Post 19/02/2008, I was a very happy man.
I was at last getting handsome MSDs (MS Dollars, not Mahinder Singh Dhoni) for my sweat, toil, and incessant burning of midnight oil on MS. My kitty was beginning to resemble the BCCI’s coffers.
Of course, there were minor discrepancies here and there, but overall things were on the upswing. At least now, we have a realistic chance of becoming Lakhpatis on MS… isn’t that just great?
Never have I looked at my points list the way I’ve done these last few days. The way the MSDs are accumulating in my kitty it gives me hope (so what if it’s virtual?) for a better future. Yes, I have eyes set on the Beach Villa. I am within striking distance, but there’s a hitch…
Right now, I can only gift but can’t buy or own anything for myself. I strongly believe that members must be allowed to accumulate things for themselves just as much as they are allowed to gift them. If more and more members feel this way, then we might convince MS to do something about it.
Did I mention I’ve developed this addictive hobby of counting my eggs… er… MSDs of late? And, did I tell you I got the shock of my life today while counting my MSDs for the umpteenth time? MSDs on account of members trusting me was a big ZERO.
Like Uncle Scrooge, while I was taking a dip in my MSD bin located inside a secret fort a thought struck me. Something was not right in my MSD bin. I felt I was being shortchanged. Caught in the stream of enhanced points system and the Valentine bonus, did we miss something?
In the New MS-Points System, if a member trusts you get 10 MSDs. Fair enough, in fact very good. When we are dealing with Points for everything, then a member’s trust in you also must fetch points… in my lexicon MSDs. Hold on, just for a moment…. this is very good for a newly registered member as his or her trust list will grow very quickly in the initial stages. But for an established member who’s been on the MS circuit for more than 2 years this trusting activity will reach a saturation point. In other words, trusts will dry up.
As of 19/02/2008, those who already have a huge trust list have been dished out a raw deal. I don’t want to sound like I am dividing members into categories like New and Established but it does seem that this revamped points system is pro ‘new members.’
It is difficult for existing members to scout for new topics to write upon and so every next review becomes all the more difficult as they mostly run out of topics or products. Whereas, new members will have many more topics to write upon and will get more MSDs for it than we ever got.
My contention is…
1. MS should have straight away given us 10 points each for every member who has trusted us. For example, if 100 members trust us we should have received 1000 MSDs. Now, that’s what I call bringing all members on a level playing field. Not that this is a competition, but when points acquire value then this becomes a contentious issue.
2. Points on new features are effective from 19/02/2008 and there is no problem with that. But points on existing features like writing reviews, reading and rating reviews should have been given from a retrospective date. All MS had to do was give the differential points to the members. Say, if a member has posted 50 reviews, then as per old system he/she would have got 250 points and as per the new system it would have been 500. So, the difference of 250 points should have been credited to the members account. The same goes for reading and rating reviews.
As MS has admitted that it is contemplating on bringing more changes in the near future, I took this opportunity to put my point across.
Your vote counts!