Two systems, both in the Gamification tab of your community settings. Level System is off until you switch it on. Streak System is on by default, so your members are already building a streak.
Levels reward what a member contributes. Streaks reward that they keep coming back.
Open the gamification settings
The level system
Switch on Enable Level System and members start collecting points and moving up levels. The first time you switch it on, nine levels are created for you:
| Level | Points |
|---|---|
| Newbie | 0 |
| Explorer | 10 |
| Contributor | 30 |
| Collaborator | 90 |
| Achiever | 270 |
| Influencer | 810 |
| Expert | 2430 |
| Leader | 7290 |
| Legend | 21870 |
Each step is three times the last, so the early levels come quickly and the top ones take real commitment. Keep them, rename them, or replace them with your own.
How points are earned
Four numbers decide it, and you can change each one.
| Setting | Default | Goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Points per reaction on post received | 1 | The author of the post |
| Points per comment posted | 2 | The member who comments |
| Points per reaction on comment received | 1 | The author of the comment |
| Points per reply posted | 1 | The member who replies |
So comments and replies earn points for the person who writes them, and reactions earn points for the person who receives them. Writing a post earns nothing on its own: a post pays off when other people react to it.
That split is deliberate. Points for posting reward volume, and you get a feed full of noise written by whoever types fastest. Points for joining a conversation and for being reacted to reward the posts people found worth answering.
Some limits keep the numbers honest.
- Comment points count once per post and member. Ten comments under the same post earn the points once.
- Reply points count once per comment replied to.
- Reaction points count once per member who reacts. Taking a reaction back and giving it again earns nothing extra.
- Reacting to your own post or comment earns nothing.
- Reactions given by admins earn the author no points, so taking one back takes nothing away.
- Points leave with the content that earned them. Withdrawing a reaction or deleting a comment or reply takes back exactly the points it earned. Deleting a post also takes back the points for every comment, reply and reaction under it. Comment points stay as long as one of the member's comments under that post remains.
- Hidden content counts as removed. When a moderator hides it, or it is hidden automatically after reports or for blacklisted words, its points are taken back, and releasing it restores them. Points from an automation are never taken back.
- A total never drops below zero, and the level follows the points down as well as up.
When a number differs from its default, a Reset to default button appears. It puts the defaults back into the form; nothing changes until you Save.
Leave the defaults alone for the first months. Tuning point values before you know how your community behaves is guessing.
Designing levels
Add level creates a level, and each one has a Name, the Points it takes to reach it, and a look. Under Style you choose Text, Icon & Text or Image & Text, with a Color and a Text Color.
Make the first level easy. A member who reaches the second level in their first week understands the system and wants the next one. A member still on the first level after a month reads the whole thing as decoration.
Then space them out. Wide gaps at the top give your most active members somewhere to go for a long time. Give levels names that fit your community, not "Level 4": the name is what members see and repeat.
Change a level's points, add one or delete one, and every member is placed on the level their points match right away, in either direction. Raising a threshold can move people down, so tell them before you do it.
Reset to default levels replaces all your levels with the nine above after a confirmation. Members keep their points and land on the matching default level.
What a level allows
Every level has two rights under Restrictions: Posting allowed and Commenting allowed. Turn one off and members on that level cannot post or comment, and the server refuses it too, so there is no way around it. Admins are never restricted.
This is how you make newcomers earn their voice: commenting from the start, posting from the second level.
If the first level has both rights off, a red notice appears. New members then cannot post or comment, cannot earn points by writing, and may never reach the second level. Keep at least one right on the first level.
Streaks
A streak counts the days in a row on which a member did something. It rewards habit rather than volume, which reaches a different kind of person entirely.
Switch it with Enable Streak System. Four settings shape it.
- Qualifying actions: what counts as showing up. Post, Comment, Reaction and Login, all ticked by default.
- Min actions per day to qualify: how many of those a day needs. Default 1.
- Freezes per month: how many missed days are forgiven. Default 2.
- Milestone days: the lengths worth celebrating. Default 3, 7, 14, 30, 60 and 100; Add day adds your own.
Remind members when their streak is at risk sends a notification and an email in the evening to members with a running streak who have not qualified that day yet. It is off until you turn it on. Edit email template opens the email it sends.
Freezes matter more than they look
Without freezes, one missed day resets a member's 60-day streak to zero, and that member very often stops coming back entirely. It is the single most demotivating thing a streak system can do.
Each missed day uses one freeze, and the freezes refill on the first of every month. One or two a month keep the streak meaningful and survive a holiday, a deadline or a bad week.
Milestones and badges
Reaching a milestone sends the member a notification. Badges come from a badge rule: an Activity streak rule with the same number of days awards its badge when the member gets there. Reward milestones with badges takes you straight to the badge settings.
The leaderboard
While the level system is on, members get a Leaderboard tab with All Time, This Month and This Week, their own rank, the top members and how the levels are spread. With streaks on, it also ranks the longest streaks. There is no separate switch for it: the tab exists exactly as long as the level system does.
A leaderboard suits a community that enjoys competing. It does not suit every one: in a support community for people struggling with something, ranking them against each other is the wrong signal. If that is your community, leave the level system off and use streaks and badges instead.
What your members see in the community
Automations
Points can also be awarded by an automation, and a member reaching a new level can start one. That is the route for rewards outside the community, such as unlocking a course at a certain level.
Switching it off later
The level system can be turned off, and the members who collected points will notice. Decide early, before people have a rank they care about, rather than after.
Watching it work
The analytics page shows a points leaderboard and how members are spread across levels. A spread where almost everybody sits on the first level means your thresholds are too high, not that your members are lazy.