, referrals aren't really used all that much, but maybe my experience isn't representative of everyone.
In my experience, referrals aren't really used all that much...
i'm totally agree.In my experience, referrals aren't really used all that much, but maybe my experience isn't representative of everyone.
My thoughts exactly.The reason it is underused is because it has always been under developed.
There is no connection system for it, you don't auto follow each other when you refer some one, the list isn't there, so you can't see who is connected to who, unless you load each individual profile. There's no 'lets invite more friends' to extend the referral system, etc ..
Fantastic idea. I think an advanced referral system is needed.Tie in referrals to trophies.. might want to check that the person is using their own link to register accounts.
One problem with awarding trophies for referrals: members registering fake accounts to get more trophies. IP checking won't help either.
It has never been used on my forums anyway so don't care about this.
Unless you're dealing with dynamic IP addresses or registrations from public computers/ at their friends.Paul M's addon for proxy detection combined with a few things ought to do the trick. It's magical.
Unless you're dealing with dynamic IP addresses or registrations from public computers/ at their friends.
... when it still worked on my vBulletin powered site it also wasn't used that much, because vBulletin did nothing to rewards those referrers (see reply of Forsaken). There was no automatic system attached to it, making it all a bit pointless/useless for 99% of my member base.
The reason it is underused is because it has always been under developed.
There is no connection system for it, you don't auto follow each other when you refer some one, the list isn't there, so you can't see who is connected to who, unless you load each individual profile. There's no 'lets invite more friends' to extend the referral system, etc ..
You see, I know that my members have to :
- Go to the FAQ,
- Search for 'referral' or a likewise term (imagine you are on a translated board...) and then...
- ... hopefully they find the FAQ-entry explaining to them what a referral is, how their referral link looks like and what they can do with it.
Amazing. Their own personal referral link is burried deep inside the FAQ system! I can't understand this userunfriendliness. Well... I assume it has something to do with the fact that the FAQ system is almost as old as... well... and that vB just recently introduced their social networking facilities. Finally vB became more USERoriënted and I think the referral-system should be expanded to be more in line with the new vB direction. A personal referral link has no place in the FAQ, it's obvious that it needs to be placed inside the USER(hence the word)CP or USER Profile, indeed like Sockwater rightfully points out.
If referrals were more prominent, it would encourage members to promote the forums a bit. For example:
- Have a ready-to-copy-and-paste URL on the profile and in the User CP, so people can copy it and promote your forums.
- Have a referrals tab on user profiles showing how many users they have referred, and showing the usernames.
- Have a referrals stats page showing who has referred the most people, for different time periods-- all time, last month, last week etc.
- Allow usergroup promotions based on number of referrals to reward users who are successfully promoting your forum for you.
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