The purpose of the Member Points System (MPS) is to help determine a member's reputation within a community. Since each community will probably want to reward members for different behavior, MPS has been simplified and made it more flexible.
Telligent Enterprise 3.0 has modified the MPS Rater Factor (in the Control Panel Factor Values tab) to present a more accurate picture of user point-scoring activity. This factor now operates differently in that users who assign star ratings to others’ posts do not receive inflated point values themselves simply for assigning the rating. If you are upgrading to Telligent Enterprise 3.0, you could see a change in your users’ existing point totals which will reflect this change to the MPS.
Following the standard model for Telligent Enterprise, users’ point totals are only updated when they perform a point-scoring activity (and in the case of a 3.0 upgrade, it could reflect a decrease). You have three options to bring all users’ totals into line:
- Leave the point values as they stand, knowing that they will adjust over time with user activities (this means that non-active users will see elevated scores until they perform a point-scoring activity, so this is the least desirable option);
- Actively recalculate all point totals at one time using Control Panel’s recalculate option (which is not recommended for large database due to resource requirements);
- Recalculate points offline using a SQL script (which is highly recommended).
Points calculation
Both posts and members receive points for various activities. The formula for calculating points for a post in the Post Factor is to multiply each factor value on the Control Panel Factor Value page by the number of times an activity occurs. For the purpose of the MPS, a post is defined as a forum post, a blog entry, an uploaded file, a gallery image, or any reply/comment to one of these. Points for new wiki pages are calculated via the New Page factor.
By default, the Telligent Enterprise application displays member rank whenever a user allows the cursor to hover over a user name.
For example, if a post (file) is downloaded 25 times and the Factor Value page Download Factor is changed from its default of 0 to 10, then the post receives 250 (25 * 10) points for download activity. If that same post has 5 comments and the Factor Value page Reply Factor is 15, an additional 75 (5 * 15) points are added to the post, for a total of 325 (250 + 75) points.
The author of the post also receives 325 points. When determining the number of points for a particular member, the author is credited with the total for each post authored in addition to any points received for rating content and being marked as a favorite.
When a site's point calculation looks different than expected, it is usually due to a misunderstanding of which posts/activities participate in the MPS. Posts that are awaiting moderation, conversations, and posts in forums marked as disabling points are not included in point calculation. Furthermore, any activities that act on an individual's own posts are not credited with points. For example, a post will not receive points for a reply if the author replies to himself, rates his own post, downloads his own file, or marks his post as a favorite.
Here is some additional information about how points are calculated:
- Threads are not included in points calculation, only posts.
- Point values are credited to individual posts with direct replies.
Factor values
Telligent Enterprise provides a number of different factors in calculating points so you can tailor the MPS in your community to encourage the type of participation you want.
- Updating Membership Points - Shows you how to keep members' points total up to date using the Control Panel or the query analyzer.