Yes, we've been thinking about Gold for a long time
médailles are nice, but they are too coarse-grained to give feedback on contributions (you only know after toi earn a medal, and toi don't even know which contributions in that club caused toi to earn a medal and which contributions were a waste of your time).
This is where or comes in. Your hottest contributions will earn or each jour (think of them as micro-medals), and toi will have a private console that shows which are your hottest contributions.
Basically: médailles are earned per club, but or is earned for each populaire contribution toi have made since joining fanpop and dumped into your piggy bank for toi to hoard like Smaug ou spend on various preciouses.
populaire contributions will earn a lot of or each day, contributions that are semi-hot will earn less, and unloved duds will earn zero. What is "hot" will be determined par our dedicated army of humans and benevolent robots analyzing all activity on Fanpop.
We've worked hard to make sure or is fair. Don't worry, users who spam a club with a thousand identical crappy screencaps ou camelote, indésirable mur posts will not earn gold, and cheaters will be utterly... well, toi don't cheat, so no worries there.
It's clear that there are many veteran fans that have contributed across a wide array of clubs... Maybe they haven't earned a Legendary medal in one particular club, but, when added up, they have done a huge amount for fans in dozens of clubs.
Since médailles are per-club, but or is earned from all of your contributions, or is one of the best ways to recognize and reward those widely-spread-out veteran fans with numerous contributions across many clubs. toi don't even need to be a fan of a club to earn or for a great contribution in that club.
We'll be launching the first phase of or in the suivant several weeks. Your contributions have already been earning or as we speak, so once it goes public, many of toi veterans will start out with a nice fat balance.
Here's another perspective: toi don't need to use Gold. If toi just want to use fanpop the way toi always have, nothing will change, especially if you've racked up a few medals. You'll have enough or to do anything toi want normally. toi can just ignore that yellow number on your profile. But, if you've always wanted to deck out your profil ou send someone a nice thank-you gift, now toi can, and because toi earned it, it will be all the plus meaningful.
Gold can then be spent on:
-profile customizations like geocen's favori clubs module, user profil banners, background colors, and custom modules (each of these are very inexpensive, gold-wise). par now, you've certainly seen the trio of rodent engineers we employ here at fanpop HQ snacking in the staff kitchen. Imagine your own profil super-banner taking their rotund prairie dog places!
Users who are already big contributors with red Fanatic médailles and higher will be swimming in gold, Scrooge McDuck-style, due to their countless hot contributions earning shiny new or every day, so unlocking a profil skin ou banner will be a drop in the gold-bucket. toi could probably buy it every heure of every jour without making much difference in your or balance.
New fans, on the other hand, should learn the ropes and get some experience with what the community is about before immediately going and blinging out their profiles.
For new users, it will also help guide them to the idea that fanpop is about contributing and collaborating with other fans to build great fan clubs, and not about inciting drama.
We'll first launch with these profil features as they are among the most requested. After this, we'll add:
-User name changing. Yes, apparently, a few people want this for some unknown reason. What the heck is wrong with bonerAlert89 ? or will keep this from going too crazy as it's hard enough to keep up with your 1,000 fans and all their new names each week.
-voting for replacement club banners, icons, skins, and themes (very cheap in terms of voting per club, and users with médailles in that club will be able to vote for free). Giving fans control of club icones and banners has been one of the most requested features, but the concern was that the small percentage of nasty people may try to rig votes and vote unfairly if it was just implemented using a regular fanpop poll.
The reason for spending a little or to vote on club banners/icons/skins/themes is multi-fold: it will reduce vote cheating as cheating bastards will have a tougher time working the system, and it also makes sure that people voting really mean it, versus just spam-voting ugly banners on every club they come across. People with new/fake accounts won't have enough or to rig the vote. Of course, if toi have a medal in that club, toi have earned the right to vote for free. Club elections for banners/icons/skins/themes will come up every two weeks if new candidates are soumis par fans. The current "incumbent" banner/icon/skin will always be a candidate, along with any new candidates.
-profile skins, profil themes, profil super banners, and future items that are plus expensive, Gold-wise. plus on this later, but we are talking about profil videos, gifts to other fans, fully-unlocked profiles [enter your own HTML] and much more.
Yes, profil Skins could look amazing ou fugly, depending on one's taste, but in the opinion of the fanpop staff, any user who has achieved veteran status has demonstrated pretty good judgement and probably won't mettre en ligne a vomit-inducing skin. In any case, if you've earned thousands of Gold, you've definitely earned the right in our book to customize things a bit.
-Another one of many new items: the "Rose-Colored Glasses". Do toi despise all skins, themes, etc? Does individuality and personal expression make toi want to puke? This high-value or item lets toi customize the fanpop world to how toi want things to look. As the name implies, it only affects how toi see things, not how other fans see stuff. Unless, of course, toi have enough or to gift your entire army of fan minions Rose-Colored Glasses...
-There will be an option to montrer ou hide your total Lifetime or earnings, which will be public par default. Lifetime or earnings is just the sum total of all the or you've ever earned, regardless of how much toi have spent. The haut, retour au début fans who montrer it will be ranked on a leaderboard.
Even if toi spend some ou all of your Gold, it does not reduce your Lifetime earnings number since that is all the or you've ever earned (and is not your current or balance, which is a private number shown only to you). toi can also think of Lifetime or earnings as one's global, ensemble total fanpop score.
-new cheat-resistant votes and quiz! vote rigging is a bummer. We'll give vote creators two new options (they are optional and not required):
1. poll/quiz voting to people who have earned at least X Lifetime or ou at least X medals. Voting is free.
2. This option requires people to spend a few or to vote in a poll/quiz (along with free votes for medal holders in that club). Don't worry, that or does not go into the vote creator's wallet. vote cheating will be dramatically reduced because cheating bastards won't have the or and médailles to rig votes (since they are too busy trying to cheat instead of building real fan clubs). We don't see this option being used very frequently, but it can be used for important polls.
-new cheat-resistant 5-star ratings! Veteran fans will remember 5-star ratings. If toi vote something a 3,4, ou 5, it will count the same as being a "Fan of it". fans will be required to have earned at least some or to rate stuff and prove they are a real fan and not just a cheating bastard. We could rating to someone with medals, but that is hard on people who are real fans but spread out all over Fanpop, so we'll go with a minimum Lifetime or number. Again, rating is free. It won't cost any or to rate; toi just need to have earned some or at some point in time to prove toi are a real fan. Aside from stopping cheaters, do toi really want a n00b who knows nothing about fanpop and who has earned zero or to have the power to downrate your stuff? If they are real fans, they will be able to rate soon enough, and par then they will hopefully have learned the fanpop culture.
Nothing is 100% cheat proof, but it will greatly reduce cheating, and it makes it much easier to nail cheaters and ban them for life. Yes, cheaters can try to earn or on their cheater accounts, but that can take a long time if they have a lot of accounts, and it's easy to catch and ban them in the process. Cheating is certainly a lot harder with or than just creating a bunch of fake accounts instantly as is done now.
-spam-resistant walls and private messages! toi will have an option in your profil to block users trying to message toi ou write on your mur who have earned zero gold. This is in addition to the existing filters and block lists. Goodbye, spammers!
Your personal or console montrer your hottest items that day/week/month will be hidden/private par default, but toi can share it if toi want to help teach new fans what is hot and what is not.
Your contributions will earn or every day, and at the end of the week, toi simply make one contribution to automatically collect your gold.
The first phase of or will be launched in the suivant several weeks. We'll be starting with fan profil customization and then roll out club banner/icon voting.
