Rewarding Contributions in a User-Generated Video Online Community

Abstract

With the aim to create an active, sustainable, and self-maintained user-generated video online community, this paper proposes a reward scheme to enhance users’ intrinsic motivations towards participating in the community and contributing content. The proposed reward scheme features a system of points, the accumulation of which achieves higher membership levels in the community, which in turn “unlock” specific privileges. Status points can be collected through users’ content contribution and rating activity in the community, fostering thus the community’s self-moderation. Following a gamification approach, the scheme provisions for badges which can be collected by users, according to their activity in the community. User rewarding is also accomplished by means of reputation, ensuring that the status, contributions, ratings, and badges of a user are visible to the entire community