Level up system and achivments

What would this be used for?

I have a pretty big concern with this already: Some gifters may run giveaways restricted for "high levels" only - I don't think that's how the SteamGifts site and community should run things but I'm fairly confident it would occur if a levels system was implemented.

RJ

I don't think there should be a reward system for giving away games. People should do it because they have extra or they are just feeling nice. A reward system may also stratify those who have money vs. those who don't.

What I do think would be a good idea is to have some sort of system to mark trusted gifters. I don't like having to check each time before investing my points to make sure that the person giving the game away has received positive feedback about previous contests. Maybe a star a la eBay to show if a gifter has gifted a certain number of games with a high percentage of received responses.

After reading the comments and the above post I think I have come up with something.

Many forums use ranking as a kind of general indicator of how helpful/knowledgeable an individual user is. Earning a rank in that fashion would allow new users to trust answers from older users without them having to know who everyone is.

On this site, there could be a combined ranking between the forums and the gifts page. A user can slowly earn rank over time by participating in discussions or just by having an account or something. Gifting will earn rank for each gift that is marked received. Each rank will have an icon associated with it and the icon will show next to forum and game posts. This will allow you to see how trustworthy a forum or game post can be. This would also have another affect, spamming, trolling, and fake gifting will result in losing status. There could be ranks below where a regular user starts when they are invited. People who try to harm the site would be dropped lower.

The important part would be that point generation and gift winning are NOT associated with rank at all.

It could also be a fun thing for the community to vote on the names and icons of each rank as they have a need to make new ones.

I like the idea of leveling up. The general idea is fine, but we need to sort the details so it won't be too unfair for new users but the older users and those who contribute have a reason to keep or start contributing.

(where can I get those games you mentioned free for steam btw? Never heard of it)

I'll take random levels in the forums like that, based on the posting and all, you know... classic stuff. But really, despite looking cool and being awesome, people would use such a thing as a form of favoritism if it were used to track giveaways and time since created, etc.

Achievement Unlocked: Enter 1000 giveaways and win nothing

lol gamification