Trophy points. Earning more than just a better user title?

[Stuart Wright]

We are planning on using the trophy points system in Xenforo to encourage users to interact with our new editorial system.
We want them to write user reviews of products etc.
We can reward them with trophy points until we're blue in the face, but there seems little point if they only earn a better user title.
Is there a discussion about this, or are there plans in the core product, or is there an addon which enhances a user's privileges upon receiving more points?
In the old vb days it included increasing the PM limit. Stuff like that.
Any help appreciated.

 

[Paul B]

You can create user group promotions based on trophy points.

http://xenforo.com/help/user-group-promotions/

 

[Luxus]

Alternatively you can use this medal add-on.

 

[Stuart Wright]

You can create user group promotions based on trophy points.

http://xenforo.com/help/user-group-promotions/

Thanks Brogan. The example given there is promoting a moderated member to full membership. I guess my real question is what benefits we can give to people.
My community is mostly men in their 20s - 40s. They aren't likely going to be particularly motivated by the prospect of earning trophy points or medals. So while this plugin (thanks for sharing)

Alternatively you can use this medal add-on.

is nice for recognising certain achievements, it's not going to satisfy what we need.

What actual benefits does the system allow us to award to loyal members?

 

[Markos]

You can use credits. Every review give some credits to the users.

With this credits a user can gain a user group promotion, a prize etc.

There are some addons to give automatic credits. ;-)

 

[Stuart Wright]

What are the prizes though? Do you mean like an extra forum privilege or a television? Cos the former is dead easy, the latter dead hard.

 

[Markos]

What are the prizes though? Do you mean like an extra forum privilege or a television? Cos the former is dead easy, the latter dead hard.

Prizes like this:
Virtual Prizes -> Extra PM Space, More signature links (useful for advertisement purpouses)
Real Prizes -> Little Amazon Gift Codes and something like this
etc.

 

[Paul B]

The example given there is promoting a moderated member to full membership

That's just an example though.

You can set up as many promotions as you wish, starting off with low level base permissions.
I have multiple promotions set up which add more and more permissions as members post more/get more points.

http://cliptheapex.com/community/help/member-status

As more features are introduced with 1.2 I will incorporate those in the existing promotions and consider creating new ones.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Prizes like this:
Virtual Prizes -> Extra PM Space, More signature links (useful for advertisement purpouses)
Real Prizes -> Little Amazon Gift Codes and something like this
etc.

Thanks Maximilian. No such thing as PM space in XF is there?
We don't allow commercial signature links except to advertisers.
And Amazon gift codes could get expensive.

Thanks Brogan. I registered with Clip The Apex so I could see the benefits of your Donator, Supporter, Contributor and Premium Contributor groups.
Those I'm sure work well for your site.
However, aren't you concerned that allowing unlimited sized avatars will slow your site down?
I'd want to restrict ours to maybe 15 or 20k.
Currently we allow members to edit posts indefinitely. Is there any benefit to blocking that at all?
Is there any reason why it's not a good idea to allow members to invite unlimited participants to conversations? I suppose spammers might abuse that. But otherwise?
Attachments in conversations is a nice benefit.
I don;'t know what tagging members is, yet.
I hate custom user titles. They make the forum messy.
Do you find these benefits encourage many people to donate? Many are what I'd expect a forum to provide to create as rich an experience as possible and generally they aren't that exciting. Not being critical, just asking for advice.
Thanks.

 

[Paul B]

However, aren't you concerned that allowing unlimited sized avatars will slow your site down?

Not really - it's more psychological than anything as the largest avatar is 90KB, the next largest 70KB and then 40KB.
Disabling Gravatar is the way to go if you don't want to cause slowdowns.

Currently we allow members to edit posts indefinitely. Is there any benefit to blocking that at all?

It's due to the lack of post edit history and logging. Without it, rage quitters could easily ruin a lot of threads.
Those members who pay to upgrade are far less likely to do something like that.
Obviously this will no longer be an issue with 1.2.

Is there any reason why it's not a good idea to allow members to invite unlimited participants to conversations? I suppose spammers might abuse that. But otherwise?

Again, it's just a perk for those who contribute financially to the site.
The same with the other benefits those members get.

I could offer a lot more if I installed more add-ons, but I like to keep the number of add-ons as low as possible.

I hate custom user titles. They make the forum messy.

Glances underneath Stuart's avatar

In the end though it really comes down to your site and what the members expect.
At one time I did have adverts running for all logged in members and the paid upgrades gradually removed them until there were none visible to those paying the most.
I hated the way the site looked to regular members though and it ruined the experience for them, so I got rid of them for everyone but visitors.

 

[cdub]

That's just an example though.

You can set up as many promotions as you wish, starting off with low level base permissions.
I have multiple promotions set up which add more and more permissions as members post more/get more points.

http://cliptheapex.com/community/help/member-status

As more features are introduced with 1.2 I will incorporate those in the existing promotions and consider creating new ones.

I've tried adding the rich user styling to show the star next to an online "supporting member" using these instructions...

http://xenforo.com/help/user-group-styling/

I've gotten in to work on the user name - for example see here:

http://www.studentfilms.com/threads...coming-a-supporting-member.20429/#post-143125

But it doesn't work on the online list even though I've added the code to the sidebar online users template.

http://www.studentfilms.com/

 

[Paul B]

It works on my local.

Perhaps you didn't edit the template correctly?

 

[cdub]

it's very possible. But I replaced that line of text exactly like they said.

<ol class="listInline">
                <xen:foreach loop="$onlineUsers.records" value="$user" i="$i">
                    <xen:if is="{$i} <= {$onlineUsers.limit}">
                        <li>
                        <xen:if is="{$user.user_id}">
                            <a href="{xen:link members, $user}"
                                class="username{xen:if '!{$user.visible}', ' invisible'}{xen:if {$user.followed}, ' followed'}">{xen:helper richUserName, $user}</a><xen:if is="{$i} < {$onlineUsers.limit}">,</xen:if>
                        <xen:else />
                            {xen:phrase guest}<xen:if is="{$i} < {$onlineUsers.limit}">,</xen:if>
                        </xen:if>
                        </li>
                    </xen:if>
                </xen:foreach>
                <xen:if is="{$onlineUsers.recordsUnseen}">
                    <li class="moreLink">... <a href="{xen:link online}" title="{xen:phrase see_all_visitors}">{xen:phrase and_x_more, 'count={xen:number $onlineUsers.recordsUnseen}'}</a></li>
                </xen:if>
            </ol>

 

[cdub]

Here's my panel for the supporting user: Is it because my styling priority is set to 0?

 

[cdub]

Nope- changed priority to 200 and it still doesn't show up.

("this is a test" is the supporting member)

 

[cdub]

It works for my name in the Staff online - but not the normal members list.

 

[Stuart Wright]

I want to use trophies to encourage my community to do lots of things like, of course, post, but also report bad posts and write user reviews, but I need some rewards which have tangible benefits. I can't think of anything I can withhold from standard members and then award to trophy earners.
I need to show ads to everyone and removing them for people who contribute more adds to the negative perception of adverts, which is not a good thing.
I limit signatures to 4 lines at the moment and I could consider limiting it to 1 line for everyone and then adding a line per number of trophies to a maximum of 4, but that would upset existing members who use longer signatures at the point when we move to Xenforo.
I'm really not keen on restricting the number of conversations members can have. I don't think of them the same way as PMs. How does that work in a busy forum?
Maybe we could run competitions which are weighted to give people with a higher trophy score a higher chance of winning?

 

[Paul B]

This resource shows how easy it is to add new user criteria which can then be used for trophies: http://xenforo.com/community/resour...hies-upgrades-and-notices-notifications.1306/