Tokens: invisible by design
The fact that you can't see whether another person can accept your delivery is completely intentional. To see why, imagine how IconBuffet would work if you did know exactly who could accept your deliveries:
1) Find a user with a ginormous friends list (like Jen).
2) Click on a person.
3) Send just enough deliveries to use up what tokens they have.
4) Repeat for every other person in the list until you're out of stamps.
5) Sit back and watch the points roll in.
See the problem? It's boring. There's no personal interaction at all.
We want you interacting via the blog forum and the Boxes. We love the "who has Manhattan Night Life?" kind of posts. With this in mind, here's what won't happen and what may happen:
- Being able to see another person's tokens: Definitely won't happen.
- Being able to see whether another person has enough tokens to accept a particular delivery: Definitely won't happen.
- An official mechanism for flagging your avatar or profile as "out of tokens": Probably won't happen.
- Being able to decline multiple delivery offers with a single click: This gets my vote. Keeping your tokens invisible doesn't mean you have to spend lots of time cleaning up your profile page. We can make this easier.
- Additional ways to acquire tokens: Also quite possible.
Hope this helps you to understand why we've structured things the way we have.
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MrDee on Mar 25, 2007
would you consider flagging users that have all sets?
SpamDog on Mar 25, 2007
Wouldn't matter... if they have all sets you couldn't send anything to them anyway.. Unless you want them to stick out so you can ask them for stuff
eury on Mar 25, 2007
So then, the whole point is to prevent people fro m choking up delivery pipelines and abuse the point system. But for what purpose the points serve? And at the current token rate v. icon set's price, would it not take somewhere near a year to receive all, not counting the new sets coming out between now and then? Ten tokens equate 2 Gold sets. If IB continues to pump out 4 Free Deliveries each month, could 10 be enough to catch them all, to borrow Pokemon's tag line?
Winnopeg on Mar 25, 2007
To be honest, I don't think boredom is the primary reason that tolkens are hidden from other users. What's so different between being able to see tolkens and not being able to that makes one not boring? As far as I can see, nothing. It's like telling a friend: "hah, you don't know what color of socks I'm wearing". It's the trading that makes things interesting, and not the mystery amount of tolkens.
Free deliveries used to act simply as a way to get people to visit the site, sample the icons and have fun doing so, so that they would then proceed to buy icons from the IconFactory. Exept - and I'm going out on a limb here - I don't think it was doing too well as far as creating revenue is concerned. That's where the new VIP accounts come in; it's a way for IconBuffet to make a few bucks from their "free" icons. While someone with a lot of patience could earn all the free deliveries in a year or so, not many people are going to bother. Some will just give up, but the rest will spend $6 a month so that they can recieve them faster. It's a nice idea, if somewhat irritating and inconvienient for the users.
In order to make more people give in and buy VIP status, I believe IconBuffet is hiding other users tolken status. That way, when generous users send a delivery to another user that is out of credits, that user is taunted with new icons. He/she probably wants at least one of the sets, and to have it sitting right there in front of them only a few clicks away is very intising. They can either a) buy a VIP account and recieve the icons they want or b) say no and wait a month. Those with the ability to pay are MUCH less likely to just say no, and they'll give in and buy an account. As an added bonus, and user that is sent a delivery gets an email about it. So even though they've used up their credits for the month, they're still regularly sent emails about IconBuffet.
Now lets look at what would happen if IconBuffet were to ad in even a very simple notice saying that the user is out of credits. All of a sudden, it's very unlikely that that user is going to be sent deliveries that he can't accept. There goes the reminder about IconBuffet, as well as the user is then less likely to upgrade to VIP. So while it's more convienient for users, IconBuffet might/probably would loose a bit of this new found revenue. And we can all see that they wouldn't let that happen - the ads tell us that.
Thinking about it, I'd guess that this actually has nothing to do with boredom at all.
Winnopeg on Mar 25, 2007
I think a larger comment box is in order. Apologies for refering to IconBuffet as the IconFactory - I get the two mixed up often and it was too much of a pain to scroll up in that tiny little box to see if I screwed up.
Candy on Mar 25, 2007
Not to mention when people collect, they want them all. I was an old school member and stopped coming on here after I collected them all and came back once in a few months to grab the new sets which were easily accessable cause all I had to do was leave a note and my email in a thread and I got even EXTRA delivery links pouring in. It was very easy to get icons and I didn't frequently visit. Now the icons are something to work for and have patiences for so you visit the site more than once every 3 months or so. Now I find myself coming on here almost every day because the new design and community is so fun to interact with and sending icons to people earns you points which we still have no idea what will earn us! Lol.
justG on Mar 26, 2007
I think that those who get what this community is about love the revamped IB; those who don't, don't.
Thanks for the explanation, iconmaster. I'm happy with tokens remaining hidden, and because of this, I've become more conscientious about sending deliveries. Sharing is great, but I'd not want to be the poor soul who has to sit and decline a bunch of deliveries or have them cluttering their profile 'til they expire. This policy has made me less point-conscious and more user-conscious; thus I think it's successful.
bcarneiro on Mar 26, 2007
I'm happy with the new system and I actually like the mistery!!
tamashii on Mar 26, 2007
I am also very pleased with the new system. However, I see no harm in visually displaying my current token count to others (they can't send anything to me anyway cuz I "got 'em all!").
I agree that it aids in making people "get out there" and get involved rather than just point fish. I have always been very cautious and guarded with my deliveries, as a result of the old system mostly, and that has transferred. I would rather see a specific set asked for than to blindly send a delivery - always have.
Betty on Mar 27, 2007
I kind of like doing blind deliveries--makes me feel like a fairy godmother granting random wishes.
Jen on Mar 27, 2007
I do a little bit of both - blind and requests. I think its fun both ways. I am really enjoying meeting new folks and welcoming them to IB. That is a collection in itself. :)
Grusella on Mar 27, 2007
True
tamashii on Mar 27, 2007
Jen has quite the collection too... spooky.
Firheruwen on Apr 03, 2007
Would a way to search for people based on who has tokens ever be available? I feel like there is no one who I can send icons to right now, but there probably are some people somewhere who could accept and I just can't find them!
mitten on Apr 03, 2007
I mentioned this in another thread, but I would love to see you modify the instructions in the delivery window to have a reminder phrase of some sort - 'Did you check this person's box to see if they want deliveries right now? - or somesuch. I don't think that messes with your intention (and perhaps even enhances it by encouraging people to read others' box messages) and would help cut down on at least some unrequested, unwanted deliveries.
The ability to decline multiple deliveries at once is only sort of useful, because if you decline a delivery, then someone is sure to send it to you again. It's a choice between declining them every time you log in (which, granted, is easier if it's just one click) or letting them clutter your profile.
WebSiteGuru on Apr 03, 2007
Nicely said. :D
distortedimage on Apr 03, 2007
I think that's brilliant! Good call
Novak on Apr 03, 2007
I've been doing a lot of blind deliveries, mostly because I figure:
a: if people don't have an icon set, they'll likely want one
b: i don't want to horde
c: i can. i mean, i have stamps, why not use them
but mostly,
d: i'm enjoying the newfound freedom of being able to send more than five deliveries of a given set -- ala the "old" iconbuffet.
Though, the more friends I get, the hard the mass deliveries will be...that's a whole lot of work. :-)
whoisgregg on Apr 12, 2007
Winnopeg's description of being taunted into becoming a VIP member is almost *precisely* how I became a VIP. However, I would be neither surprised if that was a hoped for side effect of the new design nor bitter if it was the entire reason behind the redesign.
Frankly, I am impressed at so many of the subtle choices made in the redesign. Token counts being invisible are an interesting choice and I appreciate getting a bit of an idea what went into that decision.
I just hope that users which send me deliveries which I decline (so as not to hoard stamps) will realize I still want those deliveries in the future.