about the stars and points

[BlueprintMarketing]

I want to 1st off say I love the new look of the website, and I was somewhat confused but after reading Rands explanation as to why you guys did make the logical this is to change the brand I am very happy to with the outstanding new layout and wanted to ask you A quick question that if it's a bug I can definitely live with. The point system goes like this would it not be more logical to possibly use either 6 stars or leave the 1st level without a star the only reason I say that is because you get approximately 30 points for simply completing your profile. Something I think should be encouraged as well as celebrated. With that person completing their profile and asking or answering just 20 questions they are now a contributor and will have their star on the board.

Please understand this is simply feedback, and it makes it in my opinion easier to gauge the amount of points someone has using the star method.

Either way I think you have put a lot of thought to this and I am happy with it either way. I just wanted to know what your opinions were and your thoughts on the star method.

Great job with the new site I am extremely impressed.

Sincerely,

Thomas

Level	mozPoints	Benefits
Aspirant	0 - 49	A smile
Contributor	50 - 199	A hug from Roger
Specialist	200 - 999	Removal of "nofollow" from first custom URL on profile
Authority	1,000 - 1,999	A Moz t-shirt
Expert	2,000 - 4,999	A Moz swag package
Oracle	+5,000

Something amazing!

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[BlueprintMarketing]

You get 1 million points you get points play spin the bottle with Roger.

I heard that it's a rumor on search engine land.

Not really you do get something pretty special which whenever Moz has stated that the past they have exceeded my expectations.

I could say some other crude jokes, but it would really not be appropriate.

[MattAntonino]

Yeah - I understand it mirrored the old system but it sucks for anyone who's actually paid attention to the leaderboard.  Let me ask you this: why have a leaderboard and points system?

The most TAGFEE answer is likely is "the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems."  By definition, gamification. We participate, we are "rewarded" and other users benefit as we give answers and move up the leaderboard.

And what's the main motivation?

I've talked to a few of the people who do care.  There are four parts to the answer:

1. Top X rank.  Top 250, Top 100, Top 50, Top 25, Top 10.

2. Top X% rank. Top 25%, Top 10%, Top 5%, Top 1%.

3. Earning a free month here & there.

4. On-site respect for our contributions.

((Note: the 5th motivation is "to help other people" but that's not about the gamification. It's a great motivation - and the primary reason most of us do what we do ... but it's not relevant to whether or not the game mechanics changed for the worse.))

---

1. Hasn't changed really. Top 10 is still top 10.

2. Top X% rank. REALLY took a hit. (750 used to be top 5%, now top 25%, big drop.)

3. Earning a free month here & there.  Didn't change with the update.

4. Seems to have taken a beating. Many top 50 overall users dropped to "3 star" value (Amazon and Yelp have trained us that 3 stars means "middle of the road" or "it's not bad.")

So half of the motivations someone may have for "playing" Moz have been tanked. I know there are more important things like making sure all the links and tools work (they don't all - some on purpose, some not) but we lost a lot in the transition (Labs, a few tools, 2 of the 4 main game motivations) and even the top 10 users don't have Analytics yet. lol  Also, the leaderboard isn't a submenu of Community now - it's been put on a few sidebars (not even all the community ones.)

So

a) stars give top users a middling rank

b) Rank % is completely borked and

**c) fewer people will see the leaderboard at all. **

I'd say "being able to read the cyan links" is more important than the leaderboard. So are the index and the overall menus being (hopefully) more consistent.  Sorting the user table would be useful.  I posted 14 or so main design and feature critiques so I don't want to get hung up on one.  I'd still rather get 50 campaigns than 4 stars next to my name. lol

[KeriMorgret]

Here's a quick note about the stars. Right now, they're just a direct replacement of the labels that we displayed for each level.

They had been:
Aspirant
Contributor
Journeyman
Authority
Guru
Oracle

We updated the Journeyman and Guru names, and displayed stars instead of labels for each level. It took me months of working here to remember which label stood for which level, and I saw many times people thinking someone's name was Journeyman or thinking they were an author because they had a Contributor status.

Tweaking the stars for the levels is something we can certainly look at in the longer term. For right now, we think it's an easier way to display the participation level of users without relying on terms that may not be familiar to all of our users, especially the international users.

For the top users, we added the condition that they have at least 25 mozpoints. Previously, if someone had one mozpoint and logged in within the last 60 days, they were listed in the top users. Now they need to have at least 25 mozpoints to show up on the list. There are only 20 points possible for filling out your complete profile, so now the people on that list have actually made some type of contribution (usually a comment or Q&A question) to the Moz community.

I hope this helps explain the stars and points a bit more for everyone!

[Johnny4B]

Oh, I just found out what the hug was, and its there ... Still would have preferred a real hug

[Johnny4B]

I never thought anyone put any solace, meaning or ambition into their SEO Moz rank (or then again maybe they do, I should not be speaking on behalf of other people).... . Is there an overall benefit I am not aware of ...

Anytime I answer a question, or offer advice, its not to warrant points, increase my star rating, its solely down to helping out folk like many have done for me.

But to be fair, I am only ever logged into her when I am actually doing some work relating to SEO of some sort, rarely ever would I log in on my own time ...

Although I see now i have gone to a two star without me noticing, and from Thomas post, I should have received a A hug from Roger Specialist. I am also assuming as I never checked it out before that this hug is not a hug in the traditional sense of one wrapping their arms around ones shoulders ... Cause that would be nice, hugs are nice ...But I am skeptical !!!

So I am off to find out what this hug is

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Matt,

I agree with you the statistics cannot make somebody in the top 35 of the entire list anything but honor role.

I think they will possibly come around to a change. Considering the time it takes to get 1000 points and get 3 stars. You have to answer a lot of questions or you have to do a lot of blogging.

It is taken me almost 2 years to get 800+ points I do not think it is a small deal and agree it is just a part of the system nothing that actually changes who we are or what we say. So maybe it is something I should not talk about but when moving up there is always that incentive to reach a little harder if the goal is near. I hope this will be an excellent replacement, and I will be listed at a level 3 soon. However, I don't understand why the change distance has been so much. However I really do not understand what's going on behind the curtain not to say anything is being hidden but maybe it is better this way for us I don't know?

I look forward to becoming a three-star I just wanted to see what everyone else thought. The last thing I wanted to was upset anyone.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[MattAntonino]

Good point - I made a similar observation on the Inbound thread.  Basically, there were around 15k people on the leaderboards before, now there are 3500.  That means the top 1% went from Top 150 to Top 35.  Not that really anyone thinks it makes a difference to how good you are at the job but "top 5% of SEOs on SEOMoz" (at rank 750) is a lot different from "top 25%" now.

Also, If you're 35th of 15,000, is that really "three stars"?

Again, this is all "game" and it doesn't make a real life difference very often but still - for those of us who do our best to participate, going from top 5% to top 25% is a bad change and going from "Top 50" to "middle of the pack 3 stars" is pretty unfavorable.