Yes, we've been thinking about Gold for a long time
huy chương are nice, but they are too coarse-grained to give feedback on contributions (you only know after bạn earn a medal, and bạn don't even know which contributions in that club caused bạn to earn a medal and which contributions were a waste of your time).
This is where vàng comes in. Your hottest contributions will earn vàng each ngày (think of them as micro-medals), and bạn will have a private console that shows which are your hottest contributions.
Basically: huy chương are earned per club, but vàng is earned for each được ưa chuộng contribution bạn have made since joining fanpop and dumped into your piggy bank for bạn to hoard like Smaug hoặc spend on various preciouses.
được ưa chuộng contributions will earn a lot of vàng each day, contributions that are semi-hot will earn less, and unloved duds will earn zero. What is "hot" will be determined bởi our dedicated army of humans and benevolent robots analyzing all activity on Fanpop.
We've worked hard to make sure vàng is fair. Don't worry, users who spam a club with a thousand identical crappy screencaps hoặc thuyền mành, rác rưởi, rác tường posts will not earn gold, and cheaters will be utterly... well, bạn don't cheat, so no worries there.
It's clear that there are many veteran những người hâm mộ 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 những người hâm mộ in dozens of clubs.
Since huy chương are per-club, but vàng is earned from all of your contributions, vàng is one of the best ways to recognize and reward those widely-spread-out veteran những người hâm mộ with numerous contributions across many clubs. bạn don't even need to be a người hâm mộ of a club to earn vàng for a great contribution in that club.
We'll be launching the first phase of vàng in the tiếp theo several weeks. Your contributions have already been earning vàng as we speak, so once it goes public, many of bạn veterans will start out with a nice fat balance.
Here's another perspective: bạn don't need to use Gold. If bạn just want to use fanpop the way bạn always have, nothing will change, especially if you've racked up a few medals. You'll have enough vàng to do anything bạn want normally. bạn can just ignore that yellow number on your profile. But, if you've always wanted to deck out your thông tin các nhân hoặc send someone a nice thank-you gift, now bạn can, and because bạn earned it, it will be all the thêm meaningful.
Gold can then be spent on:
-profile customizations like geocen's yêu thích các câu lạc bộ module, user thông tin các nhân banners, background colors, and custom modules (each of these are very inexpensive, gold-wise). bởi now, you've certainly seen the trio of rodent engineers we employ here at fanpop HQ snacking in the staff kitchen. Imagine your own thông tin các nhân super-banner taking their rotund prairie dog places!
Users who are already big contributors with red Fanatic huy chương and higher will be swimming in gold, Scrooge McDuck-style, due to their countless hot contributions earning shiny new vàng every day, so unlocking a thông tin các nhân skin hoặc banner will be a drop in the gold-bucket. bạn could probably buy it every giờ of every ngày without making much difference in your vàng 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 những người hâm mộ to build great người hâm mộ clubs, and not about inciting drama.
We'll first launch with these thông tin các nhân 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 ? vàng will keep this from going too crazy as it's hard enough to keep up with your 1,000 những người hâm mộ 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 huy chương in that club will be able to vote for free). Giving những người hâm mộ control of club các biểu tượng 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 số phiếu bầu and vote unfairly if it was just implemented using a regular fanpop poll.
The reason for spending a little vàng 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 vàng to rig the vote. Of course, if bạn have a medal in that club, bạn 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 đã đệ trình bởi fans. The current "incumbent" banner/icon/skin will always be a candidate, along with any new candidates.
-profile skins, thông tin các nhân themes, thông tin các nhân super banners, and future items that are thêm expensive, Gold-wise. thêm on this later, but we are talking about thông tin các nhân videos, gifts to other fans, fully-unlocked profiles [enter your own HTML] and much more.
Yes, thông tin các nhân Skins could look amazing hoặc 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 đăng tải 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 bạn despise all skins, themes, etc? Does individuality and personal expression make bạn want to puke? This high-value vàng item lets bạn customize the fanpop world to how bạn want things to look. As the name implies, it only affects how bạn see things, not how other những người hâm mộ see stuff. Unless, of course, bạn have enough vàng to gift your entire army of người hâm mộ minions Rose-Colored Glasses...
-There will be an option to hiển thị hoặc hide your total Lifetime vàng earnings, which will be public bởi default. Lifetime vàng earnings is just the sum total of all the vàng you've ever earned, regardless of how much bạn have spent. The hàng đầu, đầu trang những người hâm mộ who hiển thị it will be ranked on a leaderboard.
Even if bạn spend some hoặc all of your Gold, it does not reduce your Lifetime earnings number since that is all the vàng you've ever earned (and is not your current vàng balance, which is a private number shown only to you). bạn can also think of Lifetime vàng earnings as one's tổng thể total fanpop score.
-new cheat-resistant số phiếu bầu and quiz! phiếu bầu rigging is a bummer. We'll give phiếu bầu creators two new options (they are optional and not required):
1. poll/quiz voting to people who have earned at least X Lifetime vàng hoặc at least X medals. Voting is free.
2. This option requires people to spend a few vàng to vote in a poll/quiz (along with free sự bỏ phiếu for medal holders in that club). Don't worry, that vàng does not go into the phiếu bầu creator's wallet. phiếu bầu cheating will be dramatically reduced because cheating bastards won't have the vàng and huy chương to rig số phiếu bầu (since they are too busy trying to cheat instead of building real người hâm mộ 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 những người hâm mộ will remember 5-star ratings. If bạn vote something a 3,4, hoặc 5, it will count the same as being a "Fan of it". những người hâm mộ will be required to have earned at least some vàng to rate stuff and prove they are a real người hâm mộ and not just a cheating bastard. We could rating to someone with medals, but that is hard on people who are real những người hâm mộ but spread out all over Fanpop, so we'll go with a minimum Lifetime vàng number. Again, rating is free. It won't cost any vàng to rate; bạn just need to have earned some vàng at some point in time to prove bạn are a real fan. Aside from stopping cheaters, do bạn really want a n00b who knows nothing about fanpop and who has earned zero vàng to have the power to downrate your stuff? If they are real fans, they will be able to rate soon enough, and bởi 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 vàng 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 vàng than just creating a bunch of fake accounts instantly as is done now.
-spam-resistant walls and private messages! bạn will have an option in your thông tin các nhân to block users trying to message bạn hoặc write on your tường who have earned zero gold. This is in addition to the existing filters and block lists. Goodbye, spammers!
Your personal vàng console hiển thị your hottest items that day/week/month will be hidden/private bởi default, but bạn can share it if bạn want to help teach new những người hâm mộ what is hot and what is not.
Your contributions will earn vàng every day, and at the end of the week, bạn simply make one contribution to automatically collect your gold.
The first phase of vàng will be launched in the tiếp theo several weeks. We'll be starting with người hâm mộ thông tin các nhân customization and then roll out club banner/icon voting.
