I don't know if this is the right place to ask about ATS points, but I hope so.
If not, obviously the moderators should feel free to do whatever they want with this post.
I kind of knew there was some kind of point system here, but never really paid much attention to it, because to me, the discussions, reading, writing
and reacting is more important than accumulation of something 'virtual'.
However, I found out that you can only get to certain forums if you have enough points. So I became curious, and as I never experienced any problems
in getting to any forum I wanted, including RATS, I had never needed to know about the point system.
So it seems that I did have the required 3500 (?) points somehow - though I don't know why or how. All I have done is just written and replied. I
have only created five (5) threads altogether, and according to the point system, one gets a point for a post, and two points for a reply in a thread.
Now my question is - why do I still have so many points? I just checked (for the first time), and it seems I have over 700 points. If it costs 3500
points to enter RATS, that must mean that I have had already 4200 points at some point - or would have, if I hadn't gone there.
Or does it mean that I can't -write- there, but I can read everything freely? I can't remember whether I have ever tried to write something there or
not. But I do have something that I might want to write exclusively there. Nothing that serious, but because it might be helpful, the governments
wouldn't like it to be released, I am sure.
Still, in any case - I have only written about 328 posts (not including this one) and people have replied 78 times to my 5 threads - so that should
mean
328 points (one point per post)
+156 points (two points per replies)
-------------------------------------
484 points is pretty much all I should have.
However, it seems that I have 773 points. So where do the points come from, if the only way to 'earn' points are posting, creating threads and
people replying to them? I don't have any applauses or been 'debating' in any 'research' or 'fiction'.
So I read this
About ATS: The Point System thread
.. and according to this information, as far as I can figure out, I should only have 484 points indeed. And I possibly shouldn't be able to read
RATS.
So are there also other ways of getting points, that are not mentioned in that post - or has there been a glitch? I am just curious about all this,
because I never paid attention to "points" before.
I also have no idea what a 'flag' or a 'star' is, but it seems I have some of them as well. But I am not sure if I understood that correctly - I
mean, do I have a limited amount of 'flags' and 'stars' that I can give others, or are the ones I have meant to represent 'flags' and 'stars'
given to me by others?
I don't usually support the 'side dishes' of pretty much anything - I just do the main course and that's that. For me in ATS, that's writing,
reading, replying, reacting, etc.. and sometimes even ranting.
In an online gameplay .. hmm.. I guess you can't really call it a forum, it's more like a place where you can play games with people online - just
some simple stuff, like drawing and guessing what others are drawing, etc. In any case, in a place like that, for example, they have a 'money unit'
that would allow me to 'buy stuff' and all that. But I ignore it completely, because it's just an annoyance, it's not the main feature that I came
for. I came to play.
So, I have been utilizing this same 'philosophy' or 'modus operandi' (or whatever you want to call it) here, but this RATS-thing got me a little
bit curious, and now I am slightly confused as to how I could possibly have accumulated that many points. If my guess about access to RATS is correct,
then it would mean that I have altogether somehow 'earned' 3500 + 773 points, which would mean 4273 points (if I calculated correctly)!
How could that even be possible? Or maybe I missed something, like an update to the rules (which I think could have been updated to the post, link to
which I pasted, because it's the first post that comes up with the ATS Search with the searchwords "ATS Points" (or was it just 'points', not
sure)).
So basically I am asking - where did all these points come from?