Fanpop is all about fans and quality content. It's not just about medals, but we wanted to do something that shows appreciation for fans who create great content, and that's why medals exist.
The Medal Question comes up once in a while and here's one example:
"When I contribute a lot to a spot on almost on a weekly basis for months, I don't get a medal. However, when I barely contribute to a spot, I get a medal for only adding like 20 images."
First of all, we pay a lot of attention to medals and fairness. We can't tell everyone exactly how to game the system or else it would result in the so-called "medal whoring" behavior that already causes quite a bit of consternation among users.
In the past, a few people have gamed the system with voting circles, fake "likes", and other nasty behaviors, and that was definitely not fair to the hard-core fans who made very real contributions and didn't abuse the system.
For some big abusers, we stripped them of all their medals, Lance Armstrong-style. They could re-earn them fairly, but that rarely happens once you remove the performance-enhancing drugs.
Others were banned forever. We don't have time to un-ban cheaters when there are so many real fans out there.
The medal system is constantly being tweaked and improved. It is NOT random. If you contribute a ton of time to a club that you're passionate about, that's a great thing, but it's important not to make any assumptions about how medals "should" work.
If it was as simple as uploading a ton of garbage to a club and getting a medal, what would be the point of medals? What would stop someone from uploading 10,000 identical screencaps to steal something that others had to earn? It's a good thing medals aren't that simple.
Let's say there's a club called "Fans of Snowboarding in Florida"
In this "Fans of Snowboarding in Florida", a avid fan named Amy creates tons of images, articles and polls. There's just one problem: Florida is as flat as a pancake, it almost never snows, and few people in Florida ride. The club is a ghost town.
Another club Amy likes is "Fans of Snowboarding in Colorado", and Amy also creates a huge number contributions in the Colorado club. It's a big hit and people love the content she created.
Which club should she get a medal in?
One of the many areas we can improve in is giving fans more visibility on what contributions are hot, and what contributions are duds.
A future feature that we are designing is a console that lets you see what your hottest contributions are. We think that will help reduce some of the confusion over medals and, more importantly, help people make content that other fans truly love.
The Medal Question comes up once in a while and here's one example:
"When I contribute a lot to a spot on almost on a weekly basis for months, I don't get a medal. However, when I barely contribute to a spot, I get a medal for only adding like 20 images."
First of all, we pay a lot of attention to medals and fairness. We can't tell everyone exactly how to game the system or else it would result in the so-called "medal whoring" behavior that already causes quite a bit of consternation among users.
In the past, a few people have gamed the system with voting circles, fake "likes", and other nasty behaviors, and that was definitely not fair to the hard-core fans who made very real contributions and didn't abuse the system.
For some big abusers, we stripped them of all their medals, Lance Armstrong-style. They could re-earn them fairly, but that rarely happens once you remove the performance-enhancing drugs.
Others were banned forever. We don't have time to un-ban cheaters when there are so many real fans out there.
The medal system is constantly being tweaked and improved. It is NOT random. If you contribute a ton of time to a club that you're passionate about, that's a great thing, but it's important not to make any assumptions about how medals "should" work.
If it was as simple as uploading a ton of garbage to a club and getting a medal, what would be the point of medals? What would stop someone from uploading 10,000 identical screencaps to steal something that others had to earn? It's a good thing medals aren't that simple.
Let's say there's a club called "Fans of Snowboarding in Florida"
In this "Fans of Snowboarding in Florida", a avid fan named Amy creates tons of images, articles and polls. There's just one problem: Florida is as flat as a pancake, it almost never snows, and few people in Florida ride. The club is a ghost town.
Another club Amy likes is "Fans of Snowboarding in Colorado", and Amy also creates a huge number contributions in the Colorado club. It's a big hit and people love the content she created.
Which club should she get a medal in?
One of the many areas we can improve in is giving fans more visibility on what contributions are hot, and what contributions are duds.
A future feature that we are designing is a console that lets you see what your hottest contributions are. We think that will help reduce some of the confusion over medals and, more importantly, help people make content that other fans truly love.
