HowToDoThings members and contributors receive points for staying active on the site. You’ll get a certain number of points for each action you take, including getting an article published, commenting on another contributor’s article and rating other articles. Below is a breakdown of which actions will earn you points and how many points you’ll receive for each.
- Sign up as a contributor: One-time reward of 10 points.
- Publish an article: 5 points.
- Comment on an article: 2 points.
Note: If your comment is rejected by an editor, you will be deducted 2 points. - Rate an article: 1 point.
By remaining active on HowToDoThings, you can advance through the contributor levels outlined below and gain access to special rewards as you achieve each new level. You’ll receive a badge in your public profile that indicates what your HowToDoThings level is.
Novice. 10-29 points. When you sign up to become a contributor for HowToDoThings, you’ll earn 10 points and immediately become a Novice Contributor. When your first articles are published, they will appear on the homepage of HowToDoThings in our “Most Recent” list of articles and will have the opportunity to appear on the homepage in the “Most Popular” list. After writing 4 articles, you will move on to become a Passionate Contributor.
Passionate. 30-99 points. Passionate Contributors begin to see the benefit of the points system. As a Passionate Contributor, you will qualify to have your articles featured on the HowToDoThings homepage and/or an appropriate top category page, have your profile featured in the member spotlight on the homepage and your articles will be included in the “Most Recent” article list. The articles you write will also have the opportunity to be included in the “Most Popular” article list.
Advanced. 100-249 points. Becoming an Advanced Contributor gives you all the benefits of a Passionate Contributor, plus you’ll qualify to have your articles featured in the #1 spot on the homepage and the top category pages. These are the pages on the site that are most heavily trafficked and will offer your article the most exposure.
So, not only will you qualify to be featured in the member spotlight and have your articles featured on the homepage, category pages and “Most Recent” articles list, you’ll get top billing in those featured areas.
Elite. 250+ points. Elite Contributors are the most active HowToDoThings contributors. They’ve written close to 50 articles and have participated on the site in a variety of other ways. Once you become an Elite Contributor, you’ll get featured in the #1 spot on the homepage and category pages AND get your own dedicated RSS feed to your HowToDoThings articles. This will alert your readers as soon as you publish another HowToDoThings article and ensure that people who like your writing will have access to everything you publish as soon as it’s live. This is a great way to build up an audience and ensure that what you have to say is reaching the world.
To learn more about the points system, visit the points explanation page.
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Comments
Nice article but it has a giant hole: what do the point levels mean? I'm a novice about to become "passionate." No clue as to what those points do for me. No sign of the table discussed in the agreement. Please fix or explain.
I've enjoyed producing for the site. Please fix the hole.
I've updated the article, per Murray's request, with a link to the points page.
I'd also like to point out that the editors do review your comments. So if you're adding comments that don't enhance the article, we can reject them. You will not receive 2 points for a rejected comment.
It seems as if publishing an entire article should be worth a lot more than two comments and a rating. Writing an article takes a lot of time, thought, editing and the like, whereas comments and ratings can be done quickly and easily. Seems like a much better reward should go to the people who take the time to contribute. (Also, those who publish a lot of articles would enjoy having a dedicated RSS feed more than the less-regular folks.)
Great article! I was searching around the site about the meaning of the points, and your article has answered all my questions! Keep up the good work!
it is good . because it clear some doubt on this system. It is just like a last push of remaining tail of an elephant across from a whole. thanks
