Forum cash mod/plugin
- Thread starter Cierra
- Start date
D
Deleted member 25872
Currently, I don't have it on my forum.
It's useful if you have good ways to both earn and spend the forum cash. If one of those doesn't exist, you have a broken economy and there's no point. Usually spending is the issue, as earning tends to be pretty easy on most forums. Spending, however, has to appeal to all kinds of users.
We do have a currency system on Foundation. Being a resource forum, we have plenty of use for it. Users can spend tokens on theme and graphic requests, advertising, personal account perks, and some other things. Earning is done via posting, submitting resources, participating in contests, etc.
Something unique we've done is required an entry fee for contests, so you have to spend a little bit to have a chance at a bigger payout by winning. Working well so far.
We do have a currency system on Foundation. Being a resource forum, we have plenty of use for it. Users can spend tokens on theme and graphic requests, advertising, personal account perks, and some other things. Earning is done via posting, submitting resources, participating in contests, etc.
Something unique we've done is required an entry fee for contests, so you have to spend a little bit to have a chance at a bigger payout by winning. Working well so far.
It's active but unused. Used to have some uses, but they were both too niche and too easy to obtain within our membership before their abolition. Currently, the forum as a whole isn't too active, so this hasn't received much priority.
You need to be an experienced and creative admin to really utilize features like this properly. It's not like a like button.
Personally, I'll say what I did with it and how it would have been done right:
1. Various special profile customizations -- pets (could be animated, experimented with interactivity, etc.), custom post backgrounds, etc.
2. Personal forums -- an area of the forum would be dedicated to and moderated by a member.
3. A few never-used things were for a board RP.
Personal forums and profile customizations (which were often very annoying) probably should have warranted a monthly bill of forum cash. That way, there would be no "worthless, only spent it once" issue. The never-used niche things need more reason for use. For instance, there were other ways to do them in my case, and in response to inflation from that, it became too difficult to actually use forum currency.
Ultimately, though, if you're making incentive systems like forum currency, the lesson is: don't try to lower the barrier to entry.
You need to be an experienced and creative admin to really utilize features like this properly. It's not like a like button.
Personally, I'll say what I did with it and how it would have been done right:
1. Various special profile customizations -- pets (could be animated, experimented with interactivity, etc.), custom post backgrounds, etc.
2. Personal forums -- an area of the forum would be dedicated to and moderated by a member.
3. A few never-used things were for a board RP.
Personal forums and profile customizations (which were often very annoying) probably should have warranted a monthly bill of forum cash. That way, there would be no "worthless, only spent it once" issue. The never-used niche things need more reason for use. For instance, there were other ways to do them in my case, and in response to inflation from that, it became too difficult to actually use forum currency.
Ultimately, though, if you're making incentive systems like forum currency, the lesson is: don't try to lower the barrier to entry.
I don't have one; I don't really see a use of it since I offer most services free of charge. When I get a legit use to use the cash on my board I'll consider enabling it however right now it's pretty much useless. So many forums use it now that I think it belittled the actual use of it.
Unless you have a use for them that can actually work in you and your members favor, then go ahead. However for normal forums I think it's just a waste of plugin space.
Unless you have a use for them that can actually work in you and your members favor, then go ahead. However for normal forums I think it's just a waste of plugin space.
I tend to think that the only way that a currency system can really work out is if it has some relation to real money. Money really only works because everyone agrees that it has value in relation to other things. We could use rocks if we wanted to, there's nothing special about paper. 😛
Anyway, I think the easiest way would be to allow users to cash out their earnings. This would probably get expensive if you offered a decent rate, but that's what you've got to do if you want forum cash to have real value.
Anyway, I think the easiest way would be to allow users to cash out their earnings. This would probably get expensive if you offered a decent rate, but that's what you've got to do if you want forum cash to have real value.
el canadiano
Paragon
I don't really bother.
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