Rationale for points

Question

What is the rationale for the following:

Multiply all points	10	*
Add for all users	100	+

1. What is the purpose of multiplying all points by 10 and adding 100 for all ?

2. If I change a metric from 2 to 4, does it store the data in a denormalized fashion ? Does it go back in time and recalculate all the points ?

Answer 1

Multiplying is to make the numbers looks prettier and more encouraging.

Adding is because some users might otherwise go into negative territory.

But you can change these whenever you want and, yes. all points are recalculated as appropriate when you make the change.

Answer 2

I was never sure of the multiply thing; I set mine to x1. But the 'add for all users' is intended to give users a basic starting point, perhaps to absorb any negative points they receive. If you look at the last few pages of users, the majority have 100 points, which is their starting points.

I changed my Q2A to start with 10 points, and simply display "0 points" for all users that went into the negative.