Using Rep

[Watch Me Sink]

I took an hour of time to install a rep system (hate when I customise too much, custom coding sucks), but my members have yet to use it. I don't run any forum that would use it a lot (such as here or DP), but I think I would like members to use it as away of thanking other members.

How do I get my members to use it?

 

[Damien]

Have you posted about the new Rep mod on your forum, explaining why its there and how to use it, if not I would recommend you do that.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Yeah, I did. I think I'm going to put something in my sig about it, but not sure what.

 

[Murder he Wrote]

Firstly, let me just say your forum has really took off since I last visited, so well done there ~smile~

Now onto the issue at hand. With new features it's impossible to make people use them. I'm not entirely sure on how you've configured your MOD or what changes you've made...but whilst it's still new perhaps you could set it to offer x reputation points for x posts?

Another thing you could do is offer reputation points for contributions or as prizes for small competitions such as "The best fan art" or "the best song title" (two quick comps I just thought up for you ~wink~ ).

Finally, you could start giving reputation points out yourself for quality posts you see around. Once people start seeing it get used you should find other members will want to use it. I suppose you could put a message like "Seen a quality post? The new rep system can now be used to award users for quality contributions" or something along those lines.

Either way, I wouldn't get rid of it if it doesn't take off just yet. The thing with things like Post Count and Reputation points is that they give that specific poster some extra status. For example, members with high post count / reputation naturally get more respect than those with say low post count and maybe no reputation. Because of this, it motivates your users to contribute and / or post more. Basic psychology ~wink~

Hope everything works out for you though, and good luck in the future! ~smile~

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Firstly, let me just say your forum has really took off since I last visited, so well done there ~smile~

Thanks! We are getting a great boost from the new tour, and I've been spending a lot of time getting everything to work out perfect (you should have seen the error log before -bigeyes- ).

Now onto the issue at hand. With new features it's impossible to make people use them. I'm not entirely sure on how you've configured your MOD or what changes you've made...but whilst it's still new perhaps you could set it to offer x reputation points for x posts?

There is that option in the admin cp, but I am trying to make it so that it isn't like that, I want the rep to be more of rep, rather then "How much can I post". I would have a small increase with posts, but I would have to work on the coding for decimals (.5 rep per post).

Another thing you could do is offer reputation points for contributions or as prizes for small competitions such as "The best fan art" or "the best song title" (two quick comps I just thought up for you ~wink~ ).

Great idea! I should put those to use (or maybe save them for when things are really slowing down).

Finally, you could start giving reputation points out yourself for quality posts you see around. Once people start seeing it get used you should find other members will want to use it. I suppose you could put a message like "Seen a quality post? The new rep system can now be used to award users for quality contributions" or something along those lines.

Yeah, I should do that more. I used to do it much more, but I had to run a query in MySQl, which wiped all the reputation. -roll-

Either way, I wouldn't get rid of it if it doesn't take off just yet. The thing with things like Post Count and Reputation points is that they give that specific poster some extra status. For example, members with high post count / reputation naturally get more respect than those with say low post count and maybe no reputation. Because of this, it motivates your users to contribute and / or post more. Basic psychology ~wink~

Hope everything works out for you though, and good luck in the future! ~smile~

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll put them into use!!

(Speaking of which, I should + rep you).

 

[commentBB]

Um, to use it? Ha, thats as hard to get them to visit the site.

 

[Led]

you could offer a custom user title to the player with the most rep

you could add a cool feature that becomes more and more available the more rep someone has (arcade, change of name color etc...)

 

[Watch Me Sink]

GHO,
That shouildn't be that hard then. I get an average of 125-150 uniques per day. If you mean registering, that's another deal. ~twisted~
Led,
That's a good idea. That gave me another idea too.

 

[Kingmush]

I just use Rep as a fun thing, I don't care if my members use it or not. Just for fun.

 

[Murder he Wrote]

you could offer a custom user title to the player with the most rep

That's a great suggestion! That would encourage users to post more quality content and contributions in order to gain rep points. ~smile~

@Kirisute: Sounds like something I'd experiment with ~wink~