Folding for an Avatar

[RugoseCone]

In the "Oh the possibilities thread", atszyman suggested a system of counting points from folding towards gaining an avatar. The discussion sort of died and I feel like it might be worth bringing up again.

He said...

The above idea is good but what if it were taken one step further and tied to getting an Avatar? Make it something like 100-500 points = 1 post toward your Avatar. At a 100 point to one post ratio it would take newbies 50,000 folding points to get an Avatar (that is if they don't post or only post in the forums that don't count posts). Given the number of people who keep showing up asking about Avatars we could have a great base for increasing our numbers.

So, what do any of the folding mods think? Is this something worth investigating with the forum gods?

 

[PlaceofDis]

not sure how it would exactly work due to the different databases

sure it might help folding, but if you dont post much anyways, why have a 'tar?

 

[RugoseCone]

It might help ward off the one word/one line responses used to boost post count. Lots of people make posts that basically just parrot dozens of others in a thread.

If you could earn your avatar by a combination of folding and posting, people might not put so much emphasis on posts. Therefore only posting when they had something to actually contribute to a discussion.

Anyways, like you point out, it may not even be technically possible. I'm really just curious if anybody with any authority has seen the suggestion, as it might spur some debate that results in 1)better posting and 2)more folders...

And let me add that it's not an attempt at an avatar for myself. Avatar's pose absolutely zero importance to me personally.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Avatars are automatically added when you reach 500 posts - what you're asking is that we change the system so that we have to check what everyone is doing and add post counts for the amounts folded.

That's not going to happen - its way too much work - sorry.

D

 

[Hemingray]

Is an avatar REALLY that important to people? Wow...

I suppose it would be good incentive to fold for Team 3446, but what happens when they reach their 6502 status?

 

[RugoseCone]

That's not going to happen - its way too much work - sorry.D

No apologies are required. I realize that it's too much work and as I stated earlier, my goal here is not an avatar for myself. Or anyone else for that matter

My hope is that the idea as it is, fosters some other possibly brilliant plan that would encourage people to fold. The concept being that folding would help earn you an avatar. Okay so it's not possible, but is there some other thing people could be enticed with? Some other method of recognition by the site to encourage them to participate?

If it's not "get an avatar for folding" is there something else that can be done along these lines?

Should this be merged with the other thread I mentioned? I started a new one since it didn't seem anyone of any importance was following the other one anymore....

 

[mc68k]

Is an avatar REALLY that important to people? Wow...

i must've posted 10 times a day to get to 500. after that the novelty really wore off

but i think the bulk of those 500 posts were SW/HW troubleshooting