@echecs06: Where's your hijack picture? I think it's quite appropriate here :P

Sadly yes. 

That is a great idea ! With the levels :)

 Lots of sites are using this idea in the form of "Old member", "Veteran member" etc.

I prefer the cold numbers though.

The problem is that either way it's only a measure of quantity, not quality.

I think that for a measure like this to have any real value that it should be tied to some kind of community feedback mechanism intended to guage quality of contribution.

Maybe chess.com doesn't use levels because this is not a forum site, it's a playing site. The focus is in playing.

I'd argue that the focus of chess.com is building a community around chess, and that the most powerful tool in their arsenal for doing this is the groups and forums (i.e. gameplay is the draw, community is the hook).  I wouldn't be surprised to find that Erik had a similar view.

Let me put it more directly. The money is on playing. People will buy memberships because they feel their play is not good, not to post in the forums :P

Well, people will be memberships for a myriad of reasons, but given that the forums and groups are freely accessible, yeah, clearly they're not the driver.

If, however, the loss leaders (like gameplay and the forums) were not given their due attention, they could well cause prospective customers to elect not to buy memberships.

I havent read any posts yet..

but you dont like people saying idk right? but then your suggesting 1000 points gets 1 day of free gold membership, wouldnt that motivate people to post more crap just so they can get their member points up?

idk.

Happyface, did it occur to you that perhaps member points are useless because they are so easy to get in a meaningless fashion?

I used to moderate a forum that had a rule against this sort of thing (posthunting, we called it) and frankly it's just a waste of the mods' time. It's really best just to ignore it.

Ahhh! Reminds me of the past!

:P

The member points is so us members can see how active the other members are, and I think the idea about levels and rewards are just stupid.

 Although they would hijack someone else's thread :P

Very witty

thanks for the info.

kthxbainaogocraiinacorner

yay+1membapoint

myspacebarisbroken

It seems Chess.com is utilizing Member Points as a vague reference to a user's public activity to encourage the 'social' aspect of the site and as such rewards for those points seem misplaced.

how do u get member points in the first place?