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