Proposed change to "shares for posting"

[richard@imutual]

Well, there seem to be mixed opinions on this, roughly divided into three groups:

- Keep things as they are
- Try the proposed system
- Don't reward posts with shares at all

To get a better gauge of views, I've created a poll around the first two options. For those who fall into option three, I would say that option two represents a sensible compromise, with the shares offered being significantly reduced. Whichever of options one or two we go with, we can always have a later vote (perhaps after a further trial period) on dropping shares-for-posts rewards altogether.

Vote by 31 Jan please!

[richard@imutual]

1 -the 2nd 'best' post of the month gets a reward disproportionately lower than one post with one thanks. Seems grossly unfair and removes entirely the incentive

I'm not sure I follow you. This seems to be mixing up 'posts of the month' with 'shares for best posters' If you are suggesting that we alter the rewards for POTM, I'm always open to suggestions

2 - Abuse of the system by reciprocal thanking would be trivial to detect, why not just do that?

If we can agree on a simple system that wouldn't be time-consuming to adminster, I'm all ears. Is it that simple though? Just because two posters thank each other, that wouldn't necessarily constitute abuse of the system. It could be perfectly genuine and warranted.

[richard@imutual]

Some figures to help put the current and proposed schemes in context:

During December, members earned a total of 142,076 shares. The percentage of these shares that were earned for posting was 0.84% (1188).

If we had operated the proposed system, the number of shares awarded for posting would have been reduced from 1188 to 394 (0.28%)

To answer this question:

What value do you place on increased activity in the forums and will this offset the effect of devaluing individual shares?

I'd say that the forum activity is worth at least 0.28% of the shares we issue. Especially when you consider that it can help attract members and motivate them to generate transactions/revenue.

[uglysteve]

1 -the 2nd 'best' post of the month gets a reward disproportionately lower than one post with one thanks. Seems grossly unfair and removes entirely the incentive

I'm not sure I follow you. This seems to be mixing up 'posts of the month' with 'shares for best posters' If you are suggesting that we alter the rewards for POTM, I'm always open to suggestions

What I mean is that if we accept that rewarding posts is the way to drive up posting (separate discussion!) and as per your original statement:

To encourage members to post multiple quality posts, rather than relying on a single 'blockbuster' (already recognised in POTM)

Then by having 1x 'blockbuster' reward, for POTM at one end of the scale, and 1x share max reward for any other thanked post, you're not differentiating between a post thanked once, and a post thanks ten thousand times, if there's another one that month thanked ten thousand and one times (exaggeration to emphasise point) that wins POTM.

Again, if you believe that incentivising posting is the way to go then don't you have to create a fairer link between quality of post (measured presently by number of thanks) and size of reward?

[richard@imutual]

Ok, I understand your point. Thanks for the clarification

I don't think there's any one perfect system, as you have to strike a balance between simplicity (both for members to understand and us to calculate/administer!) and fairness. If we didn't apply the "unique thanked posts" element of the proposal, I think we end up rewarding the same posts twice. I'm especially thinking about the 'reply here to enter' comps which certainly deserve to figure strongly in POTM but should perhaps not get rewarded a second time through this method

I assume you're aware that there are actually prizes for the top three posts in POTM? And we could increase the amount/number of prizes if members feel that would fairly offset the "unique thankers/thanked posts" nature of this proposal

What do other members think about this particular point?

[Oggy]

Not reely fair on posters like luke and oggy who never get thank though isit

[superman]

Everyone please vote. This is our first real test of being a "mutual".

[Sarah]

I'd prefer the process of awarding shares for posts to be stopped altogether (preferably with already awarded ones cancelled). There does seem to be a lot of low quality posts in the forum and knowing that they're diluting my shareholding makes me less inclined to use imutual as a cashback site.

[cccashbacklover]

I'd prefer the process of awarding shares for posts to be stopped altogether (preferably with already awarded ones cancelled). There does seem to be a lot of low quality posts in the forum and knowing that they're diluting my shareholding makes me less inclined to use imutual as a cashback site.

Totally agree with you

[collateral]

I`m in the dont reward posts at all camp where can I register my vote?

There are only 2 options.