Symantec Connect Reward Program

on firefox, under windows.  Just after "here's a list of the current opporutnities: imagebrowser image imagegrowser image"

getting the same in IE6

We've resolved the issue now.  Let me know if it isn't working for you. 

IE6 is good

So I am assuming the new site got rid of the SVS connect points.  Can we round up/down any points we got from that?  I just like to keep an even number =P, expecially since there is no way to use that point (.1 point).

Hi,

Where's this rewards page located ?

A link might have been rewarding ;)

Hi brav, the link was there on the text (don't see the blue?) www-secure.symantec.com/connect/pages/symantec-rewards

Thanks for that, I was just being a moron =P

A points system is a really cool thing. I don't know of other companies doing this so I've always appreciated the innovation. However, the subjective nature of a submissions points' is a little frustrating to me. It would help correct this problem if the voting system was tied into points for the author, but it only seems to reward the voter from what I've seen. I know it has deterred me from spending the time required to write future articles. I'd rather just give short answers in a forum or something than spending the time writing documentation.

This is really appreciated that altiris give points and rewards on user comments and articles. and even ship outside US.

There are lot of forums which provide information after login, but in altiris information is free and easily searchable.

Good Work Team.

I can't tell you how frusting it is that all google searches are taking me to http://www.symantec.com/connect/

It's starting to get annoying...

I'm going to save my points until I have enough to get a tricked out name tag!

Sorry my first post is a complaint but... I have a 20" wide screen monitor that can actually show information across the whole screen and when I go to this site I see a 10" white column in the middle with ENORMOUS gray and greyer fonts and with big grey borders on either side. Hard to read IMHO. Would like to see smaller fonts size so I could see the some of the actualy posts not just the titles. Titles are useless in forums IMHO unless you can see some text to see if you want to read further.

Peaslee: What browser are you using?  I've opened the site in IE7 and Firefox 3.0.7 and everything looks fine.  I'm using a 20" screen with a 1600x1200 resolution.

I did some test with Microsoft IE 7, Firefox 3.0.7 and Opera 9.6.4.
The result is quite good, fonts displayed correctly and the portal layout is correctly shown without leave large blank spaces.

The issue posted by M.Peaslee could be due to a smaller font selected in the internet browser settings.

Paolo

Wat is this Lifetime Points??

Lifetime points are the points that you have earned so far. In your case

That means so far you have earned 963.5 points and after redeeming 923 points, your current balance is 40.5.

Thanks,

Eshwar

is it just me or is voting not giving us credit any more? I have tried both IE and firefox over the last three days and only has one vote count. Strange.

"...

That means so far you have earned ***.* points and after redeeming *** points, your current balance is **.*.

..."

Which unfortunately doesn't apply to those of us who've just been xferred from STN...

***EDIT***

ag97690: Found that too. Trying to work out whether it depends on what you're voting on (blog/article/forum or whatever) or whether it's just the luck of the draw.

***Additional*** Just voted on your post & it was applied. So ... ?

We only give out points for the first five votes in a 24 hour period.  You can vote on as many things as you like, but only the first five will get you points.  We had to do this because we found people clicking randomly and wildly on votes to try to earn points.

I think those lifetime point were somehow brought from the old forums based on how many messages had you posted there. I don't think you can get any reward with those lifetime points.

 Jukka is correct.  We brought the points over from STN and they drive your rank in the community (the pie slices next to your username).  However, the old points are not redeemable for prizes.  It's a program we started for new posts.

I know about the 24 hr period, but it has been two days since the last one counted and two days before that. It seems to come and go on voting, did someone slip on the 24 hour rule and add a extra zero?

Edit:

looks like it is working again, did something get fixed or is this a temp. thing again ?

Thanks

Having the points applied to your profilewill generally take 24 to 48 hours. However, with the team working on a variety of "launch clean up" items, it is taking us a little longer to get through them. (We verify all points awarded.) Be patient with us. We'll all get caught up and stay up to speed.

Dear .peter,

In a recent thread you said, "We only give out points for the first five votes in a 24 hour period.  You can vote on as many things as you like, but only the first five will get you points.  We had to do this because we found people clicking randomly and wildly on votes to try to earn points"

not me.

I was clicking randomly and wildly on votes just to see how it works. I am quite certain that you will start to see the number of votes by an individual to tail off in the very near future. Also if you click on a vote it cannot be removed without casting a negative vote. Who wants to take away a vote from someone?

Please don't assume that the dark side of greediness has permeated the symantec connect forum :-)

I still don't know what the vote represents. How does it benefit the person that is deemed worthy of gaining my vote? I thought it was an act of acknowledgement of their participation in sharing their wealth of information and a thank you. I also thought it meant that the posting merited reading as it could benefit someone.

Am I wrong?

Has any thought been given to awarding a thank you party for those individuals who have been promoting your products, encouraging your users and growing your profits for over five years.

I'm thinking the invitation for the party could be extended to significant others and could be held on an ocean ship bound for Hawaii :-)

Unfortunately I'd have a long time to wait as it looks like I've been xferred over as a 'newbie' - unless you were going to make it an open-invitation Bob ;-)

How is the activity graded for approval? Does the comment have to be more then 1 or two sentences? I looked at one comment from the 5th that was not approved for me and I was wondering why. Also there is another one that is still pending from the 5th, two different threads...

 Why do I get negative points for voting.. I fail to understand. Th earlier juice was the best. I have never liked any forum and transitions which were made after that. Even the look and feel is not as nice.

Hi Piyush, in our testing we've found that your points log does show negative points when you change your vote. (Computer programs are funny when it comes to being "exact".) The system awards points when you first vote, then if you change your vote, the system deducts the points you were awarded for your first vote and then awards you points for your new changed vote. Clear as mud?

HTH,
Kevin

@stumper

With the old juice people did pretty much vote for points and would never even read articles (there was no voting on forums) so 90% of the articles would have scores of 3/5 people people just voted 3 on everything on the page, it was really annoying as a content creator to see your article start at a 5 from a few honest votes then drop to a 3 a day or two layer.  Heck people, once they realized what these points were, would go through all the archives of the site voting 3 just to get points which is why voting was moved inside an article from being on the blurb.

With voting on forums added to the new site I think the 5 in 24 hours is a good rule as long as all the new people are made aware of it so they don't spam vote.

@Guiedo

I don't know the exact process for comments but I've been told on numerous occasions that points are added based off of the usefulness of the reply and how much it adds to the current discussion of what the content provided.  I'm sure with forums you get points based off of if your post was helpful to the person asking the question.

 Hi,

I would acknowledge the reward point system but what is critarea? i have seen approved/pending point in my Profile (reward point balance) any one can explain?

Please consider adding symantec classes and seminars to the rewards listing. There are several classes I would like to attend and seminars to participate in. My manager would be more willing to allow me to attend if it was a reward. Who knows? It may even result in more business for symantec.

Stumpr's manager, "Free training? Why yes. You most certainly may attend."

That's really smart.  IdeaStorm should do that too.

Nichant

They do not expire. You can accumulate them till eternity. All the best.

In the previous Altiris forums format it was easy to scan down a whole page of entries for review. I agree that this current layout is very frustrating to use. Symantec could learn from the previous Altiris design.

@Tejas Shah, small clarification -- if you stop contributing to the site, the redeemable portion of your user points will expire after 12-months of inactivity.

Kevin

I know that I'm on this website to get and give advice where I am well versed, but I must say that it takes far too long to get points.  Or you guys just play favorites with the older users. 

I've been waiting for my "Pending" article and blog for almost a week now.  I guess that means my article and blog are also not visable yet, which I think is odd for a website.

Mark

For those us of not interested in points and even less interested in receiving emails about points, how do we disable?

I received an email today that I consider absolute SPAM with no opt out, and I am unable to find any option to disable those emails in my account/profile.

Thank you.

Wow Ed, we've never heard from anyone not interested in earning rewards.

I'll take your name off the recipient's list so you won't be bothered again.

Kevin

I can appreciate there must be only so much the moderators can do, but honestly, this place is a joke.   I tried to contribute and my blog and article are still under review after 4 days.  Nice community.

Please delete my account and my contributions from this website.

Mark

well as afar as I can see points for posts are approved randomly in a bulk per day.
even if you post something interesting (ie. resolution for someone post) it may still stay in your queue as pending and the other day even posts like "i've noticed that too, someone may help" will be approved and the posts from previous day won't be even looked at.
if the pending posts were declined instead of approved then there should be some status info about it.

I do find it a bit strange that I posted quite a few comments on the Backup Exec forum a couple of days ago, and the points for them are still sitting as Pending, but I've just posted another one and it was immediately Approved.  Also, when looking into another user's points, all their points have been approved - what is going on?  Is this favouritism towards certain users?!

yeah, they are changing something, at the moment points for forum posts are added automatically but I don't know is that the sme for normal accounts or just for TAs.
blogs and other types of participations still require approval.

I think the Pending points were submitted when the "pie chart" beside my name only had one red segment, but now that it has two, any new forum posts are automatically Approved - fingers crossed the Pending ones will be set to Approved soon - then I'll only have another 24,900 to get before I can claim my trip to Hawaii!

Dear peter I have

Hi Bijay - If you had an account on the old STN forums, we pulled your points across and added them to your "lifetime points."  Then, any new posts on this site added to both your "lifetime points" and "rewards points balance"

You likely have more lifetime points that rewards points because some of the points in your account were earned before the reward program started.  Does that help?  PM me if you have further questions.

When we order anything how much the time it will take to deliverd?

if I order somthing then will it be shiped to india as i live in india.

I contribute for the old juice and the new connect for over two years and usually it takes about two weeks to get it.
I live in the netherlands, and I find two weeks fast enough.

Connect is one of the very spare websites that reward you for working with them and we should thank them for that.

Please consider adding symantec classes and seminars for symantec products to the rewards listing. There are several classes I would like to attend and seminars to participate in. My manager would be more willing to allow me to attend if it was a reward. Who knows? It may even result in more business for symantec.

The basic idea is to share the ideas and problems with the community, & in that  we get the points & we can redeem for rewards, i think its good initiative & definetely will bring more focus to this technology and bring on more popularity, I believe juice site is still doing some small development ,once is done the website will have some cool features and will definetely make one of unique website,Only the problem stands is that it takes a lot of days to publish the article,i think if this can expedite than definetely it will help to community members.

Ok .peter, I'll write a post about your rewards points system.   I think it greatly insults me and other power users that I have spoken with.   I think it cheapens the idea of people helping other users for the sake of helping, and puts the focus on points, not people.   That being said, you should probably reward anyone who is capable of using this terribly slow and poorly implemented site.

But that's just me, and I'm sure you will continue with the points, and if you do, I think you should at least offer a rewards selection to donate to charity instead.   Which is what I do with my points but it takes more work that I care to tell.   I turn it into certificates and donate them.  

Anyone else feel the same about points?

Before you lump all "power users" into the same category it doesn't insult me to be rewarded for contributing.  I contribute because I want to and I feel that points gives me an extra nice feeling.  It's a "thank you" for helping build out the community.

While the site is not the greatest site in the world, heck I would prefer the old sites as much as the next one, I am learning to adapt and use it.

I'm sorry you feel the way about the site, you can contribute or you can start your own site, whatever you would like to do and I wish you good luck with it.

@stumpr

i think i got your name right.  I think it would be awesome if  I could turn in points for credits for Symantec Education.   +1 for me

 I think the ideas of donating points to charity and redeeming for training/education are both great ideas.  We'll research how to do that.  And jjesse is exactly right, the idea of points is to just thank the community members for taking time our of their busy lives to share their knowledge. 

I'm sure at the powers that be might revisit this one but we had training in the catalog once and there were no takers.

I think one of the problems was cost. When the cost of training was converted into points, it ended up taking something like 5,000 points to attend training.

Sorry, I did not mean to lump all the power users together.  In fact, I'm not even one of them.   I've just talked to a few.  I understand some people have different feelings about the points system, so  I think everyone would be happy if we could just directly donate the points.

Well, after reading all these posts, I am agreeing to some of the sentiments. We should get some Charity orgs also added in to the list of rdeemptions.

I will have to agree with mranum, and support the idea of charity donations.   I give my certificates to my staff as an award, but I would also love to feel good about helping people on Symantec Connect, and also helping people outside of our circle by donating.

Why not? That's another choice, and those so inclined can choose to do so easily and quickly.
It certainly can't hurt and will have no impact on those who don't donate.

Is this your vision - For every xxxx points they redeem for charity, Symantec makes a donation to that charity in that person's name???

Hi,

There should be training in reward catologue, This will help  us to understand more of this products in depth, But its really great that  this community not only reward the people for their contributions but more important the resolution that flow in this forum its amazing, Its a very good idea to bring on people & share their experiences with others, Helping out each other, Thats the sense of particpation, Team work, Connect reallly rocks.I thank you all in this post for your comments.

Regards
"RAM CHAMPION"

A new option has been added to the Rewards catalog for those of you who want to contribute your points to charity. You can now contribute points to the United Way organization by visiting the catalog and clicking the Order Now link next to the United Way entry. Kevin

My First Post.  We will continue to monitor Products related to SEP 11.  We hope sufficient amount of support  for those requesting time sensitive information.  We do encourage those with urgent issues to open a case in parallel to creating an article on these forums.

Hi Team,

How many days does the administrator approve a published blog in Symantec Connect?
Will an article be approved longer than a blog?
Will a blog be approved longer than a forum?

Just my thoughts since I am still waiting for mine to be approved.
Thanks.

thanks admins.
just got heard on the days of approval.
although it took longer than expected, the long wait was worth it.
thanks.

about the voting.
since all of us are matured IT professionals, we vote because we are moved by the comment and not because of greediness.
I  also think Stumpr is right on loyalty points.

Just my thoughts.

As far as Indian standards are concerned, Symantec Training are very exorbitantly prices. It's a good idea to get the reward points convered into some discount coupnes redeemable against the Symantec Training programs.

If implemented, I believe, it shall help many.

Tejas

Maybe better if it would be 1 option in the rewards so that we could have freedom to choose...
but I love that idea Tejas!

Thanks,

How many day does it normally takes for the approval of an article. Also, I think that the rewards should include Class training and certification for Symantec Products.

IN rewards there should be more computer/laptop items then t-shirts/cloths website. and Amazon.com doesn't ship computer goods to india and many other contry. so the rewards are more for developed contries like usa.

WHY did my comment deleted??

My workspace showing it as deleted
& my reward points decreased b'coz of tht

Hi

As per the above details every comment counts 5 points but today i have noticed that my comment counts only 1 point. Any suggestion???

Ajit

Everything got changed Guys :(

Chck this link

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/anno...

this point system is really great;
it will increase accuracy

great idea...
its fair at the same time fun..

I contributed a video (not a download) and only received 50 points for it. According to the criteria above, I should have received 75 points.
And, in actuality, it really should be 200 points because it was a fully scripted video on how to do P2V2P using Backup Exec System Recovery and VMware. Basically, an article put to video on how to do it. It wasn't a "turn on the camera and tape until the person stops talking off the cuff" video.

Hey Systemeu! I'll look into why you were granted only 50 points instead of 75 points for uploading a video..https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/videos/backup-exec-system-recovery-85-p2v2p-use-case.

And let's take this topic off this thread.. I mean we could PM.

@SwathiTurlapaty: how do you gauge if a download only gets 50 instead of a 75 points...
articles though might be short or lack of technicality that is why we might get less than 200..
thanks..