Yes, we've been thinking about Gold for a long time
奖章 are nice, but they are too coarse-grained to give feedback on contributions (you only know after 你 earn a medal, and 你 don't even know which contributions in that club caused 你 to earn a medal and which contributions were a waste of your time).
This is where 金牌 comes in. Your hottest contributions will earn 金牌 each 日 (think of them as micro-medals), and 你 will have a private console that shows which are your hottest contributions.
Basically: 奖章 are earned per club, but 金牌 is earned for each 流行的 contribution 你 have made since joining 潮流粉丝俱乐部 and dumped into your piggy bank for 你 to hoard like Smaug 或者 spend on various preciouses.
流行的 contributions will earn a lot of 金牌 each day, contributions that are semi-hot will earn less, and unloved duds will earn zero. What is "hot" will be determined 由 our dedicated army of humans and benevolent robots analyzing all activity on Fanpop.
We've worked hard to make sure 金牌 is fair. Don't worry, users who spam a club with a thousand identical crappy screencaps 或者 破烂, 垃圾 墙 posts will not earn gold, and cheaters will be utterly... well, 你 don't cheat, so no worries there.
It's clear that there are many veteran 粉丝 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 粉丝 in dozens of clubs.
Since 奖章 are per-club, but 金牌 is earned from all of your contributions, 金牌 is one of the best ways to recognize and reward those widely-spread-out veteran 粉丝 with numerous contributions across many clubs. 你 don't even need to be a 粉丝 of a club to earn 金牌 for a great contribution in that club.
We'll be launching the first phase of 金牌 in the 下一个 several weeks. Your contributions have already been earning 金牌 as we speak, so once it goes public, many of 你 veterans will start out with a nice fat balance.
Here's another perspective: 你 don't need to use Gold. If 你 just want to use 潮流粉丝俱乐部 the way 你 always have, nothing will change, especially if you've racked up a few medals. You'll have enough 金牌 to do anything 你 want normally. 你 can just ignore that yellow number on your profile. But, if you've always wanted to deck out your 个人资料 或者 send someone a nice thank-you gift, now 你 can, and because 你 earned it, it will be all the 更多 meaningful.
Gold can then be spent on:
-profile customizations like geocen's 最喜爱的 俱乐部 module, user 个人资料 banners, background colors, and custom modules (each of these are very inexpensive, gold-wise). 由 now, you've certainly seen the trio of rodent engineers we employ here at 潮流粉丝俱乐部 HQ snacking in the staff kitchen. Imagine your own 个人资料 super-banner taking their rotund prairie dog places!
Users who are already big contributors with red Fanatic 奖章 and higher will be swimming in gold, Scrooge McDuck-style, due to their countless hot contributions earning shiny new 金牌 every day, so unlocking a 个人资料 skin 或者 banner will be a drop in the gold-bucket. 你 could probably buy it every 小时 of every 日 without making much difference in your 金牌 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 潮流粉丝俱乐部 is about contributing and collaborating with other 粉丝 to build great 粉丝 clubs, and not about inciting drama.
We'll first launch with these 个人资料 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 ? 金牌 will keep this from going too crazy as it's hard enough to keep up with your 1,000 粉丝 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 奖章 in that club will be able to vote for free). Giving 粉丝 control of club 图标 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 民意调查 and vote unfairly if it was just implemented using a regular 潮流粉丝俱乐部 poll.
The reason for spending a little 金牌 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 金牌 to rig the vote. Of course, if 你 have a medal in that club, 你 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 提交 由 fans. The current "incumbent" banner/icon/skin will always be a candidate, along with any new candidates.
-profile skins, 个人资料 themes, 个人资料 super banners, and future items that are 更多 expensive, Gold-wise. 更多 on this later, but we are talking about 个人资料 videos, gifts to other fans, fully-unlocked profiles [enter your own HTML] and much more.
Yes, 个人资料 《皮囊》 could look amazing 或者 fugly, depending on one's taste, but in the opinion of the 潮流粉丝俱乐部 staff, any user who has achieved veteran status has demonstrated pretty good judgement and probably won't 上传 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 你 despise all skins, themes, etc? Does individuality and personal expression make 你 want to puke? This high-value 金牌 item lets 你 customize the 潮流粉丝俱乐部 world to how 你 want things to look. As the name implies, it only affects how 你 see things, not how other 粉丝 see stuff. Unless, of course, 你 have enough 金牌 to gift your entire army of 粉丝 minions Rose-Colored Glasses...
-There will be an option to 显示 或者 hide your total Lifetime 金牌 earnings, which will be public 由 default. Lifetime 金牌 earnings is just the sum total of all the 金牌 you've ever earned, regardless of how much 你 have spent. The 最佳, 返回页首 粉丝 who 显示 it will be ranked on a leaderboard.
Even if 你 spend some 或者 all of your Gold, it does not reduce your Lifetime earnings number since that is all the 金牌 you've ever earned (and is not your current 金牌 balance, which is a private number shown only to you). 你 can also think of Lifetime 金牌 earnings as one's 总体, 整体 total 潮流粉丝俱乐部 score.
-new cheat-resistant 民意调查 and quiz! 民意调查 rigging is a bummer. We'll give 民意调查 creators two new options (they are optional and not required):
1. poll/quiz voting to people who have earned at least X Lifetime 金牌 或者 at least X medals. Voting is free.
2. This option requires people to spend a few 金牌 to vote in a poll/quiz (along with free 得票数 for medal holders in that club). Don't worry, that 金牌 does not go into the 民意调查 creator's wallet. 民意调查 cheating will be dramatically reduced because cheating bastards won't have the 金牌 and 奖章 to rig 民意调查 (since they are too busy trying to cheat instead of building real 粉丝 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 粉丝 will remember 5-star ratings. If 你 vote something a 3,4, 或者 5, it will count the same as being a "Fan of it". 粉丝 will be required to have earned at least some 金牌 to rate stuff and prove they are a real 粉丝 and not just a cheating bastard. We could rating to someone with medals, but that is hard on people who are real 粉丝 but spread out all over Fanpop, so we'll go with a minimum Lifetime 金牌 number. Again, rating is free. It won't cost any 金牌 to rate; 你 just need to have earned some 金牌 at some point in time to prove 你 are a real fan. Aside from stopping cheaters, do 你 really want a n00b who knows nothing about 潮流粉丝俱乐部 and who has earned zero 金牌 to have the power to downrate your stuff? If they are real fans, they will be able to rate soon enough, and 由 then they will hopefully have learned the 潮流粉丝俱乐部 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 金牌 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 金牌 than just creating a bunch of fake accounts instantly as is done now.
-spam-resistant walls and private messages! 你 will have an option in your 个人资料 to block users trying to message 你 或者 write on your 墙 who have earned zero gold. This is in addition to the existing filters and block lists. Goodbye, spammers!
Your personal 金牌 console 展示 your hottest items that day/week/month will be hidden/private 由 default, but 你 can share it if 你 want to help teach new 粉丝 what is hot and what is not.
Your contributions will earn 金牌 every day, and at the end of the week, 你 simply make one contribution to automatically collect your gold.
The first phase of 金牌 will be launched in the 下一个 several weeks. We'll be starting with 粉丝 个人资料 customization and then roll out club banner/icon voting.
