Nearly a full year ago, we unrolled a new points system in My.BarackObama with a pretty simple goal: to make it easier for supporters to measure their impact on the campaign. The more you did on My.BarackObama.com, the more points you would accrue. A phone call got you three points. Hosting an event got you 15.From the start, the emphasis was on quantifying an activist’s contribution to the campaign – not on encouraging people to rack up points for the sake of racking up points. For some people, that wasn’t always clear.Today, we’re proud to roll out an updated points system called the Activity Tracker. The basic idea is the same: the Activity Tracker helps Obama supporters measure the work they’re doing on behalf of the campaign. Whereas before, the points system tried to measure lots of different activities down to a “point value,” the new Activity Tracker simply displays up front exactly what activity users have been engaged in.The second major change is how the system formulates a total number to gauge activity. The previous Points system consolidated all activity into a single cumulative metric, but now, the new Activity Index is time sensitive. The more work you’ve done recently, the higher the number will be.Finally, and maybe most importantly, the source of a given user’s points is now visible to everyone in the My.BarackObama community. Before, all a user could see when looking at another person’s dashboard was a total point value. Now, the full extent of the person’s campaign-related activity is available for other activists to see.And that information is not just displayed on individuals’ dashboard pages – it also displays on groups pages. So within a couple clicks, you can check out your favorite My.BarackObama group and immediately know how active the members are.The new Activity Tracker is just the beginning of some important new additions to the site that are coming up in the next few weeks. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how it works and how it can be improved.
** NOTE: The bug incorrectly calculating activity over the past seven days has been corrected.
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