A killer ranking system for members

[John Valentine]

Just got the latest newsletter from ning and one of the articles highlighted was 5 reasons to join a niche network and one of the five was

Nearly all professional social networks use ranking systems that reward active members for their contributions to the community. The more active people are, the higher their social stock rises.

There are all kinds of benefits to this, including professional advancement, speaking opportunities, and simple bragging rights. People’s colleagues in the workplace may not always appreciate their expertise, but their peers do.

I THINK WE REALLY NEED THIS ON NING, I KNOW ONE WAS DEVELOPED RECENTLY BY AN EXTERNAL CREATOR BUT IT SEEMED TO BE FULL OF BUGS AND I'M NOT SURE IF THESE HAVE BEEN RECTIFIED. Is ning going to develop one, if they did it could easily be a paid service and I'm sure most people would pay a monthly fee for it.

[Alessandro]

I'm also seeking for a rewarding system. In my opinion it could be a nature feature from Ning, the parameters to be measured for a rewarding system are already in our networks.

I tested Punch Tab but deactivated because I noticed lags in my network and didn't find out how to create badges for specific measures that I need from my network.

I would test eReward but from the discussions in this topic it seems that is still with bugs.

[AMZ]

Well the ereward works great, but even if ning does develop one which highly isn't likely you will see bugs in it as well and the these bugs will jack up your other features for sure like look at the ning ads beta they are going to probably be bugs (Thats what happens when web developing ).  Ning told us they were going to have a ranking system but they gave us leader boards but in a way it is a ranking system just not one like erewards.  If ning makes one I don't want to pay as ning likes to charge you for the simplest things like charging your users money which we could do already (Just hope NIng Ads aren't like that). erewards is not ning and takes a lot of work to make so thats a reason alone to pay the guy (So don't think he should give away hard work and programming for free), lets not forget the amount of control we get with it is amazing. Setting up different levels for users and setting up how many points it's worth. Is just great also comes with other features. ereword is  something that combines features we've been asking for since i've first joined ning back in 2008. The fact we can get it at that type of price is great. If your willing to pay ning 20 Per month or more for this program that you can just sped 5 per month bucks on your a little crazy. 

Trust someone who has bought this program it's better than what ning would of came up with. And gets updated a lot more frequently with better features. Do you really want to keep spending even more money on ning to have a feature on your site thats not even that good. First ning is going to charge 20 to 10 dollars for a point system as ereward is only 5. Do the math is the cheaper one will have better features it's not really rocket science.

[John Valentine]

The thing is we just need it. Ning is a business not a charity, like all businesses I'm sure they look at projects and say, how much will it cost, what revenue will it generate. Yes, there are other considerations like, whether a competitor offers it within their standard offering. But all that aside, my point is '5 reasons to join a niche network' as highlighted by Ning to it's users, and one of the  reasons isn't offered by Ning. That's not good business and it needs to be considered, I know it would take my site to the next level if I had it. Maybe they could bring in house the ereward system and improve it. But one thing is for sure, they need to do something and not ignore it, as you seem to suggest they have since at least 2008.

I would rather it be free, but if it can only be done at a $5-$15 per month then let's at least have the option, if you don't want it you don't buy it or else you buy someone else's.