Recently, a number of My IGN members and staff have been discussing ways to improve the My IGN reward system. We came up with what I think is a pretty good idea for the community.

Make a system that combines effort and quality. Perhaps My IGN could add a rating system to blogs? For an entry to qualify for the ranking system, it would have to meet a certain minimum word requirement. Once it passes that requirement point, users would be able to rate the blog as they comment. The more the commenter likes the entry, the more points they award it. After a certain number of comment ratings (let’s say 10, as an example), the points would be added up and averaged, to give the blog a quality rating.

From there, blog quality ratings could be averaged out. So say a user averaged (on a scale of 10, again for simplicity here) a 9 on their blogs? They would be awarded a certain medal/badge type of thing. If they fell below a certain quality level, their badge would change to something different.

The above method would a) encourage bloggers to write quality blogs, b) Bring the community closer together, c) Be a more interactive for the community as a whole, and d) Prevent people from writing long garbage posts. Admittedly, it would embrace subjectivity a bit, but with so many differing opinions on My IGN, averaging out the ratings would prevent bloggers from being able to just have their friends all comment with high scores. Also, blocked users will not be allowed to rate content of the user blocking them, to prevent "blog griefing."

If you support this idea for quality blogs, I strongly encourage you to vote! Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Blog posts need some way to prevent them from being open to anyone and everyone on the entire internet. This was previously possible with password-protected posts, but the updates to the system in late January removed password functionality, forcing users to choose between making a post available to everyone in the world, or hiding it completely.

I had two very creepy real-life incidents as a result of people Googling and finding posts in my old IGN blog, and was therefore incredibly grateful for the option to make my old blog posts "Friends Only" so that they wouldn't show up in Google results. I don't like having to self-censor everything I write; I'd like to be able to be candid without having to wonder if the creepy guy from my chem class is stalking me online.

When I first asked if some kind of privacy restrictions were possible, jimmcq told me to use the password system. I did. Now I can't.

I Have a Short Simple Idea for a New Feature That Would Make MyIGN Better

If you are like me and have found yourself backtracking though various blog postings from multiple users just to see if anyone paid any attention to your suggestions or comments, then this feature may be helpful.

To be honest, I don’t really like the @user notation because it seems negatively connoted. However, it appears to be simple enough and widely recognized as the means by which to communicate to others via blog comments. I think a better implementation would be a tag system where the @user command registers simply (using java-script or another of IGN’s codes of choice) as

"user"

and then goes through the CMS, notifying you on your MyIGN homepage that someone has written a comment somewhere for you to read.

This is the part where I ask for your input and help. Firstly, I would like everyone’s thoughts on this new feature however you can imagine it. Get Creative! It could be a mailbox icon on your MyIGN homepage or even a separate tab of comments that pertain to your postings. If you have a great way to envision implementing this, post it here so we can have a large sample of opinions for the MyIGN programmers.

I apologize if this has been mentioned before, but I couldn't find it in a search.

Anyways, I think it'd be great if there were more ways for bloggers (especially newer bloggers) to get their blogs more exposure to the IGN community. Perhaps like a newbie spotlight, or maybe the ability to search and browse popular blog tags and topics/titles. Or maybe some community contests where established editors/staff/users can feature outstanding users of their choice.

While these are just some ideas, I do feel that people out here are writing some great content; I just have no way of finding it!

I noticed on some of my longer posts, they are cut off at random points. The fully post did not carry over.

This absolutely needs to be fixed. Some of us have hundreds and hundreds of posts. Going through and editing all of them would be an insane amount of work if we had to correct it ourselves and I'm sure most bloggers would be extremely upset if all of our old posts were left looking like a mess.

Here's an example of a post carried over from blogs.ign to MyIGN...

Original Blogs.ign post...
http://blogs.ign.com/MrBeatdown/2011/02/12/151467/

And here is that same post carried over...
http://www.ign.com/blogs/mrbeatdown/2011/02/12/platinumd-need-for-speed-shift

Having a Table of Contents instead of the Current Blog Home will improve IGN blogs in a Number of Ways-
1.) Easier navigation of Older blogs for newer Users/ people who wish to read Older Blogs
2.) Allow for easy organization of Similar Blogs
3.) Improve the overall feel and Accessibility of MyIGN
Some users have Tables of Contents, but what I would like is that Each Button, or Link to another Table of Contents, be like a Tag, to automatically sort the Blogs into appropriate categories with limited time spent. at the end of Each Blog there will be the Current Header of the MyIGN User which will be a link to the Table of Contents. Buttons will be customizable with our own pictures, Dimensions will be unspecified, and Upload will be similar to Blog Headers, but instead it Will say Import picture to Blog Category _______. Any Blog Posts not updated with Categorical Tags will be put into a simple 'others' category. the way I have described this will hopefully be easy to implement due to the many similarities it already has to many of MyIGN's Features. Many Users will take advantage of this and Blogs will be much Better for it. It is also MUCH better than the current Sort-By-Date system in place in the Blogs now. Many Users will undoubtedly love this feature if implemented!