I just had a thought. How about "increment" and "decrement" instead of "upvote" and "downvote"? We can theme it in developer lingo.

I like the idea of basing the terminology around developer lingo. Would certainly be fitting for the website.

If I may contribute to the points naming conventions with "Bits."

I thought about "bits", but those are so small.

Yeah, but it has a certain incremental charm to it I suppose; if it can so be called. Of the two you originally posted, I'd cast my vote for Bytes.

It does remind me of Bitcoins which have become quite popular, so the term does have some modern and incremental significance. Definitely something to consider. How about the voting terminology?

Increment / Decrement is as good as it gets with respect to up voting and down voting. I think it would work very well in that respect, and undeniably developer oriented.

Looking for a good icon to represent "bits", http://icomoon.io/app/#/select

Perhaps a CD icon, or a coin / circle emblazoned with "01" in the middle.

My only concern with inc and dec is there is a slight implication of moving it up a list which is not true. Maybe I could use ++ and -- in the form of icons, but I think the heart might have to change to represent the "value" of a post. I'm also considering there term for perks. I was considering "permissions" but that term doesn't offer a sense of joy. "Perks" sound a lot more fun to earn, but the term has nothing to do with development. Stackoverflow uses "privileges" but I don't want to use that term. I could use "perms" or "privs".

Lol, sense of joy. I'd almost say "Access" as that is probably most applicable to earning the ability to post links and what not. However, that's not really much better than "privileges," and "permissions." Plus it doesn't really sound all that enjoyable either. Makes me feel like I'm back on IRC.

Exactly. I want it to be something that's fun to earn. Perks sound more fun, but ultimately this system will be exhausted and the badge system will take the spotlight. I don't plan to build out a badge/achievement system quite yet, but that'll definitely be down the pipeline.

The issue with anything like this is that it's an extra hurdle added to get a user up and running, and more likely to come back. "Lame... I can't do anything" could be a common attitude. One of the reasons it works for sites like the stack exchange networks is that more often than not, users have a reason to get points - to be able to get help of their own. I'm not sure a points system would be as effective on a site like this.

@Conscious While you have a valid point I think jumping the hurdles can help improve the stickiness of the site. I joined StackOverflow years ago and was put off by the fact that I couldn't upvote an answer. A few months later I earned some points for my answers and earned the ability to vote. This brought me back and motivated me to answer some more questions. The progressive nature and goal oriented system brings people back. I want to give people something to achieve and a ladder to climb. Without the proper motivation nobody will post.

The more I think about it the more I like the term "bits". I can use a square icon to represent them like a large pixel.

I had a thought. What if perks were something you could purchased with bits? The problem with this is your bit total would no longer represent a score but more of a balance. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I figure I'll throw it out there. It might make earning bits more fun knowing you have a selection of perks to unlock.

One advantage to purchasing perks is that I can offer one time perks such as "promote this thread" or "promote this snippet" to bump it to everybody's homepage.

I think I like the threshold idea better, somewhat. At some point it becomes a game to see who can get the most perks, points, etc -- which I feel doesn't really fit the bill. Just my two cents though.

I do want it to be somewhat of a game where members try to get the most points. This will help encourage more posts. Perks are more administrative and help prevent spam. Badges will be more game like, but those will come later.

It just strikes me as a tad opposite to the "portfolio" updates you were going for awhile back. Although I can understand where you're coming from in this instance. The website does need a little jazz to get some more interesting snippets coming in. mIRC snippets don't really do much for me anymore in that respect.

I'm still fleshing out the portfolio updates, but this bit level system needs to come first. Spam has gotten to be a real problem lately. It's actually a blessing in disguise because I've been wanting to do this for some time. Just needed the motivation to get it going.

Rather than permissions or privileges I think I'll simply call these "Bit Levels".

If you're going to fully implement points or whatever you want to call them, maybe you should branch out hawkee.com with more opportunities to earn them. Programming challenges could be one possible alley to traverse.

Afterthought - perhaps that would also get rid of some of the mIRC overload

@Conscious I'd like to keep the site focused, so I think I'll be limiting posting to threads, snippets and projects. I'll be removing the older images section as well as the hardware and product reviews. I'm still considering what to do about the project reviews. I'll probably remove those as well. I think challenges are better suited for a standalone site. If a site offers too many features it begins to lose focus and I believe that's been a problem with Hawkee for a while. Its time to cut the fat and focus on what works.

And yes, I'd like to move away from mIRC in favor of many of the newer, more modern languages and platforms.

I'm working on balancing the points system. I'm considering 2 points for likes on general comments, 5 points for likes on threads, and 20 points for likes on snippets or projects. With this system we've got about 14 users with 1,000 points or more and a good number between 100-500. @FordLawnmower would have the most points on the site with 11,035 followed by @Jethro with 4,545 and me with 4,337. @blackvenomm666 is up there jumping from 291 likes to 1,972 points. @Sorasyn you'd have 505 points and @Conscious you'd have 184.

I may want to encourage liking as well. Maybe I can offer 3 points to like something at least once on a single day. That would encourage repeat visits as well as facilitate a better flow of points.

Four and a half years and a whopping 505 points. Nice! Haha.

EDIT: Any idea yet what perks would cost, on average? Would they deduct from Bit totals, or would they simply be hurdles to jump over with no real Bit spending?

Part of the problem is people don't use the like system enough, thus my idea to reward the act of liking.

I'm still debating that. My first thought is to make them hurdles without any deduction. Spending might need to be something different. I really can't think of too many things that would pertain to spending. For example I could "sell" promoted threads so they appear on everybody's homepage.

Promoting threads is just asking for trouble in my humble opinion. Although the spending aspect somewhat douses that problem. I could see it being popular with question oriented threads. A lot of mIRC related junk judging from recent events.

It wouldn't be cheap, but I'm still not sure I want to do that. One fun level I'd like to introduce is custom backgrounds and custom code block themes. The first level might unlock the ability to set both for your own personal viewing. Then a higher level might unlock the ability to make your selection public to your followers then finally the highest level might unlock the ability to make it public to everybody. Your selection would be reflected on your profile, thread and snippet pages.

Mostly unrelated, but have you considered a ranking algorithm, instead of just sorting by newest?

Popped over to mIRC's website this morning by chance, and found this interesting little tidbit on their help page. Lol.

Scripts, Addons, DLLs and Tutorials
The mIRC Scripting Language can be used to extend mIRC in a variety of ways, from managing your channels more easily to playing games. If you are looking for ways to extend mIRC or are learning how to script and need examples, you can find resources on sites like Hawkee or on the mIRC Discussion Forums in the Scripts and Popups section.
Probably a good indicator as to why there's so much mIRC traffic in proportion to other traffic.

This site has a long history in the mIRC community, but unfortunately mIRC activity as a whole is on the decline so we need to become established in newer technologies. I'd love to see activity in languages like Go where things are just getting started.

@Conscious That's what the explore page is for. There still needs to be an age element to keep things fresh, but I'll start limiting the results to better snippets if more come in.