Top Contributors - May 2020

[Tiana_V]

Hi Community, 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the great conversations on the Community last month! The Community could not be such a great place to get support without you all. 

We’d like to give a special thanks to all our members who earned Community Rewards for their contributions. These members were able to make a big impact and support their fellow Community members by providing detailed and high quality solutions. We’re constantly looking to improve how we recognize users who make our Community so great and provide amazing support. We’ve recently made slight changes to our Rewards calculations to ensure that we emphasize and reward the high quality contributions of members. 

A huge thank you to our Oracles, who go above and beyond by not only starting healthy discussions, but also help others to better understand our services and contribute to our awesome Community on a daily basis.

A big congrats to the three Community members who earned the Top 1% Reward. The daily work of these awesome folks is truly amazing! 

And a big shout out as well to the nine members who earned the Top 5% Reward and the twelve members who were in the Top 10%! Their contributions to the Community should not go unnoticed. 

Together, the Community members in the top 1%, 5% and 10% had a total of 370 accepted solutions in May. Thank you all for your amazing work providing these quality solutions!

A monthly badge for your contribution level has been added to your Community profile.  A Community Reward will be given to all the contributors on a reward-eligible plan on your next payment due date.

Want to learn more about how to be a top contributor? Getting started is easy. All you have to do is give help to your fellow Community members, acknowledge solutions, and share ideas.  And, of course, your suggestions and feedback will help us create a better experience for everyone.

Here’s how you can get started –

See a great post? Show it some love and give it a bravo!

If someone is able to deliver a great solution to your problem, mark their response as an “Accepted Solution” to appreciate the efforts of your helper.

- The Public Mobile Community Team

[ShawnC13]

@pm-smayer97, in your example above using 500 participants you would be giving out rewards to 455 people or 91% of the participants.

If you have 500 participants and 50% is the lowest reward we then can say that only 250 people should get rewards. so 1% would be 5, 5% = 20 (25-5), 10%=25 (50-25), 25%=75 (125-50). 50%=125 (250-125).  In brackets, I have subtracted the number of higher reward winners as they would also be included in that current top percentage.  This would give you the 250 reward winners which are the top 50% of the participants.

Added: If we base the rewards on the top levels just on those that reach a "required level of participation" like 500 met the criteria but only half would get rewards. 1%=2.5 round up to 3, 5% 10(13-3), 10%=12(25-13), 25% =38 (63-25), 50%= 62 (125-63).  I rounded up all the .5 numbers= 125 members earning rewards.  We can do all the "guessing" we want but we need to remember that the rewards are a bonus.

This was done just for my enjoyment of numbers.  I am not saying these numbers represent how PM designates rewards as I do NOT know their formula.

Edited again as I forgot the NOT part.  

Thank you for the message to the person who noticed this!!

[darlicious]

@pm-smayer97 @ShawnC13 

Agreed.

So why do we bother with this announcement thread at all? As I said originally its just an easy bravo earner for those with a quick draw. We already get notified of the badges being awarded and all discussion on the subject can be left to the unofficial thread in the lounge.

[pm-smayer97]

---

@darlicious wrote:

@ShawnC13 

       Of course the exact formula not known....but if you used bravos as an example ( and the bravo leaderboard was a good barometer) then a minimum standard had to be met all higher rewards would then be based on that minimum standard for that month.

     The simplest example being:  10 bravos=$1 top 50% 60 members meet that minimum standard. The top 25%=30 members and then slightly varying top 10%=13, top 5%=9, top 1%=3 + 5 oracles =120 member rewards. But are you confirming that public mobile has tweaked the secret formula? Or is that more speculation? Not that it really matters its about the help.....but you still wonder what the 11 herbs and spices are when youre licking your fngers!

---

Yup, still wonder every so often about the 11 herbs and spices, so to speak.

I always found the leaderboard a good guide and was always close to the end result, always with "exceptions" from an outsider perspective, since we do not really know the exact formula, which has clearly changed over time both formally/explicitly (like when they changed the levels and reward amounts) and implicitly (changes we do not directly see but can see the effects, e.g. different number of recipients), but which does include Solutions, and maybe used to include number of posts (though that last one was very likely removed a long time ago).

But the way I interpreted the % levels was based on the number of participants that received Bravos. So if there were 500 participants that received Bravos, participants with top 1% highest Bravo count = 5 receive $15, 5%=25 receive $10, 10%=50 receive $5, 25%=125 received $2 and 50%=250 receive $1. And if the number of participants receiving Bravos was 1000, the number of recipients would double in each level, though there may be a count threshold involved too (only the top 500 Bravo recipients are considered). The leaderboard seemed to be a good approximation, though never exact.

It's just been fun to speculate. Now without the Leaderboard, that fun has been taken away. AND with "shout outs" being in label only with no one ACTUALLY being shouted out, it is even less interesting. So not only is it not possible to observe and easily identify and follow those that are significant contributors from the board, the monthly announcement does not let you know "who they" are at all (as if knowing the Community ID revealed their identity or something...what nonsense). Oh well. Sometimes change happens, but sometimes just for the sake of change...squeaky wheel gets the grease and all, with no real benefit.  😕

[ShawnC13]

@darlicious, just speculation as others have noticed that things have changed over time it must be an evolving system them take a look at from time to time.

[darlicious]

@ShawnC13 

       Of course the exact formula not known....but if you used bravos as an example ( and the bravo leaderboard was a good barometer) then a minimum standard had to be met all higher rewards would then be based on that minimum standard for that month.

     The simplest example being:  10 bravos=$1 top 50% 60 members meet that minimum standard. The top 25%=30 members and then slightly varying top 10%=13, top 5%=9, top 1%=3 + 5 oracles =120 member rewards. But are you confirming that public mobile has tweaked the secret formula? Or is that more speculation? Not that it really matters its about the help.....but you still wonder what the 11 herbs and spices are when youre licking your fngers!

@will13am 

         " Spend more time posting and less time pontificating the reward system and you will leave @computergeek541 eating your dust."

Geez......3 pages, 5 members and 11 posts on the subject til you decide to quote me and reply.  I'm unsure if I should be  complimented or feel insulted

[ShawnC13]

It isn't solely based on Bravo's. There is no point obsessing on them.  There is some formula they use and have recently tweaked it to something PM thinks is better that is the way it is.

[CFPartDeux]

Stay safe.

[ShawnC13]

@darlicious, back in 2016 there was also another level between 1% and Oracles it was 0.5%.  As you stated there is probably a minimum amount of posts/bravos required to get in the reward section.  Once that level is met I am wondering if that is where PM then decided the 1%, 5%.... from as the number of reward recipients has decreased it may be chosen from the qualifying group and not all the participants for the month.

[Korth]

@will13am You quoted four people. But are you insulting any one of us in particular or just casually dismissing the whole group at once?

[pm-smayer97]

@will13amI never cared too much about what I received...I've never been a HUGE participant...just targeted. But I am an observer and do notice some things.

Edit: thanks goes to @darlicious for the summaries.

[will13am]

---

@darlicious wrote:

@pm-smayer97 

        You are indeed correct that each year there is a significant drop almost in half at each badge level of members receiving rewards. It makes sense when the reward amounts increased but since 2016 then the top 1% has dropped from a high of 15 to 7-9 and now 3 or 4. The top 5% had as many as 45 awardees dropping to 30 - 40, halving again to around 15 last spring and settling in around 8-10 last fall. The top 10% has had as many as 46 but dropped to 20 - 30 and finally settling in at 12 to 14 in the recent past. So a considerable drop of from upwards of 340 members earning rewards each month to 100 - 120 top contributors this spring.

@computergeek541  said:

'It's good to see a change in the way that rewards are calculated. This was long overdue."

The only change in the way the rewards are calculated I see is that less members recieve them and it is now virtually impossible for anyone else to make the top 1% now that @computergeek541 has chosen to retire. By doubling up his efforts and significantly increasing his post/bravo count by 25% and the good fortune of the mysterious disappearance of 130 of my bravos that left me with a considerable deficit @computergeek541 was able to slingshot past me from his average 8th place on the now defunct bravo leaderboard by overcoming my 220 bravo lead in third place and has sewn up the last spot left behind @Naepalm and @gblackma . Who hasn't skipped a beat since hitting number one and if new father with his 10th child can't slow him down @Naepalm , @gblackma and @computergeek541  are the new public mobile support dream team!

@Korth 

 I strongly suspect pm has a minimum post/bravo count to qualify for a community reward and sets the standard for the amount of reward recipients each month. Solutions probably limit your ability to hit the top badge levels.

Given all that the community is changing with the times and rewards are going to reflect that as well. I'm sure public mobile will add exciting new twist to keep us all engaged!!

---

Spend more time posting and less time pontificating the reward system and you will leave @computergeek541 eating your dust.  

[darlicious]

@pm-smayer97 

        You are indeed correct that each year there is a significant drop almost in half at each badge level of members receiving rewards. It makes sense when the reward amounts increased but since 2016 then the top 1% has dropped from a high of 15 to 7-9 and now 3 or 4. The top 5% had as many as 45 awardees dropping to 30 - 40, halving again to around 15 last spring and settling in around 8-10 last fall. The top 10% has had as many as 46 but dropped to 20 - 30 and finally settling in at 12 to 14 in the recent past. So a considerable drop of from upwards of 340 members earning rewards each month to 100 - 120 top contributors this spring.

@computergeek541  said:

'It's good to see a change in the way that rewards are calculated. This was long overdue."

The only change in the way the rewards are calculated I see is that less members recieve them and it is now virtually impossible for anyone else to make the top 1% now that @computergeek541 has chosen to retire. By doubling up his efforts and significantly increasing his post/bravo count by 25% and the good fortune of the mysterious disappearance of 130 of my bravos that left me with a considerable deficit @computergeek541 was able to slingshot past me from his average 8th place on the now defunct bravo leaderboard by overcoming my 220 bravo lead in third place and has sewn up the last spot left behind @Naepalm and @gblackma . Who hasn't skipped a beat since hitting number one and if new father with his 10th child can't slow him down @Naepalm , @gblackma and @computergeek541  are the new public mobile support dream team!

@Korth 

 I strongly suspect pm has a minimum post/bravo count to qualify for a community reward and sets the standard for the amount of reward recipients each month. Solutions probably limit your ability to hit the top badge levels.

Given all that the community is changing with the times and rewards are going to reflect that as well. I'm sure public mobile will add exciting new twist to keep us all engaged!!

[Korth]

Oh, I know the Community Rewards are always behind.

We're in June, this thread is for May, it's announcing results from April.

[computergeek541]

---

@Korth wrote:

---

---

"Something else" may have happened. PM might've changed the parameters or something.

Otherwise, I expect the number of Community Rewards would serve as a rough indicator of Community participants. Top 1% of 100,000 people would be 100 times more than Top 1% of 1,000 people, no? I never bothered to read the Bravo leaderboards when they were available, they were too often (ab)used by those fixated on bragging and hubris.

---

When it was announced a while back that the reward payout amounts were increasing, the amount of reciipients of the rewards at each level dropped drastically. While the increase in reward amounts for each earner didn't go up until a month later, the drop-off in the number earning the rewards was very noticeable.  For some months, Public Mobile does decide to pay out more in rewards. They'l likely never tell us how they determine this.

[pm-smayer97]

---

@Korth wrote:

---

@pm-smayer97 wrote:

---

@Korth wrote:

I'd expected to see more activity and more people (and thus more Top Contributors) in the PM Community last month. Kinda surprised the numbers are so low, to be honest.

---

Without the Leaderboard how can you tell the level of activity? You cannot tell simply by the number of reward earners. As I have pointed out, the number of earners has decreased significantly, and NOT because of the level of participation. Something else appears to have happened over the past year.

---

"Something else" may have happened. PM might've changed the parameters or something.

Otherwise, I expect the number of Community Rewards would serve as a rough indicator of Community participants.

---

The Rewards is not a good proxy for participation level. As I have posted in thread before, I do suspect that the "parameters or something" has changed some time not too long ago.

[Korth]

---

@pm-smayer97 wrote:

---

@Korth wrote:

I'd expected to see more activity and more people (and thus more Top Contributors) in the PM Community last month. Kinda surprised the numbers are so low, to be honest.

---

Without the Leaderboard how can you tell the level of activity? You cannot tell simply by the number of reward earners. As I have pointed out, the number of earners has decreased significantly, and NOT because of the level of participation. Something else appears to have happened over the past year.

---

"Something else" may have happened. PM might've changed the parameters or something.

Otherwise, I expect the number of Community Rewards would serve as a rough indicator of Community participants. Top 1% of 100,000 people would be 100 times more than Top 1% of 1,000 people, no? I never bothered to read the Bravo leaderboards when they were available, they were too often (ab)used by those fixated on bragging and hubris.

[JoyLuck]

Thank you to everyone who participated in helping out in the community. Awesome job!

[pm-smayer97]

---

@Korth wrote:

I'd expected to see more activity and more people (and thus more Top Contributors) in the PM Community last month. Kinda surprised the numbers are so low, to be honest.

---

Without the Leaderboard how can you tell the level of activity? You cannot tell simply by the number of reward earners. As I have pointed out, the number of earners has decreased significantly, and NOT because of the level of participation. Something else appears to have happened over the past year.

[buang99]

Congrats to everyone who made it to the top!

[Korth]

I'd expected to see more activity and more people (and thus more Top Contributors) in the PM Community last month. Kinda surprised the numbers are so low, to be honest.

[cavemantoronto]

Well done top achievers

[computergeek541]

---

@CFPartDeux wrote:

---

@computergeek541 wrote:

@maggamoka 

Public Mobile doesn't really want us to know the formula.  Anyone who has it isn't going to share.

I'll tell you that previously, the thing that mattered most was message post count. In my opinion, when it came to the past formula, the rest of the factors meant next to nothing.  Unfortunately, this sometimes led to some posting less than desirable responses, or even wrong answers to gain rewards.

---

Two rather contradictory paragraphs - the 1st one makes it sound like it's a secret that few were aware of, and the 2nd one makes it sound as though too many people were aware of it, and took advantage. Makes me wonder just how many folks have been suspected and accused of "gaming the forum", when they had ZERO idea that post count made any difference. 🤔

---

The formula is a secret and no one here, save for maybe Tiana, knows the exact calculations used.  Yes, many people were on to how to get rewards by posting anything and everything, but that doesn't mean that they knew the exact criteria. There have been some past members who posted nothing but one line responses often with incorrect information. Others would see right through this and not bravo these posts, yet these members would get very high reward amounts while receiving very few bravos.

[pm-smayer97]

---

@darlicious wrote:

    Congratulations to all of our community members regardless of your contribution level. Just the act of participation here makes are community richer and your experience with public mobile better. As @computergeek541 mentioned....in the past thee secret formula may have been largely based on post count. Other members base their contribution on their bravo totals.

---

If post count is/was part of the secret, I can assure you it only plays/ed a small part, as I have cracked the 10% and 5% levels several times in the past, and though I posted a bit more frequently than I do now, it was not significant enough of a difference to matter. And though Solutions may also be a part, I have always had a very low count (as high as a whopping 9 but I too have lost some over time due to pruning, archiving, etc), yet still managed to crack those high levels. And no, it is not because participation was low at the time either...in fact it was quite high.

But like I have suggested, I think the formula changed somewhat about a year ago (maybe more than once), as I have noticed that even with all things considered, I have sometimes barely cracked the 50% level, and I have seen much fewer names reach the higher levels (when they were still easily visible; @darlicious thanks for doing the leg work 😉  )

Anyhoo, what really matters is that people are able to get the help they need from a supportive community. That is satisfaction enough.

[sunflowershine]

Thanks for all contributors!

[CFPartDeux]

---

@mpcdesign wrote:

Congratulations to everyone who made an effort and wrote eloquently replies and posts to this wonderful community forum. I am about to tear up because we are coming together like a family in these stressful and hairy times.

Here ya go - take as many as you need.

[mpcdesign]

Congratulations to everyone who made an effort and wrote eloquently replies and posts to this wonderful community forum. I am about to tear up because we are coming together like a family in these stressful and hairy times.

I also like to thank the countless efforts of some of the top contributors (you know who you are!), who quickly were on top of things and were able to solve some users' issues quicker than a speeding bullet! 

And to the Oracles (and to the so-called retired ones who still are on top of things!), who have a thankless job, letting you all know I do appreciate what you do....

[CFPartDeux]

---

@darlicious wrote:

@CFPartDeux 

What would the community be without your whimsical sense of humour?

---

It would be the same as it's been for the past couple of months.....

[fujiyama]

Congrats to all!

I have been slipping and dropped a tier 😞 but at least I still got something lol

[darlicious]

@CFPartDeux 

What would the community be without your whimsical sense of humour? You've put a smile on the face of many just as they needed it.....everyone adds their own unique value to the community.

[CFPartDeux]

---

@darlicious wrote:

Spoiler

Honourable mentions in the top 50% : CFpartDuex, Rockdaddy22, imm1304 its nice to see you participating in the community once again.....dont be strangers!

---

Seriously? The other two were fine to include, but me too.... no. 🙄