The Scoop on Jive Rewards: Badges, Points and Quests

[CommunityAdmin]

Over the course of the last year, you may have experienced a period of time where you weren’t earning any points. Some of you have experienced it multiple times. You may have given points with a badge and the points were debited from your account but never credited to the person you awarded them to. On each occasion that we’ve been made aware of an issue, we’ve informed the platform’s Support Team and provided them as much evidence as possible. On most occasions, they’ve done some troubleshooting and have restored service.  

Regrettably, even with all the info we provided, it’s been a fairly evasive issue, only affecting a portion of the members and there hasn’t been a reliable resolution to date. We’ve evaluated turning off Rewards completely, but ultimately decided to leave it on. Turning off Rewards would also turn off Badges and Quests, which have been shown to help with members’ quits and have been a well-liked feature of our EX Community. Additionally, the Rewards issues don’t affect everyone every time. We’ve also explored other options but there are none that make economic sense or would be a better fit for quitting.  After careful consideration, the EX Team has decided to leave Rewards on. 

Fixing the issue is out of our control and the control of other customers using this community platform. They know it is important to their customers who use it and hope to have it fixed later in the year.  When there is an outage, a portion of members may not receive points while others will. Unfortunately, there isn’t a solution currently to retroactively credit earned points to accounts when an outage occurs.  We hope that a includes a recount to properly credit missed points. We recognize that points are important to some people and not to others. Whatever your stance, we’re your advocate and feel that members should receive the points they earned. 

We know this frustrating for some of you. I encourage you to alert me to any time you don’t see points awarded by commenting on this post in Community Help so I can alert support as quickly as possible to get the service restored. 

Mark 

EX Community Manager

[YoungAtHeart]

Perhaps you might not show the Leaderboard if it doesn't mean anything?

Just a thought.................

[CommunityAdmin]

YoungAtHeart It's not something we can easily turn off.  We are hopeful the points will be fixed and actions recalculated so that earned points are received, even for past actions. It works for most members most of the time.  There was a period of a couple weeks where it seems to have worked for everyone. Then last week I had one report on Thursday it wasn't working for one member(others may also have been affected).

Mark
EX Community Manager

[kristen-9-7-15]

No worries. I don’t pay attention to points or leaderboard.

[AnnetteMM]

I'll be totally honest - I was very motivated by those points and rewards and badges!  They kept me going through a lot of stress in quitting, even though I knew they didn't mean anything.  I think it was a matter of competing with myself...a tangible way to say to myself "get to this next thing, just hold on!"  I'd be very upset to see the leader board disappear.

[CommunityAdmin]

kristen-9.7.15‌ Understandable that some people are motivated or pay attention to them while others do not. For some they may be initially motivating and then lose that value as they mature in their quit journey.  Thanks for letting me know your take on them.

Mark
EX Community Manager

[CommunityAdmin]

AnnetteMM‌ Thanks for speaking up and letting us know.  There is science that shows that rewards systems are valuable on online communities. Understandable that it isn't motivating to all, but I'm glad it has been helpful in your quit journey. There aren't plans to get rid of the leaderboard at this point. I look at it as a way to recognize the immense contributions that some of the long time members have made towards the site.  Some of those on the leaderboard aren't active any longer or possibly have relapsed. Regardless they spent a lot of time on the site contributing and do have experience with quitting.  With any community, people come and go.  I always look at the leaderboards on communities I'm a member of to get a sense of who the most active people are and who have been around a long time to get a sense of who the credible people are.  The leaderboard isn't always the best judge of that but it gets me in the right direction.  We also have newer members that are participating and contributing great advice, so the leaderboard isn't the only indicator of the amazing people who exist here helping others.

Mark
EX Community Manager

Updated for clarity. 2:32pm Central 6/26/18

[Pops]

Mark, let me start by saying that I recognize the no win situation that you are in, and I feel for you to an extent.  However, being one of the members who has on "multiple" occasions been adversely affected by this glitch (for lack of an appropriate name that would most likely be deleted as obscene...) I for one advocate the abandoning the point system entirely as it seems to be happening at a more than once in awhile frequency.  This results in a myriad of different issues.  For example, "initially motivating and then lose that value as they mature in their quit journey."  If I was feeling really pessimistic, I could very easily equate that since I feel they are a mess, and complain about it, then you simply are assuming that I...Pops have not matured in my quit journey...????? hmmmm Well, that is a very disturbing point of view now isn't it?  

I really do hope that you can get through this unscathed.  But, if you aren't absorbing some of the grief that others may be feeling, (as I'm sure that I am not the only one who is being affected) then that could be construed by a rational person, as an indication of lack of interest.  I mean after all, I'm not very mature anyway...right?

Good luck on this barrel of monkeys that you are dealing with....lol

Pops with an immature 67 days of freedom!

[YoungAtHeart]

Notice how WISE I am being here!

[Pops]

Well, then maybe my post does have some value to it afterall....lol

😉

[YoungAtHeart]

and not my elephants!

[CommunityAdmin]

Pops wrote:

Mark, let me start by saying that I recognize the no win situation that you are in, and I feel for you to an extent.  However, being one of the members who has on "multiple" occasions been adversely affected by this glitch (for lack of an appropriate name that would most likely be deleted as obscene...) I for one advocate the abandoning the point system entirely as it seems to be happening at a more than once in awhile frequency. 

I understand your frustration and  appreciate you expressing it.  Unfortunately there is no rhyme or reason that has been discovered as to why some are affected and others aren't. The amount of time is has worked is more than the time it hasn't work and hasn't ever affected the entire community population that I am aware.

We won't be abandoning the point system for the above mentioned reasons.  If we were to turn off Jive Rewards there is an underlying point system. The quests and badges would be gone but everyone would still get points.  The core point system cannot be turned off.  

Pops wrote:

This results in a myriad of different issues.  For example, "initially motivating and then lose that value as they mature in their quit journey."  If I was feeling really pessimistic, I could very easily equate that since I feel they are a mess, and complain about it, then you simply are assuming that I...Pops have not matured in my quit journey...????? hmmmm Well, that is a very disturbing point of view now isn't it?  

Poor choice of word on my part. I was thinking progress/advance etc.  

Mark wrote:

kristen-9.7.15 Understandable that some people are motivated or pay attention to them while others do not. For some they may be initially motivating and then lose that value as they mature in their quit journey.  Thanks for letting me know your take on them.

Mark
EX Community Manager

You didn't provide the full quote in your reply so that changes the meaning.  I was speaking to the fact that a person's view of a rewards system may change when they're early on in their quit vs after time has passed. Views of it may be all over the board though. I apologize if you took offense to it.  I was responding to kristen-9.7.15‌ and wasn't intending to offend anyone. No matter how careful I write I'll undoubtedly offend someone without intending to do so. I'm human too.  Honestly, though I'd rather interact with you all in a genuine way than in a manner PR/Robotic way that feels sterile. We've met each other in real life (EX 5 Weekend) and I've come to know that we both write in a genuine way.

Pops wrote:

I really do hope that you can get through this unscathed.  But, if you aren't absorbing some of the grief that others may be feeling, (as I'm sure that I am not the only one who is being affected) then that could be construed by a rational person, as an indication of lack of interest.  I mean after all, I'm not very mature anyway...right?

Good luck on this barrel of monkeys that you are dealing with....lol

Pops with an immature 67 days of freedom!

It's a difficult situation to be in and we carefully considered the options under the circumstances. As a team we decided this is the best solution at this time. 

As I mentioned in my PM to you, I saw others were affected with the points not accruing and the support team is looking to restore accumulation to affected members. 

For the record: I wasn't calling you or your quit immature. We're all one team with a common goal.

Mark
EX Community Manager

Updated: Fixed grammar error.

[Pops]

Again...here I am almost three years after the original debacle of this broken point system...."AGAIN" it is broken and seems to have no reasonable explanation or program glitch to look at and possibly remedy.  I implore you...get rid of this system if you can't keep it running....or at the very least take it out of my life by completely removing my username from the leaderboards so that the broken program won't see a need to send me a message that tells me I'm of a certain level when I'm not...I get enough of phoney crap in my life as it is...I would just assume eliminate this mess if I can...without having to withdraw from the site.

Pops

[YoungAtHeart]

Here!  Here!

Although I have simply ignored ALL of that stuff since it broke and subtracted points I awarded but never actually GAVE them to anybody.

I was done with it then - and continue to be to this day!

[CommunityAdmin]

Pops wrote:

Again...here I am almost three years after the original debacle of this broken point system...."AGAIN" it is broken and seems to have no reasonable explanation or program glitch to look at and possibly remedy.

Yes sometimes things break or get into a weird state. I don't know exactly what the problem is. Only speculation at this point is that it might be similar to an issue that I saw recently. It's being looked into. As I said in my other post to you, the site will be replaced before the end of the year with a new platform. Points might not even be a thing so it would be a mute point. 

Pops wrote:

I implore you...get rid of this system if you can't keep it running....or at the very least take it out of my life by completely removing my username from the leaderboards so that the broken program won't see a need to send me a message that tells me I'm of a certain level when I'm not...I get enough of phoney crap in my life as it is...I would just assume eliminate this mess if I can...without having to withdraw from the site.

Pops

With any software, at times components can stop working and need to be fixed. As for removing your name from the leaderboard it might be possible. I've already opened a ticket to have your account and this issue looked into. So I'm awaiting on a response. Once I know I can look into seeing if your account can be disabled for points. 

As for the email notifications you're receiving that is somewhat separate from the points and leaderboard. It's not necessarily phony as you're probably reaching a new level but for some reason it's not displaying when you login and look at yourself.  So there is a mismatch of some kind. Hopefully the issue can be identified and resolved so accurate information can be seen. I'll update you as I know more.

Mark

[Pops]

tyvm

pops

[RoseH]

Sorry I posted to you in the wrong place, Mark...  I haven’t received any points in 2-3 days.

[YoungAtHeart]

  RoseH    Most of us who have been here awhile pay no attention to this site feature.  It stops working as often as it seems to work.

Pay it no mind - means nothing if we can't count on it to be 100% and it is far from it.

Nancy

[RoseH]

Thank you! YoungAtHeart‌