Points and rankings
Points
Every rule, its exact value, the daily limits, and what earns nothing at all.
Points recognise useful participation. They are not a currency, they buy nothing, and they carry no authority inside a poll — a person with ten thousand points has exactly one vote, like everybody else.
The whole schedule is published here because a scoring system nobody can predict is not a fair one.
What earns points
| Action | Points | Awarded when |
|---|---|---|
| Complete your profile | 10 | Once, when your account has a name, a confirmed email address and a chosen language. |
| Publish a poll | 5 | The poll leaves draft and can reach a vote. |
| Run a poll to completion | 10 | Voting closes normally with real turnout. |
| Suggest an option that reaches the ballot | 2 | Voting opens on somebody else's poll with your suggestion on it. |
| Vote in a poll | 3 | A poll you voted in closes normally with real turnout. |
| Vote early | 1 | You were among the first five voters in a poll that went on to receive at least five ballots. |
| Suggest the winning option | 5 | Your suggestion wins outright, in somebody else's poll with at least five ballots. |
| Suggest an option that ties for first | 3 | As above, but sharing first place. |
"Real turnout"
Two rules depend on it — completing a poll, and every ballot in it. A poll has real turnout when it received at least two ballots from people other than the organiser, or three valid ballots in total.
Both thresholds exist because either alone has a hole. Counting only other people's ballots would refuse a genuine three-person poll the organiser also voted in; counting only the total would accept a poll whose sole participant is its own creator.
The practical consequence: voting alone in your own poll earns nothing, for you or for anybody.
Why voting is paid at the end
A ballot earns its 3 points when the poll closes, not when you cast it. This is why changing your mind costs nothing and earns nothing: edit your ballot as often as you like before voting closes, and it is still one ballot and one award.
It also means there is never a moment where points exist for a vote in a poll that is later cancelled. Nothing has to be taken back, because nothing was credited.
Why suggested options are paid at the ballot
An option earns its 2 points when voting opens, which is the moment it can be said to have been accepted: it survived the collection phase and people can now vote on it. An option you withdraw, or one the organiser removes, was never credited.
Daily limits
Some rules have a daily ceiling, so one very busy day cannot outweigh months of ordinary use:
- Voting, including the early bonus: up to 15 points a day.
- Suggested options: up to 10 points a day.
- Publishing polls: up to 10 points a day.
- Completing a poll and winning-option points have no daily limit. Neither can be earned without other people taking part, so neither can be produced on demand.
A limit caps the points, never the action. Your fifteenth ballot of the day is recorded and counted exactly like the first — only the credit stops. And a limit is all-or-nothing: an award that would cross the ceiling is skipped rather than paid in part, because a half-credited rule cannot be explained on a page like this one.
What earns nothing
Deliberately, and permanently:
- Registering, or signing in.
- Reading polls, results, rankings or this documentation.
- Changing your language or theme.
- Creating drafts, or editing a poll repeatedly.
- Inviting large numbers of people.
- Duplicate options, or options removed before voting.
- Voting more than once in the same poll, or editing a ballot.
- Anything in a cancelled poll.
- Any activity involving only the poll's own creator.
There is no daily login streak, and there never will be: rewarding attendance rewards nothing useful.
When points are taken back
If the action a reward was for stops being valid — a poll cancelled after it was published, or an account found to have exploited the system — the points are reversed.
Nothing is ever deleted. A matching negative entry is recorded against the original award, so a balance is always the sum of its history and a total that goes down can always be explained. If points are ever reversed on your account, the entry exists; the internal note about why is not shown publicly.
Seeing your total
Your balance appears on the rankings page, including when you have chosen not to appear there publicly.
The running total shown on your account is a cache of the underlying ledger, which is the real record. An administrator can restate every balance from that ledger at any time, so a total can never quietly drift away from the transactions that produced it.