Gamify Steem, Stat!

Do you want to play a game?

One of the things that really made gaming interesting to me (when I gamed) was the introduction of detailed statistics that allowed me to see my own performance as well as rank me in various positions against others. Not only did it make things more interesting, it helped me learn more about the games I played and, get a better understanding of the way other people played.

Crypto people love numbers.

Gamification can be handled in many ways that can compel usage but thinking about the type of people that are in crypto communities, the numbers are vital in how they approach the various systems. And more importantly than this, they love to be able to track their progress over time, see the + and the - and work out where they can improve, where they have opportunity, where they can game.

Give it to them.

Existing efforts I know of:

steemiboard.com by @arcange

steemfriends.org by @magicmonk

steemit.accusta.tk by @semasping

steemworld.org by @steemchiller

Not bad efforts by any means but, this is the immutable Steem blockchain where all kinds of information are relatively easy to scrape, condense and compare by those with the knowhow.

@abh12345 runs the engagement leagues which scores various metrics to look at how many comments, how many people spoken to, character counts etc of those that take part and ranks them weekly. Their (with @paulag) witness also runs the powerup league. What you will find is that a lot of the people that take part in those leagues are also among the most active users and, the ones who are commonly powering up, especially at the moment. The have also spun off communities that have carried the flame further.

Take it to another level

I spoke with some people quickly about a month ago but we never took it anywhere due to time constraints but, there should be a Year in Review app that allows users to checkbox statistics they want to share in a post. For example,

MY 2018:

• top payout on a post
• most comments on a post
• most resteems of a post
• most Steem earned on a post
• average @steem-ua ranking (for those who use it)
   

That would make for a pretty cool cycle of posts across the blockchain around the turn of the year where people would be able to do some bragging and some sticky-beaking without having to feel completely dickish due to the social-proofing of it. It could be presented in a nicely set out and uniform format that pulls some images from the posts and personalizes it a little.

Take it further though

• post to comment ratio/ counts
• average earnings per post
• total earnings to year (in Steem)
• liquid and Steem Power earnings
• weekly/ monthly Steem Power growth chart from account creation
• Steem/ SBD taken off platform
• Steem/ SBD added to platform
• Steem contributed through voting
• curation earned over time
• votes in/ out and values
• internal market trades
• Steem/ SBD sent to bots
• bot vote value returned
• main contributor values added
• dApps used and value earned through applications
   

You know what I mean? Add every possible statistic of interest into a customizable table and make them available for every user. If a Dapp wanted to put it behind keychain or Steemconnect for some statistics that is fine but essentially with the right tools, all of this information is freely available anyway.

Global Statistics

On top of this there could be the Steem global statistics with community statistics pulled in that shows

• usage and trends
• account growth or retraction across Steem Power bands
• Steem in/ out
• largest voters manual/ bot
• top posters for the month
• highest earners
• state of the Steem apps
   

What I am looking to do with this is to make the numbers easy to find and track for users, give them a way to chart their progress rather than just follower count and Steem Power. Let people see all the little intricacies of their account, let them find the bits they enjoy playing with and focus on improvement in the same way a FPS might prefer an Assault character over a lame ass camping Sniper.

I might not be much of a gamer these days but I love playing around on Steem and adding deep, personalized statistics into the system would make it so much more enjoyable for people like me and those playing along at home. There is so much complexity and a wealth of information here so being able to gather some of it and use it to create a user feedback system that engages and encourages users to build up their character would add a very compelling experience of Steem.

It would be able to provide users real-world, near real-time results about their progress and like the obsessive compulsive, instant gratifiers we tend to be, we will use it to optimize our experience, compare ourselves against others and try to meet our goals.

Make parts of it shareable so people who are interested can provide a weekly report for the blockchain (as some do in various ways already). Create some conversation around the way people use various aspects of the platform, increase the discussion, the learning, the interaction and most importantly, the connection to the platform itself.

Personalizing the feedback of an account into usable information makes the person a tangible part of the platform by making their actions feel much more real and therefore accountable. They can see how changes in their behavior affect their performance, they can see what others might be doing too and it gives them a view of the blockchain that they are responsible for.

The feedback we get is very valuable for finding our place in the community. We have so much information available here, we should be leveraging it much, much better than we are.

What statistics would you like to see of your account, what indicators do you use to track progress?

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]