Inspiring titles for status levels

We have custom ranks and custom Icons as well. Our members like to.

Good question, Grant. The status level system is a great way to encourage and reward community participation. Many of our customers use Jive's default status level settings. But others replace those with Levels (e.g. 1-5) or other easily-identified status structures. For international communities with members from different cultures, broadly recognizable statuses can be especially important.

Still other customers use status levels to express their community's identity with unique schemes such as color-coded stars, conceptual themes (Rising Star, Super Star, Supernova), or fun terms like Hot Shot or "They call me Encyclopedia". Do consider playful, contextually relevant terms that are less clearly hierarchical to keep participation fun and less competitive.

Think carefully about your community's identity. Is your industry straight-laced or laid back? (If you've got a Fun Stuff link under your Resources, chances are, you've got some theming leeway.)  Is it kiwis only? Is it appropriate to tie in to the fish theme going on in the ON-Brand Partners site? How do community members view themselves and how might you tie into those themes?

Thanks for posting a great question -- and have fun designing your community!

We are working on customizing Jive's default ones. We are keen - in the names we use - to recognize the level / amount of participation / contribution while avoiding any suggestion of quality.

FYI: I came across a study of using status levels. They came to this conclusion: "Our results will demonstrate that the incentive mechanism had a long-term effect on contribution levels and generated a second boost in contribution levels when released to a new set of users."

The system the studied was "Beehive" and their levels were as follows: 

     New bee

     Worker bee

     Busy bee

     Super bee

Source:

http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb08/proc/proceedings/03%20Persuasive%20Technology/07.pdf

Hi there,

We have the standard titles for our status levels, but recently, we have run into the issue of users exceeding the "Master level". Therefore, we want to implement another level title beyond Master, but I am drawing a blank on what that title would be. Any ideas? Any suggestions help!

Thanks!

We are relaunching the status levels here in the JC led by the efforts of Ryan Ruark. He might be willing to give you the sneak peek of our new level names... What do you say, Ryan?

We have a tendency to re-start our gamification console every year with new titles for each level.  I stumbled across this thread because I just update ours to the following:

1. Groupie

2. Roadie

3. Tech

4. Engineer

5. Tour Manager

6. Stage Manager

7. Front of House

8. Bodyguard

9. Bandmate

10. Rock star

I replaced the generic numbers that I think are pre-installed in the console with some more "fun" options, like this:

Roadie:

Groupie:

Front of House:

You get the idea... Will it "inspire people to contribute more to reach the next level?"  Who knows?  But it seems more fun than 1, 2, 3, 4...

Hope that's helpful...