I wrote about this a couple of days ago, this feature was one of the things I had submitted in a post that unfortunately didn't go through due to an error, but that's okay. Anywho, @TraciC encouraged me to write about this, so here goes.
Gamification is one of my most favourite things of all time. Making things a game, gets my senses and mind running and it's something that I adore. To further enhance and complement the new Local Guides levels, as well as the colossal amount of points we need to reach level 10, we could have some sort of leaderboard, as well as a dashboard for personal contributions as well.
Let me get into more detail of the two:
Leaderboards
If you go to your badges page, you'll be able to see how many people have achieved a certain badge. Using this, you'll be able to have a truncated view as to where you currently stand as a Local Guide. Those numbers represent the local guides that have logged into Local Guides Connect and have accepted the terms and conditions, therefore receiving this badge. The information that currently exist on their Google account is then communicable and viewable on Local Guides Connect.
What I might propose is some sort of live global, regional (think continents) and local (think countries) leaderboards. You would be able to see your position (e.g. #1026 out of 227,646 local guides) pitted against other people, and maybe see other Local Guides profiles near your location, as well as show the top contributors for each category. But what sort of category? Some of these examples include:
- Local Guides points
- Photos contributed
- Places reviewed
- Total cities visited
- Total views
Note: these stats will only be viewable if the Local Guide is on Connect.
Dashboard
Working alongside the leaderboards, you'll be able to access the bulk of your Local Guides activity from this dashboard. Already there is quite a comprehensive function in the Google Maps API but this conceptual dashboard will be able to add additional functions, such as hosting the above leaderboard of the LG's rankings, showing a visual representation of data such as graphs and statistics. Each week, each local guide is emailed a weekly snapshot (e.g. a new record of views, most viewed places, new reviews, reviews liked, cities visited, etc), but this dashboard will allow a constant update of one's activity within the last seven days, as well as data pre-existing before then.
Some of the features I would like to see in this dashboard include:
- Leaderboard and ranking (as above)
- Rate of contributions
- Rate of photos viewed (a dynamic stat)
- Distance walked (?)
Already we have seen an amazing overhaul of the points system (which just rolled out for me just then, time to post on @BishowvijayaP's post my jump in points!) and leaderboards through gamification would really liven things up. Of course, if you might be prepared to combat a few spammers who try and cheat the system by getting as much points as possible.
But those are my two cents. Let me know what you think!
2022
