When you first sign up, you get messages from admin about points and status and levels and privileges . Its not till later you realize how stupid it is. Also admin bothers to maintain a site support forum, but looking back at it, there's post after post about people losing several thousand points at a time (not the little ups and downs that happen when a member quits or such). It sounds like som e off those members are pissed about the points, and some about the lack of response.

I hadn't paid any attention to points until I had realized that I (apparently) had accumulated quite a few. That comes from having dived into the forum and interacting with statements, photos, and people. Curiosity usually wins out, so I looked into this points system. I am not sure what I might've "won", but what the heck, I will continue to interact, and maybe someday I will level up to the goddess status. Umm, I mean... Oh, heck, whatever!!

For me its setting goals. I'm at Level 9.3, approximately 520,000 points. I am very active here, run 6 groups and a Singles/Mingle/Chatroom. Self esteem as I am retired and officially disabled.

Well, I think the original concept was that people who were the most active on the site shoudl be rewarded. You ern higher levels by beign active. The lowest levels need to have their posts approved by persons at higher levels. The approval helps stop most of the bots, and also helps keep out the haters.

I dont' know if they re still giving out free T-shirts when yo reach level 8 or not. For those who have ye tto reach level 8, when you get the notification there shoudl be a link that brings you to a page to order your T-shirt... if they are still doing that. Some people have also gotten pens too.

Anyway, as the site grows and they add new things, there may be some features only available to those who reached a certain level. For instance come groups require you to have reached a certain level in order to join.

There's a tee shirt? I don't care about points, i was just interested in finding like-minded people. It's hard when you live in a small rural community with more churches than people.

It’s looked to me as though over fifty percent of participants are motivated by ‘points.’ Consciously or not.

Some appear to be playing ‘catch up,’ as they’ll post maybe 5 poorly responded to link-posts in a row.. Others openly obsess about reaching another level ..begging for more!

It seems just about everything now days has a marketing aspect to it. Likely a result of our ever-increasingly educated youth. I’ve one, with a double major in marketing & advertising ..and now thinks in terms of ‘motivating the public.’ I’d say points are simply that, competitive motivation.

But whatever works for this wonderful place