Coins
What are the coins I'm earning?
Coins are a fun way to reward Members who are active in the Community Forums and in and around various places on the entire website.
The more often you return to this website and are engaged with the content and with other Members, the more coins you will earn.
Your coins don't carry a monetary value. Instead, they are just an honorary “thank you” to acknowledge active and helpful Members.
Where to see how many coins you have
There are four main places you can see how many coins you currently have earned:
- Profile Page — The top header area of your personal Profile Page
- Dashboard — The top “My Account” box on the Dashboard page you arrive on immediately after logging in
- Community Posts — In the profile block next to all of your posts in the Community forums
- Blog Post Comments — In the profile block next to all of your comments under Blog Posts
How to earn more coins
You will earn coins automatically doing various tasks inside the Membership areas as well as public areas on this Website. There isn't anything you need to “turn on” or “set up.” You have been earning coins ever since the moment you became a Member.
Below is the current list of specific tasks you can do as well as how many coins each will earn you. This will change over time, as more features are added.
Community Forum
Add a post topic
When you create a new post topic, you will receive 1 coin.
Reply to a member's post
When you add a reply to another Member's post, you will receive 3 coins.
"Like" a member's post
When you click “Like” under another member's post they wrote, you will receive 1 coin.
When your post was "liked"
When another Member clicks “Like” under a post you wrote, you will receive 1 coin.
Blog Posts
Read a blog post
When you read any article, you will receive 1 coin. (Limit: 2 per day)
Add a comment
When you add a comment or reply to someone else's comment, you will receive 2 coins. (Limit: 5 comments per post)
"Like" Someone's Comment
When you click the “thumbs up” button “Liking” someone's comment, you will receive 1 coin.
Your Comment Was "Liked"
When another person clicks the “thumbs up” button “Liking” a comment you wrote, you will receive 1 coin.
Knowledge Bases
Read An Article
When you read any article, you will receive 1 coin. (Limit: 3 per day)
MISC
Visit Website Daily
When you return to this website, you will be welcomed with 1 coin. (Limit: 1 per day)
The number of coins awarded or deducted is subject to change at any time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the inspiration behind adding Coins?
I'm personally a member of a business training website with a community area similar to the one here. And in their forum is where I first saw this “points” system in action. As I logged in and did different things in their forum community, I started to accumulate more and more points. I'm not a big game player anymore, but I noticed that every time I logged in, I was now wanting to look and see how many points I had accumulated. It became a fun thing for me to check, and for multiple reasons I almost couldn't explain, I realized it was bringing me a lot of pleasure.
So, I knew this was something I definitely wanted to add to the forum community here on SYEL. Where I hope others will also derive a fun experience in seeing their own “coin” count increase every day, I also think there are some real benefits to the count that may not be immediately obvious.
For example, I noticed when I asked a question in this forum I mentioned above, and received answers from lots of different community members, I started looking to see how many “points” each person who answered me had. It's not that I necessarily valued each person's answer less if they had a lower point count than others. They could just be a new member, just starting to post in the forum.
But I must admit, I would sometimes put extra “positive weight” on someone's answer if they also had a lot of points under their name. This is because a person earns more and more “points” the more we used this business membership website.
The “coin count” here on Scan Your Entire Life will probably mean different things to different people, but one interpretation might be that the higher the count, the more “helpful” a member is to the community — because you get points for helping people with an answer (as a reply post).
So, mainly Coins are used as a “reward system,” as a little thank you to active and helpful members who have a big heart and want other members to succeed with their photo collection goals too.
Do the Coins have any kind of monetary value?
No, sorry to say, the coins aren't worth money — U.S. dollar or any other currency around the world.
But, the coins could easily become used for other purposes in the future, such as to unlock special content, or for contests to win gift cards or site “swag” like t-shirts. Or maybe eventually they could even be used for a financial credit to one's membership account — a free month or two etc. Anything is possible!
I will certainly be interested in hearing everyone's ideas and opinions!