Update: On May 10, 2012, a site setting was changed so that instead of the member ranking, the total number of posts by a Be Communities member displays in the flyout that appears when you float your cursor over that member's name or avatar.
There are three pieces of information below every Be Communities' member name in the fly-out that you see when you float your cursor over the link to their name (or avatar).
These are an activity bar, the "# Points", and a member ranking that is either Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum. Although close in proximity, they represent different things.
The activity bar provides an indication of the level of activity and the ranking each member has attained compared the activity of all other Be Communities members across the site. It is based on the following:
"# Points" is a calculation that involves the following various factors:
Any activities that act upon a member's own posts are not credited with points. For example, a post does not receive points for a reply if the author replies to himself/herself; rates his/her own post; downloads his/her own file, or marks his/her post as a favorite.
The Be Communities member post "medal" ranking denotes how active a user is throughout the site. These are currently defined as:
A post can be a forum post, a blog entry, an uploaded file, a gallery image, or a reply/comment to any of those.
The latter two values are configurable and will likely change as the site continues to evolve. Although the factors involved might be subjective to some, the points and rankings do provide some insight as to how each Be Communities member's overall contributions and "reputation" compare to others on the site.
Thanks Phil for the detailed explanation. What does the bar just above the points indicate? Mine is 5/8ths full, for instance.
Good point. The article is updated with that information. Thanks for pointing out the oversight :)
[quote]•Verified Answer Factor: The amount a member receives for having a reply verified as the answer.[/quote]
Phil, how are replies verified as "the answer"? Is this something I should be doing when I recieve a reply that solves my problem? Is there a moderator reviewing answers in the forums?
Yah, but the question remains....what do we win for getting the most points. Bentley staff excluded of course. ;-)
@Adam... there are two "types" of community forum setups, questions and discussions. Most are set up as discussions, which have no option to verify an answer. There are some community forums, though, that are set up as both, and depending on what the default is (or what the original poster defines their post as), any one reply can be identified as "the answer". We have not opened that up in many forums mainly because it makes any discussion a bit more difficult to follow.
@Inga... sorry, we did not set up this blog as a question format :) Seriously, though... we do recognize Be Communities members who consistently provide quality contributions -- they are referred to as BeMVPs (I think you know what that means :)