As a vB forum, this site reminds me in many ways of friendshipismagic.org, which is why I decided to make a suggestion for a new feature based on one they have on friendshipismagic: Pips. The word pip means "picture in picture," and what they are is little banners that appear on your profile and posts. They appear between your user title and avatar, both in your profile and on your posts themselves. There's a variety of different ones that could be used (although, of course any that gets used would need to be used with permission from their creators), and they are earned by different means. On FiM, they have ones you get by having OCs approved for the RP section, for making art, for reaching certain milestones in your post count, and things like that. They're kinda like the trophies they used to have on the Cheezburger network, only they appear on your posts in addition to your profile. These are a few examples of pips that I myself have created. If you do accept giving this pip idea a try, you're both welcome and encouraged to include these in the list of pips people can earn: -The Judge pip: Earned by voting in a certain number of polls; the number of polls would be determined by the mods, but I'm thinking 25-50 would be reasonable. -The Friendly pip: Earned by making over 100 friends. -The Element of Loyalty pip: Earned by going 6 months without any infractions. -The Gold pip: Earned by creating 100 threads. -The Squee pip: Honestly, I don't know what would be a good way to earn it, but I' sure someone can think of something. -The Commander pip: Again, not sure how it would be earned, but I figure I'll post it with the others in the hope that someone can come up with something:
I would have earnt everyone of them... It does sound like a good plan however! I approve of this, #that may just be me though :U
I like the idea, but some of the examples are eh. It would end up like the rep system and cause people to make threads/posts only for those reasons.
Yes, unfortunately there is such a thing as pip-whoring on FiM, where people spam posts just to get pips. However, it's easy to avoid such a problem if you have pips that aren't really affected by post count. The Element of loyalty one, for example; not only would people not be able to get it by spamming posts, but the more they spam the more likely they'll be to get infracted and have to wait even longer to get it. This site doesn't seem to be very active today; perhaps some extra incentive like a pip system could inspire more people to come and be active here. There are other things people could potentially do for pips, but I haven't made any pips besides these ones so I didn't bother listing them. Examples include a pip for getting a certain number of referrals (that would be good because it would also get the site more members), creating a certain number of albums, joining a certain number of groups, and other things like that.
how about a rp pip for rpers of course and if only we had a donation system we could have a pip for donating
Definitely a good idea, especially because it would help the mods of the RP section tell who is and who isn't supposed to be there, like if someone who hasn't actually been approved for RP tries to post in an RP thread. As for the donation system, that would be nice but kinda unfair to people who, like me, do not have credit cards.
I personally wouldn't really use nor care for these Pips. But I don't have anything to say against it. So I'm completely neutral about this idea...
We've had a rep system in the past which ended up being abused for rep-whoring. Ever since, people have suggested ideas like awards but we never really got around to working on such a thing mainly because we were afraid it'd turn into the rep system again. That said, I think it's a stupid thing to fear. Stuff like awards or pips has my personal approval. We just need to find a constructive way to use them properly.
I'd be happy to help out in any way I can. Of course one way to avoid the threat of pip whoring is to make a fairly limited number of pips, or to limit the number of pips any given user can have visible at any given time. If you set a limit, like where any given user can only have 5 visible pips on their account at any time, it would put a cap on their pip whoring. just add an option to the user CP that acts as a pip vault, where people can place the pips they don't have any more room for on their accounts. Then, they'll have to choose which pips to make visible and which ones to keep in the vault.
I know that VB has an award system and I'd like to see it be used. The only thing stopping this would be pip-whoring. If there was a way round this, then I'm all up for it. If not, then I'm not too fussed either way.
Well, I already mentioned a few ways around it, although part of me thinks pip whoring would actually be good for this site for a while. Have you looked around the forum? It's like a ghost town, with very little activity going on. Creating pips could be a great way to inspire more and more people to be active here, and the more active our current members are the more people will end up noticing and joining; it could be just what we need to bring some much-needed activity here. Of course, before such a thing happens, we would need some form of regulations ready to engage in order to stop pip whoring, just in case it does end up being a problem. Basically, the way to do it would be to have safeguards ready, but not use them until they're needed. Besides, what harm does pip whoring do? What a bear does in the woods is his own business, so if someone wants to spend all their time on the forum trying to get all the pips they can I'd say just let them. It makes the site more active overall, and the people who don't like to pip ***** themselves could just keep doing what they've been doing. And, as I mentioned before, I can think of a few possible safeguards that could be used to reduce the pip whoring if it gets out of hand: 1) Make it so the different pips people can earn are very different than one another. For example, have one for making friends, one for joining user groups, one for creating posts, one for making art, and one for RPing. The RP and posting ones are the only two that could be obtained at the same time as each other. At the same time, giving pips to all the other sections of the forum would draw people towards the less used areas like the user groups and art albums. That way, the pip *****s would be divided between all the different parts of the forum, meaning the impact they make on any given section would be negligible at best. 2) Limit the number of visible pips anyone can have. If they want to ***** pips just to show them off, this will make them stop the whoring once they hit the limit, because at that point they won't be able to show off their new pips anymore. 3) Make a rule where you can only earn one new pip every two or three weeks. That way, even if the person does whatever is necessary for earning a new pip, they won't be given it right away if they've just earned another one in the last couple of weeks.
most people would just hang around the general chat thread most people only go on that thread without the pips
That'd only get them a few pips though- There'd be lots you'd have to get through other means, like RP pips and Blog pips... I wouldn't mind this, actually, it could be quite useful, though I wouldn't use it much myself...
Exactly, because the people who want pips would need to go to other sections of the forum to get them. That would help make more different sections of the forum that are currently highly inactive end up getting some much needed attention.
How about a Welcome Wagon pip, which requires x amount of welcomes by the user? It'd make people feel more welcome too, I'd say. xD Yeti'd like this pip, I'm sure.
That sounds like it would be a good one, because it would inspire current users to give more welcomes to new members and, in effect, would make new members feel more welcome and less likely to just leave as soon as they join. I've seen that there are a lot of people who joined a long time ago and who's last activity was on the day they joined, like they just joined for the sake of joining and never did anything. What's really a shame is a lot of these people have canon names, so the active users can't get these canon names just because some fair weather members who have no intention of ever being active already took them.
ive got an idea how about the foalsitter pip for helping new members and also these. 10 posts-foal 25- stallion/mare 50- regular 100- earth pony 250- pegasi 500- unicorn 1000- griffin 2500- dragon 5000- royal guard 7500- Alicorn obviously once you get the next pip for posts you cant use the previous ones
Cool, I think Royal Guard'd be more suited to Moderators, though... Become a mod- Royal Guard Pip Become Admin- Alicorn Pip
That's actually very similar to one of the things they have on FiM. The numbers and names are different though. The way they have it is: 5-Filly 75-Regular 150-Familiar 300-Seasoned 500-Brony 1000-King Brony 3000-Uber Brony 7000-Supreme Brony 10000-Top Brony I like the names you suggested better, because they still pertain to ponies and aren't just coming up with new adjectives to add to the word Brony.
10 posts-foal 25- stallion/mare 50- regular 100- earth pony 250- pegasi 500- unicorn 1000- griffin 2500- dragon 5000- royal guard 7500- Alicorn The idea is good.... but this three I kind of dislike... since it looks like earth ponies are less good then pagasi and pegasi are less good then unicorns. Like univorns are the Master Race. It would be better t find other titles =)
