I’d expect the owners of the community to want that too. This community is intended to promote positivity and drive up sales. You can only sell so much product to a small base of people, more people = more sales.
Just to be clear, there is a cause and effect:
if you want to stop spurious new threads created purely to mine points, then you have to remove points on new threads altogether. So scrub this
simply getting rid of the leaderboard will mean the 4 people who are most practised at hitting the maximum daily limits, will not stop new thread mining, as they will still want to get points for Giveaway anyway.
if there is no reward for new threads, you will cause a quietening down, but the topics will be then be more product focused.
so to accomplish your goal it has to be remove leaderboard prize, and remove points on new threads.
you’d need to compensate, want to beef up the points for good threads, like pinning (which the moderator then is not allowed to self-pin to self-reward). Over in Anker community the idea of “solved” was added to reward useful helping, it is slightly abused by creating a solution thread to just hand out points, but moderators can squish that. So beef up these
New users are still attracted by prizes, so the total $ fund / month in at the top has to be same / higher, just not handed out every week to the same few people.
Also expect negativity to these ideas, as by definition those who visit most have most to lose individually personally in terms of less free stuff, but the community should in theory be more diverse, so Soundcore will be the better for that.
For purposes of this discussion it is fairly easy to look at that list for the last month, and see how many visits there are and how much other activity. Sorting by number of visits makes regular visitors with no other activity stand out.
Non-hidden profiles show when last seen. Most profiles are hidden so limited. Spammers usually aren’t hidden and have an obvious signature of low read time and 1 post (barely spammers here, but loads in history in the other place)
You can select a time range and sort. Read, topics, etc. Lurkers interested have a high visit (say every day) and high read , but low replies and low topics. Point farmers have topics higher than average. Not visiting often, not reading often is disengaged.
So @jercox is perfectly correct to use the users link above to show how effective is the community at broad engagement.
Scroll down and you see there are some who just nip and read. That’s not a bad thing, a high read count means interested. There about 200 of such users if you scroll down to say 100 reads, it’s quite a few screens scrolls.
So overall the only obvious issue content being created by too few. @jercox is looking as correct.
What I want to know is why is Sean not visiting for 2 days, what we doing wrong, Soundcore not interesting enough? Hannah, really?
The overall response has been pretty positive. A number of recent or past winners have been in favor, and only one has spoken out against. Not much negativity.
But no comment from the soundcore side so far. Adam answered some off topic questions about the live streams. But nothing from @Hannah, @Loz or @sean.l that would speak to the team considering making these changes. Hopefully they have seen and are just waiting to comment until they have announcements to make.
They are paid to drive up sales by building brand awareness and this site is part of that, more engagement = more conversation and ripple effect out in other places (social media etc). So if you can make a more solid argument from changes her to increased sales then it’s their job.
There is an arm waving argument but it’s not proven it will increase sales. So then “do nothing” applies.
I think your assumption is wrong. I can explain it with example of my profile. Last month i did posted 36 posts and made 159 replays. It’s more than enough to get maximal ammount of points (775) during the month. But I did scored significantly less. It means that 23% of my activity (posts and replays) were not awarded with points. So at least every fourth my post/replay was made without intention to dig points. And most of my posts wan’t just reposts. Just I think that no posts no fun.
Another problem is that whole month data isn’t representative. You should compare activity before and after prizes (or no prizes🤔) were annouced. That would be interesting😁. We had real point diggers who had perfect score before and zero posts/replays after🤣. But I can’t blame them. They just act according “system requirements”.
I think they’ll be quite about it. They generally don’t engage in these topics but I’m sure they have put an eye on here or maybe had a talk with some other members of Soundcore team who have accounts here (cough cough Adam) but not too sure
I totally agree with @VertigoXX as well as several other.
@The_Professor and @Logically assumptions are flawed in the data they are using. Any set of number or data can be taken as fluffed data if you are picking and choosing what you want without context.
I hope these comment are about the current system than the 4 people that you keep referring too often because those people can and have changed several times through out the years. So look at the problem and not the people. There is no real need to be practiced. The concept is not hard. If you look right now there seems to be two new people in the mix.
It is disrespectful to make assumptions when there has there has been only a small group that have tried for the prizes during the years with a couple of those winning several times . As stated I am a moderator, I will most likely be in the top 10 just from me being helpful or friendly to others or to give them the email address . FYI I never won a leaderboard prize until December when I was still 5th or 6th (minus the community start up contest)
The way you are making comments and such you are going to be in the top 10 as well.
I do not care about giveaway ticket or notes, I just want to have fun here. I had plenty of each before that was even offered with v2. Without stating numbers @jercox can verify that I have plenty from a conversation we had. Where I land most times in the top 10 it is only 5 giveaway tickets and that is not enough for me to mine for points.
There has been a few folks whom has won the top prizes for several months in a row and I have no issue with them winning and have stated that different times… I congratulate their ability to keep it up for that long (@Shenoy, @jercox, @Unnamed or @Ice to name a few)
All I am hearing from both is your terms of gaming the system and point farming on here by the 4. I will give examples below of how you can see certain data as fluff data to turn it to your views.
Below is the topic for a year for Anker vs Soundcore. Anker topics dwarf the topics done on this community by about 3 to one if I was guessing. The last person in Anker list has more topic than most of the users on soundcore. So where is the conversations that Anker users are gaming the system or point farming. I do not remember many threads discussing a need for it there. See how easy that was to infer something that is not true.
With that said I truly do not think there is a general effort to point farm or game the system on Anker or Soundcore from regular members. Some are playing the game that needs changed. Several that think it should be change including me.
Although when prizes are offered on both sites, I think there may be efforts for some to try to cheat the system at times. I think it is the form of multiple accounts. I think the temptation to do that is greater than point farming for giveaway tickets or etc. They are very easy to find if you know what you are looking for.
Several examples we saw on Ankers last contest that the community was talking about in a thread or so.
Brand new account and already have hidden profiles
Contest that have likes to win and you see somebody has 10 likes and all are new users.
You also have people trying to be more sly in their accounts, you can pick up on those as well.
So when I hear gaming the system, I find multiple accounts more unfair than the other one. At least with the other one you are on equal footing with whom you may be doing it with. It does not take a lot to max the daily limit. The hardest part would be finding an article to share.
I think everybody should have a chance to win.
I think I am the only one that offers my retweet or post to FB so that @Chiquinho can join any contest that requires a FB or twitter post. (sorry if others have done it as well). It helped him win one of the audiobox offered from the escape room. This is just an example of the kind of person I am.
The other one about not allowed to self pin to self reward is another one that kinda threw me. First it is disrespectful to think I would do that to win something. Secondly based on your post 42, if they get rid of the prizes then what is my motivation to do that to get 5 giveaway ticket. The scenario that people will max out for giveaway ticket is not logical. Why put in all that effort for 5 giveaway tickets? @Chiquinho probably has the most giveaway ticket right now and that is a guess based on memory and he is not always getting into the to 10 in points.
… again you do not know me very well.
When this came up in a PM, I stated that @jercox need to post it on the community as this should be more of a community discussion. Again if I was being greedy I would not have told him that… again you do not know me very well.
Best comment in this thread. I think that the negativity toward members needs to stop and focus the conversation on root of the issue. It is not the members that is the issue but is a symptom. I have enjoyed all members and have tried to help them when I could or chat with them in a thread and wonderful conversations with everyone. It was not off topics that is the issue. It is not the threads that are the issue. Both were symptoms of the issue.
As House states you have to find the problem and these are just symptoms of that problem (paraphrasing)
It is the offering of a prize at the end of the month. So lets stop pointing fingers at the member of the month (great pun) and look at the issue people have.
Sorry if I repeat others solutions but these were some of the ones I was thinking from the PM messages.
Option 1. Rip out the top prize or every prizes and parlay that into other contests.
Option 2 Keep the prize and find a way to create activity in the community and make the activity equal… My suggestion would be on comments. So many comments will put you in the running for a random draw for the prizes and giveaway ticket. Say 2 comments a day gets you into the running (60 comments a month) It also gives you a chance to catch up if you miss a few days as you are only asking for 60 out of 150 comments possible in a month… . Comments are more free flowing and are not in your face as threads would be. There is a potential to instead get bad comments instead of threads.
Prizes and giveaway tickets given to 10 randomly active members. If you won a prize in the last so many months you have to set out a few months.
I do not care if points are for threads or not. There is always a fine line to when you stagnate the flow of communication. Keep it simple in whatever it done. If it is too complicated it will start to turn people off.
The risks is then instead of being explicitly an individual, it moves to multiple accounts. That would tend to cause a more random outcome bias to those who put in multiple accounts for collective gain.
The alternative is keep as is.
I think it is moot on this occasion, I can almost channel the owner who says that is one of the many types of events and competitions and each has its risks of gaming, and so I’d expect it discussed and ignored.
In a people-process-technology triangle, the process outlives the person, so we speak in process terms as the unaltered process just carries to a different person eventually. Technology would struggle with the multiple accounts issue anyway.
The mention of Anker community, to my knowledge only 1 person won ever one gaming, and the last two times they tried they didn’t win. Didn’t ban the member (as the process sticks even if the person changes) as they’d just appear as another member exploiting the same process flaw. That is why looking at patterns more than individuals has been the discussion.
Unrelated to gaming is total content and structure, the decision in this community is utterly different, more of a brand focus, and keeping all topics music related, which narrows and hence shrinks content. So total content different is not a surprise and the intention.
@chiquinho Not quite nothing at Anker. Powerdraws and auctions and testing club are a draw for some. Two of those require a bit of grinding for bucks.
@The_Professor - I hadn’t considered multiple accounts to game a non leaderboard system with several entries. Interesting thought. Hopefully most of the issue can be resolved with some basic IP checking (one entry per household), or they verify that the address for the winner isn’t the same as another one they have shipped to before with a different name. Probably still better than the current system with even basic checks.
@Duane_Lester The more complex the system, the easier it is for a few to find a way to optimize it. Keeping it simple puts everyone on more even ground. I like both of your suggestions, particularly Option 2.
The system may be unlikely to change, but at least the issues with the current one are well out in the open, so they have the details if they look into a change.
If I could request one relatively small and simple change - set up the leaderboard prizes before the month starts to appear immediately on the new leaderboard. And use the “upcoming” tab in the giveaways (ie, post the next one before the previous one ends). Might make a difference to how many are trying to optimize each month.
If you like option 2 to push more to comment then the simplest is remove points for thread created so a thread is only created for its own needs sake. Which was suggested higher up.
Currently the daily max points is 25 excluding manual rewards.
All systems can be gamed, you can just tweak it for community benefit which I suggest leaderboard scrapped and remove points for new threads. Leaving everything else as is. As the leaderboard is a tiny part of monthly prizes it is a moot point but the new threads points does cause (seen twice today) just a new thread to be caused to farm points. Moderator closed threads seen today.
Was surprised to see email from Soundcore Community (mostly because my name was tagged )… I am logging to Soundcore to actually read and reply after quite some time…
In my opinion, Soundcore is doing a great job with good products, media publicity, social media and artist engagements …and Soundcore “Does Not Need” to incentivize anyone for being active here with the LeaderBoard points… and it is high time they replace it with some other (or something like PowerDraw on Anker) The LeaderBoard Prizes have to go away, replaced with something of tickets, which will be somewhat similar to the PowerDraw in Anker Community…
It was good towards the launch, but with Soundcore maturing and becoming a well known brand, this leaderboard has to go away, and Soundcore needs to focus on “Quality” threads instead of whatever posting happens with Reviews and Deals.
We (at least I) have been asking for a change to the Leaderboard… If Users need to post any queries, they would post it and other members would help…
Whatever we say here will not change anything, until Soundcore team reads and decides what makes more business sense …
To be honest, I am bored of seeing external content posted into Soundcore community… something more original or useful to Soundcore Products and members need to be posted here.
Apart from a checkin feature like I had suggested prior to 2.0, here is another possible what to introduce variance on the leaderboard with minimal effort.
For the activities that reward points, like replies, shares and new threads, have the awarded points be a randomized whole number up to the max. This would allow for all three activities to remain as part of the community for points.
I.e. reply - 5 max in 24hrs for points
- allocation of random formula roundup((rand(2)+1),0)
- gives max of 2, but could also give 1
Share - 1 max in 24 hrs for points
- similar formula with max limit of 10
Create - 1 max in 24 for points
- similar formula with max limit of 5
Granted my formula above my be totally wrong, but shows the idea.
Would involve minimal coding to points value, and would not require changes elsewhere. It would also generate discussion or excitement as you’d never know if your next thread or share would give the max. You would also avoid extra work for somebody as the system would do the work…
This would give the variability one seeks without doing away with the current structure.
This may draw more activity and those posting have a reasonable shot or chance as outside of special events or weekly bonus activity.
Not sure if those would need to be similar with with a higher lower limit so somebody doesn’t get to be untouchable.
Key would be to ensure the points chart shows as a MAX of X points per activity so nobody cranks on being shorted points, being unaware.
Exactly @jercox . The comment are like an activity powerdraw. Once you meet the threshhold you are in it to win it.
I set the bar low enough that you do not need to be here every day and to not to transfer the issue to comments hopefully as much or it will hide the issue better () . It does not require you to be on the community all the time. It would require you to be in the community at least at least 12 day out of the month (5 comments a day x 12 days= 60.) They may want to push that to 75 (or 15 days). So you can get on 15 days meet quota and leave for 15 day, come every other day, or continue to be on here daily and interact with others and only do two comments a day vs 5 comments if you decide to do the other ways.
It should keep traffic flowing into the community.
I think leave the topic 5 points alone. It is only beneficial to newbies than regulars and will help the sales as well. They may level up 3 or 4 levels and can get a quick 10 or 20 dollar notes if they needed it thus increase sales as well still .
It may move the issue to the comments but hopefully it will also spur new people to become more interactive to make comments. Thus increasing communication with others and adding people to the community.
To keep points for topic or not it would be a moot point as people will be focused on comment. If people wanted to still post it would be the same as Anker but I would guarantee that it would not be as many in the current system. .
I also think you will see post for sales, reviews of the earbuds and such will continue.
For the admin, they can sort by comments, count the number of qualified folks and do some randomized software and there are your winners. It could be for both prizes and giveaway tickets. (I am more fond of the drawing a name out of a hat, personally ) . No need for them to re-code again.
So after 18 users have shared their views across 57 posts, is there any consensus we’d agree on to keep community?
I’m seeing a path through to consensus, anyone else see it?
Some changes are easy, the points system is easy to change, that’s just the multiplier in the counting, as is the points used in leaderboard. Much else is getting complicated.
We could use a poll for suggesting changes but wondering can be avoided by agreeing on a change?
Do we have a quorum on
remove incentives for threads so threads exist for their own reason. Solution: remove points on new threads.I suggest this seems agreed?
Leaderboard, keep (but on different criteria), I don’t see a consistent view here, I see the side where if you don’t reward one person on points, then you reward on multiple accounts instead.
anything else?
Remember this is code which outlives individuals, some people come here for interest and leave and return naturally, but the code keeps running.
If you do remove points on new threads, then you can reply instead in existing threads on specific topics, then users can mute a topic, hence you get can in effect sub-groups where those interested in a topic can discuss it and those not interested can ignore it. You stop all the faff most finding boring occuring at the top problem.
You will make it quieter too. So there’s a risk.
You cannot stop the noob, creating a thread for quick answer not searching, but over time as threads become deeper with replies, those searches can become better so noobs get help faster.
Wasn’t expecting to get tagged in this which is weird. I was only able to get the top post based off referrals when I got my family and most co workers to join, since then I don’t really make many topics I usually get on the monthly leaderboard based off shares and comments trying to help people. I’ve been more focused on the leveling up aspect of the site for a while( idk why) since I don’t try to get the most points in a month.
I don’t really see much changing since the have updated to 2.0 feel like it should have been done at the same time.
At the end of the day we are a family( as @Chiquinho always says) coming together for products we enjoy from a company we like and helping each along the way.
)… I am logging to Soundcore to actually read and reply after quite some time…