Much Ado About Points

@ fantail.angel
I didn't really think of it like that but yeah, I guess so. Lol.

I think it's insane for a story to get 10 points + 10 points (or less, if it's under 1000) when an article gets 50. That seems like a massive imbalance.

It seems to me like points per chapter might be fairer. I just know I spend far more time on a 500 word story than I do on a 700 word article and so if it's supposed to reflect activity, that seems really low for stories.

That means a drabble gets only 11 points. Also, what about poems in that case? It just all seems really imbalanced from my view. It's got nothing to do with the quality but simply that something being really long doesn't necessarily reflect the activity that was put into it. I could write something 2000 words very quickly if I was just chucking words out. It doesn't mean it's more valuable than a piece that is shorter and edited.

@ The Rumor
Stories will get word count points and completion points. Completion points would be higher than 10, and benefit short stories and drabbles. Long stories will be mostly benefited by word count points.

I don't like the idea of chapters because a chapter can be one sentence or 10,000 words- there is no telling. That doesn't seem fair to me.

The point system for stories is unrelated to the point value of poems.

@ Kurtni
I agree on the chapter point. I hadn't thought of that.

I guess then it depends on how much the completion points are. I see your thinking in that; I'd just hate for drabbles or shorter one-shots to be left out of the mix because of length.

Maybe instead of word count Per story it could be the word count total for all of a user's stories.

@ KatieMosing
I like that idea a lot.

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Chapters do have a huge variety of length, and having points per chapter instead of word count could encourage shorter and not as high quality chapters.

@ fantail.angel
Not to mention oneshots can be much longer than chaptered stories.

@ dru's hammer.
That too. I think word count is the best (perhaps not perfect) way to go.

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Would there be a change to article points? The points per word count for stories got me thinking that perhaps we should have different amounts of points for articles. Still have the 200 minimum, but perhaps the longer ones with more info and more time put into them could receive more points than the much shorter reviews?

I doubt we'll change article points. It would look bad if we retroactively took points away from users they earned, and if we let old users keep the 50 points for articles, that wouldn't be fair to new users who would earn a lesser amount for the same work.

Part of the reason you get points for articles is because that section of the site is less active and we want to encourage activity too.

@ Kurtni
Good point :)

(no pun intended...)

So far, for things to actually use your points for, we have...

• custom ranks
• ads
• reviews

What else do you think users could use their points for?

An extra 50-100 characters in their signature?

@ The Rumor
I like that idea :)

@ The Rumor
I like that idea, too! :)
Also, here's a thought. You know how people post shareable layouts for other people to use in blogs, stories, and poems? Maybe the creators of the blogs could get a point or two for every person that uses them!

@ whomping willow.
I totally like that idea :D

The Rumor:

An extra 50-100 characters in their signature?

I like this too, especially now that sigs show up all over the site.

The Rumor:

An extra 50-100 characters in their signature?

Would it be a permanent thing, the extra characters, or would it be something that would have to be like, re-purchased every month or however long or so? Just wondering :)

Going back to the points per word count, how would it work for co-writes? Would it only count for the chapters that are under your username, or would it just be the overall story?

@ kea.angel
I would say the chapters under your username, because it's you who wrote those singular chapters - but you didn't write the whole story.

kea.angel:

Going back to the points per word count, how would it work for co-writes? Would it only count for the chapters that are under your username, or would it just be the overall story?

If it's done, I think each author should be awarded points for the overall word-count. Since not all co-writes is done on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

(With the co-write I've done with Jinxeh, there's several chapters we've written together.)