Active Contributor Status: A 12-month rolling period
Many of you have asked us to rethink an aspect of the Active Contributor recognition and I am happy to tell you that we listened to your suggestion and decided to implement the change requested by the Community.
This year, on December 31, 2010, you will be able to celebrate New Year’s Eve without worrying about your SCN Active Contributor status 😉
Starting December 6, 2010, the Active Contributor Badge will show for points you accumulated on a 12-month rolling period. You will be able to sport your badge regardless of the calendar year.
OK, this may not change the way you contribute on SCN, but I’d like to remind some of you that these points do expire after 12 months, so keep up with the good work and continue contributing regularly. If you don’t maintain your active contributor status over a period of 12 months, the badge will disappear or you will move down to a lower active contributor status.
As a reminder, Active Contributor badges were introduced in August 2010 (see Announcing the new SCN Contributor Recognition Program). After December 6, 2010, the badges will be attributed the following way, for points accumulated over a 12-month rolling period:
250-499 points: Active Contributor Bronze 
500-1,499 points: Active Contributor Silver 
1,500-2,499 points: Active Contributor Gold 
2,500+ points: Active Contributor Platinum 
How do I know how many points I have and how they count towards Active Contributor status?
1/ As soon as you log on, when you navigate through most of SCN’s pages, you can see your point status and the corresponding badge in the Contributors Corner (of course, we will change this to “Last 12 months points” instead of “Annual points”):
2/ Clicking on the link in that same contributors corner, or via your business card for example (Community Tab, Contribution Field), you get to your point history. There, make sure you select the last 12 months if you want to check how many points count toward your Active Contributor status:
How do I know when I’m about to lose Active Contributor status, or go down to silver level after being Gold for a year?
The only way to find out is to look for your point history as described above.
I think this is more than a minor change, and I’m excited that we get to make this happen before the end of the year. So keep up the good work and contribute regularly on SCN!
Enjoy your New Year’s Eve and think of me as you toast to the New Year. Myself, I’ll be celebrating in New York City 🙂
Thank you!
I believe this was the right thing to do as I stated on the other blog at http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/cs/user/view/cs_msg/64685 .
This will "force" active contributor to contribute on a yearly basis and stay constantly active.
Thanks again,
Laure
It's nice to see a suggestion that all of us thought about really in place. 🙂
Great, Laure!
Thanks for sharing that with us (and for making that happen) 🙂
will the rolling period applied every month on a fixed day (1st, 6th?) or 365 day based? So that my point count will be adjusted every day?
If its month based some users may jump between contributor status (300 pts in one month gone over night).
br,
Tobias
The mechanism is to check every day how many points you had in the last 365 days (or less, you know the thing with February playing tricks ;-))
Laure
This means that being a 201x Active Contributor might not be as relevant as before.
Maybe you are a 14th January 2011 - 13th January 2012 Active Contributor. 🙂
Best regards,
Guillaume
What I don't think is fair is having your points taken on January 1st, making you decrease from Platinum to zero.
Can one buy points on eBay now or do banks exchange them as hard currency?
Cheers,
Julius
br, Tobias
interesting that you ask this question.
I've found this thread of yours from 3 years ago:
Points for moderating???
There you've said: "...If I do it in good faith and when I beleive it is correct to do so, then I guess the 1 point is but a mime in a forest...". Well, I suppose you've got your answer, even if 3 years later...
Best regards,
Henrique.
Merry Christmas,
Julius
Happy holidays,
Henrique.
And Julius knows we're looking into that particular point with Jeanne 🙂
Cheers,
Henrique.
The term "Active Contributor 2010" will lose its importance since the term will always represent your "freshest" status.
But I can still imagine showing who was active in 2010, just a kind of hall of fame. That would work, it's a snapshot at the end of the year.
Best,
Laure
Just few days back i was thinking to write a mail to moderators and bingo i saw your blog. I'm very pleased to hear that as we will now contribute with a new momentum.
Hope to hear some more good news and any rewards for contributors 🙂
Best Regards,
Shobhit Srivastava
Thank you for the many positive comments, this is really rewarding to see how you welcome the change.
I was waiting to see if someone would bring up the Topic Leaders. The top contributors that we short list in each SCN category (i.e. point category). See my August blog about that.
It used to be a contest year around TechEd time frame. When we introduced the Active Contributor badge this summer I wanted to align everything and make it a calendar year reward, but it no longer makes sense.
What do you think? At TechEd, we bring Topic Leaders on stage and give them some visibility, but there is so much more we could do next year. Why aren't there more Topic Leaders who present a session, for instance?
When in the year would you like us to recognize Topic Leaders?
Laure
this is a great enhancement for Recognition Point System; points now gives you a real idea of the continuative and valuable contribution of all of us.
It was also great to see some of the Topic Leader on the Stage at SAP TechEd, it was a great regard for their passion on SCN. I think that TechEd stage is the best place where Community would congrat them.
Cheers,
Ivan
BTW it seems you were at TechEd this year, I didn't know and I'm sorry I missed you. I wanted to tell you how much I liked your video about the badges 😉
Best,
Laure
I believe TechEd would be the best place as well... Can you confirm which will be the 2010 awards for the Leading Contributors?
Thanks!
topic leaders are selected every 24h (Find the Expert). Why not recognize them at the several SAP events that occur throughout the year? Not every topic leader may come to TechED. Maybe the budget only allows 1 trip to a conference more focused on his area (CRM, SRM, BI).
I don't know how SAP is selecting lectures, but if you want topic leaders to present, SAP has to reserve 1 to 3 lecture slots for the topic leaders at each SAP event. And reach out to them by a special invitation for submitting a proposal. In this case, will SAP pay the conference fee?
PS: the Portal & BI conference is now only BI 2011. There is no more conference for portals?
Laure
Thanks for the information.
Please can you tell us if there is any plan to send appreciation certificate to all Topic Leaders by SAP?
Best Regards,
Shiv
Note:- This year allocate some small fund for top leaders for TECHED sponsership programs..
You are woman of word..
Muthu