History of the E2 Voting/Experience system

Many aspects of Everything2 have changed over the years, and The Everything2 Voting/Experience System has undergone numerous revisions. Some view the evolving iterations of voting, levels, and experience as one of the site's historical markers. This document provides an overview of the ways that these features functioned during different time periods. You may refer to Everything2 Glossary for an explanation of terms used in this document.

The original experience and level system (1999-2000)

When E2 began, user levels were determined exclusively by experience points (XP), writeups could only be cooled/chinged once, and the first C! you received would give you 400 XP. In contrast, you could initially vote on the same writeup multiple times, but this was quickly changed to just one per voter. The experience and level system was a novel idea, designed to turn the posting of writeups into a competitive game. Unfortunately, it was too simplistic.

You could gain or lose XP in the following ways:

• Posting a new writeup: +1 XP
• Having a writeup removed with penalty: -5 XP (default)
• Having a writeup removed without penalty: -1 XP
• Receiving a C! on a writeup: +10 XP
• Casting a vote had a 20% chance of earning +1 XP
• Casting all your votes allotted per day earned +1 XP for every 2 votes cast (so for example, casting 50 votes yielded +25 XP)
• Blessings from the e2gods: +10 XP standard, but could be any amount
  These came in the form of Golden Trinkets as rewards for participating in quests, etc.
• Curses from the e2gods for bad behavior: -10 XP, -1 karma

It wasn't long before users found a way to game this system by casting all their votes randomly to receive the daily XP bonus and rise in levels more quickly. This practice became known as Vote Dumping, and defeated the purpose of the voting system. To help address the "leveling" problem, writeup count was added to the level requirements.

Experience and levels 2.0 (2000-2005)

Under the second incarnation of the voting and experience system, your level was determined by experience points combined with your writeup count. In July 2001 the C! feature was modified to allow multiple Chings on a writeup, reducing it to a sort of "super vote" and decreasing the amount of XP awarded with it from +10 to +3.

The level system 2000-2005:

Level	Title	XP req	WU req	Votes	C!
1	Initiate	0	0	0	0
2	Novice	50	25	10	0
3	Acolyte	200	70	20	0
4	Scribe	400	150	30	1
5	Monk	800	250	45	1
6	Crafter	1,350	380	60	2
7	Artisan	2,100	515	75	2
8	Seer	2,900	700	90	3
9	Archivist	4,000	900	105	3
10	Avatar	7,500	1,215	125	4
11	Godhead	13,000	1,800	150	4
12	Pseudo_God	21,000	2,700	200	5
13	Pedant	38,000	4,500	300	5

In the very beginning there were just 11 levels, with nate as the only Level 11 user (hence its title "Godhead"), and requirements were thought to be so high that only nate would ever reach this level. However, Pseudo_Intellectual eventually surpassed the XP requirement for level 11, so two new levels had to be created. This explains why there were levels higher than a "Godhead" in the old system, as the titles of "Pseudo_God" and "Pedant" were invented specifically with P_I in mind.

The loss of XP via penalty writeup deletion and curses was eliminated in 2002. However, having a writeup deleted still resulted in losing the 1 XP earned when the writeup was created.

As the quality of writing on Everything2 steadily improved and required a larger effort and time investment from committed noders, it became clear that the 700 writeups necessary to receive an allotment of three daily Chings was an unreasonably high barrier. If someone published a writeup every three days, it would take them six years to reach the rank of "Seer". There were noders who were contributing incredibly high-quality content, but who obviously were being penalized by the high writeup count requirement. A consensus developed that there was more benefit to Everything2 for delivering thirty well-researched, well-received, 3,000-word masterpieces, than say, thirty descriptions of Magic: The Gathering collectible cards.

The solution to this problem would require some sophisticated maths, and Professor Pi led the Honor Roll project that began in October 2001 and was implemented in March 2002. An explanation of how this system worked is beyond the scope of this document, but the good professor explains it all himself in his Honor Roll writeup. This new leveling scheme was clever and seemed really cool at first, but it had a few unintended side-effects.

Despite tools to calculate your score for you (the Internet Archive has nine snapshots of Honor Roll and you), it became quite tricky to understand exactly what your level would be at any given point, and posting a new writeup (which started with a reputation of zero) could take your merit down enough to nudge you into a lower level-up factor, which might lead you to temporarily lose a level. This induced anxiety, was counterproductive, and could result in a disheartening experience.

To game the new system, some noders started culling their poorly-performing writeups in an effort to get ever-closer to the ideal 0.5 level-up factor. Many believed that the Honor Roll posed a genuine challenge and pushed everyone toward raising the bar of writing quality, but others felt that it took some of the irreverence and fun out of the game. This had the noticeable effect of causing some veteran noders to stop contributing new writeups.

Another unintended side-effect was that Honor Roll favored certain types of literary content over others. Poetry and fictional prose, for example, tends to have a mixed reception and attracts downvotes, whereas long factual pieces were assured multiple Chings and a significantly positive reputation. As E2 was not competing with Wikipedia, this presented something of a mission conflict.

Experience and levels 3.0 (2005-2007)

Once it became clear that the Honor Roll had some flaws and wasn't sufficient to meet changing expectations, in 2005 the system was revised again. Honor Roll continued, but XP requirements were substantially increased while writeup requirements were reduced by an average of 40%, and level 13 was eliminated on the grounds of it being impossible to achieve with the new "raised bar".

The level system 2005-2007:

Level	Title	XP req	WU req	Votes	C!
1	Initiate	0	0	0	0
2	Novice	50	20	10	0
3	Acolyte	250	40	20	0
4	Scribe	500	100	30	1
5	Monk	1,000	200	45	1
6	Crafter	4,000	300	60	2
7	Artisan	7,000	450	75	2
8	Seer	10,000	600	90	3
9	Archivist	15,000	750	105	3
10	Avatar	21,000	1,000	125	4
11	Godhead	30,000	1,400	150	4
12	Pseudo_God	50,000	2,400	200	5

Internet Archive: Voting/Experience System from April 2006.

Experience and levels 3.5 (2007-2008)

Despite the problem with Vote Dumping, in April 2007 kthejoker unilaterally altered the system, increasing the bonus for casting a vote from 20% to 33.3% and briefly eliminating the vote dumping bonus, but then restoring it (in an even more XP-inflationary way) with another scheme whereby users got 5 XP instantly for every 10 votes cast, plus 10 XP at the end if they cast all their votes. This totaled even more XP for Vote Dumping than before, and allowed diligent voters like aneurin, sid, and Segnbora-t to zoom up the Everything's Best Users list over the next year and a half. Nevertheless, the writeup requirement remained as the gatekeeper to leveling up.

Historically, E2 staff members were in a special class when it came to vote and C! allotment, essentially having an unlimited supply of both regardless of their level. This privilege was abolished in stages, with infinite Ching ability removed in November 2007 and vote replenishment via a tool known as the "Voting pit stop" discontinued in November 2008. Thereafter, e2gods and content editors would each have the daily vote and C! allotments provided with their respective user levels, and any user may now obtain extra votes or Chings in the E2 Gift Shop.

The short-lived "Writeup Bonus" system, invented and introduced by kthejoker in January 2008, was intended as a replacement for the Honor Roll. As described in his Editor Log, it would not yield benefits for deleting your own low-performing writeups, but existed alongside the Honor Roll in a confusing state of affairs which lasted ten months until the next system was introduced.

Experience and levels 4.0: The XP/GP system (2008-2014)

On October 29, 2008, the Honor Roll was discontinued and leveling returned to being a simple function of XP and writeup count. Considering how easy it was to receive XP under the previous voting and experience systems (often for things that had nothing to do with writing), the site admins decided to take a long, hard look at the XP system and devise something fairer. Current level-up requirements can be viewed at The Everything2 Voting/Experience System. Level Distribution shows the number of active users at specific levels.

This system features several major changes. Perhaps the most substantial one was the increase in levels, from a finite twelve to the theoretical infinite, with groups of levels sharing the same title and every level after 91 entitled "Transcendent". There are three users with special titles: nate and dbrown have "Godhead" and thefez has "Arcanist". You can gain or lose XP in the following ways only:

• +5 XP for each writeup you publish
• -5 XP for each writeup that is removed
• +20 XP each time one of your writeups is C!'d (Chinged by another user and sent to the Cool Archive)
• +1 XP every time another user upvotes one of your writeups

As a complement to XP, a virtual currency known as GP was introduced. Its use is also explained in The Everything2 Voting/Experience System, though it has no bearing on level advancement. Notably, casting your votes on writeups used to give you a 33.3% chance of earning 1 XP, but this was replaced by 1 GP. Accordingly, the XP bonus for casting all your daily votes was once again eliminated.

Experience and levels 4.5: Level flattening (2014-present)

At the end of 2014, mauler proposed a revision to the system in Editor Log: December 2014. This reduced both the XP and writeup count requirements across the board, making it easier to level up. The changes are represented in the table below. While the table stops at Level 36, the same proportion of value reductions continue for all subsequent levels.

Level	v4.0 XP	Current XP	v4.0 Writeups	Current Writeups
Level 1	400	100	10	5
Level 2	900	300	20	10
Level 3	1500	600	30	15
Level 4	2300	1000	40	20
Level 5	3300	1500	50	25
Level 6	4500	2100	60	30
Level 7	5900	2800	70	35
Level 8	7500	3600	80	40
Level 9	9300	4500	90	45
Level 10	11300	5500	100	50
Level 11	13500	6600	110	55
Level 12	16000	7800	120	60
Level 13	18500	9100	130	65
Level 14	21000	10500	140	70
Level 15	23500	12000	150	75
Level 16	26000	13600	160	80
Level 17	28500	15300	170	85
Level 18	31000	17100	180	90
Level 19	33500	19000	190	95
Level 20	36000	21000	200	100
Level 21	38500	23100	210	105
Level 22	41000	25300	220	110
Level 23	43500	27600	230	115
Level 24	46000	30000	240	120
Level 25	48500	32500	250	125
Level 26	51000	35000	260	130
Level 27	53500	37500	270	135
Level 28	56000	40000	280	140
Level 29	58500	42500	290	145
Level 30	61000	45000	300	150
Level 31	63500	47500	310	155
Level 32	66000	50000	320	160
Level 33	68500	52500	330	165
Level 34	71000	55000	340	170
Level 35	73500	57500	350	175
Level 36	76000	60000	360	180

This document was a collaborative work, with SharQ, mauler, Tem42, and panamaus principally contributing. If you have questions or believe there are errors, please contact a staff member.

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