Because All Content is NOT Created Equal.

What are WSO Credits?

WSO Credits are a new form of currency introduced to our community so that users can reward or punish authors based on the content they contribute. Users that have WSO Credits have the power to vote on any piece of content that any user submits to the community (forum, blog post, etc.).

If a user with WSO Credits finds a particular post very helpful, they can use a WSO Credit to reward the user who wrote the post with a Silver Banana. This will give that author 3 extra banana points which helps them move up in rank and they will also be notified the next time they log in!

If a user with WSO Credits finds a particular post stupid, unhelpful or annoying, they can use a WSO Credit to punish the user who wrote the post by throwing Monkey Shit at them. Any user that gets Monkey Shit thrown at a post they authored will lose 1 banana (becomes inedible) and be notified the next time they log in! This obviously implies they will also have a harder time moving up the ranking system if they get a lot of shit thrown at them.

Once you have WSO Credits, all you have to do to reward or punish other users is click on the small Silver Banana or Monkey Shit icons below the profile image in any post. You won't see these icons until you have WSO Credits to spend.

How do I get WSO Credits?

There are three ways to get WSO Credits:

1. You can be rewarded with free WSO Credits based on your contributions to the community. If moderators think you have been helpful to other users, you may receive WSO Credits with no warning. The decision to reward WSO Credits will be at the sole discretion of the site administrators and moderators.

2. You can invite your friends to join the community. For each invite sent you will earn 5 WSO Credits and every time someone you invited registers you get an additional 30 WSO credits. The users you invited will also be given 5 WSO Credits to start off when they join.

3. You can support the community by paying for WSO Credits using the Paypal button below. When you purchase WSO Credits through Paypal, please include your user name in the notes of the order so we can credit your account fast. This is a great way to reward the user that helped you with some great advice (with a Silver Banana) or throw Monkey Shit at the users that add no value...and at the same time help us to continue improving WSO. ****WARNING / NOTE: we reserve the right to undo any silver bananas awarded or monkey shit thrown if we suspect abuse of the system. Abuse includes using your credits to reward or punish only a few users to try and manipulate the rankings. If abuse is found and all of your votes are undone, your payment will not be refunded and your IP will be blocked.****

Why Did You Introduce This?

The primary reason we introduced this system is because we wanted to encourage high quality content instead of just quantity. Under the old system, a user could gain bananas regardless of the quality of their advice. Now, the best users will jump higher in rank faster as they collect silver bananas, and the worst users will have a harder time. In other words, the rankings will be much more meaningful.

The second reason is that we thought it would be fun to increase user interaction and get feedback on how other users view your advice. You will notice next to the "reply / quote" links on each post a small # of votes. If this # is positive, that means the piece of content has received more silver bananas. If that number is negative, that means that more monkey shit was thrown at that post.

So what are you waiting for? Grab some WSO Credits, award some Silver Bananas and throw some Monkey Shit before you get hit yourself.

Enjoy!
Patrick