The Leaderboard!

This week we quietly turned on a new feature on Urbantastic, the leaderboard. Since the idea’s first sketching on our company whiteboard we’ve envisioned a leaderboard as an integral part of the site. This is the beta version of that dream. In the future, we want the leaderboard to rank the organizations on the site in as many ways as we can. I thought I’d take some time to describe the role a leaderboard plays.

Laurel Lapworth has written the best article to date on the subject, and so I will summarize her main points as best as I can.

First, a leaderboard is a list.

Ours is a list of members getting things done. Our currency is the credits organizations dole out to value tasks and reward members for doing good.

Leaderboards show currency, and value.

In one virtual world, there were two leaderboards – one for the member with most ingame gold, the other for the most generous with donations. This kept hoarding down to a minimum – the Warren Buffet/Bill Gates of the virtual world would amass billions and then donate it to guilds on their server. Interesting behaviour. They spent a lot of time to gather resources so they could make massive cyberdonations of pixel currency.

We’re hoping to use our credits in a similar fashion. Hopefully it won’t sound so incredibly nerdy and utterly devoid of meaning :).

The leaderboard recognises their value to the community in which they are placed.

As of today’s post, most of the leaders are a) the co-founders (Heath and I), and b) our biggest supporters. Go figure. Without those leaders, this site would not exist. Without new leaders, this site won’t grow.

It can help a community search, filter and reward participants.

Leaderboards are a shared experience. Those on the list see their work recognized, while new members are given an example to emulate. Not surprisingly, most of the top ten have profile pictures, detailed bios, and successful examples of micro-vounteerism on their profiles. If you’re looking to get started, there are others leading by example.

Final Comments:

There is a competition element to a leaderboard, but I don’t believe it’s a significant motivator for a site like ours. Most crucial for volunteers like me is the sense of trust that precedes future volunteer experiences. As expected, every organization has a vetting process when a newbie wants to volunteer (references, resume, retinal scan). However, that barrier tends to turn great people away, especially when it’s for the umpteenth time. Our goal, and that of the leaderboard, is to add familiarity and trust to every new experience. That’s how we hope to build community. Kind of ironic that the Internet is facilitating this eh?

Benjamin