Hi Vlasta,

Italki points show how involved you are in the community. I personally look at those when someone contacts me saying they want to be "language partners" - if they have 0 points and just a bunch of girl "language partners", they are likely to just be treating italki as dating site - which it's not! Users who have points and notebook entries are generally more interested in actually learning something - and have helped others, so you know they are "giving back to the community".

"How can I use my italki points?" would be a natural question. You relied on Russian (not English) grammar. ;)

It would be great if there were some practical use for them, but I noticed that other websites which have tried to apply a "get points - earn rewards" system aren't able to manage it well... just my opinion. :)  Some members start trying to earn as many points as possible instead of focusing on the spirit of earning points, ie. giving good advice and helping other members.  One of the worst cases I saw on a another site was a guy who stole another member's advice, then copied it as his own comment repeatedly... just to score a few "points".

There's a member asking fake questions here, and I guess the motivation is the same. I just shake my head in disbelief. :)

So, I don't have a problem if we're earning points but there's no way of using them. It's a very fair question to ask. I think italki brought them in at the same time other language sites were doing the same, and hoped a good idea would turn up.

Well guys, finally we can accept the points just as a mark of visitor's goals. But as a marketing-manager I really confused by so useless "recycling" of study contribution! And really don't get some gathering points activities without getting "candy")

I absolutely agree with Mumtaz that useless comments don't be accepted as earned points. 

But in my oppinion, all hard-earned points have to be converted into the benefits.  It's growing a study attractiveness and  user-friendly approach. I want a candy) free lesson with teacher or Chupa Chups at least)

Su.Ki., chocolate is really good ;) Just imagine italki takes a decision with a retroactive effect

to reward italki members, replacing every 10,000 points with $100 worth of lessons on italki!

Now that would be great, and you as a very active member would have $2300 in your student

wallet just to take lessons of any language you want :D  By the way, if you were correcting entries

instead of answering questions, you could have had at least 600,000 points, because for every

correction you make, you earn 30 points. I do believe in what Peachey said though; I discovered

once that a member would copy answers and put them in his answer, and for some reason he 

used to get so many likes! It didn't make sense, really! I mean collecting others' answers and 

taking the credit for it is silly and unprofessional. Until I discovered that he has multiple accounts

to upvote his answers so that he would win the "Best Answer"! He didn't stop and continued doing

this for a while, and unfortunately using his multiple accounts to downvote others' answers and all

that I believe just to mark his answers as "Best Answer". Finally I had to report him to italki and they

investigated him and of course blocked him. How crazy was that!

Also just imagine if members who write many meaningless comments/ entries/ discussions earn

something from those points, same as those who really put time and effort in answering others' questions

or correcting their notebook entries! It would be unfair, and a contest of who writes and posts more

would start on italki :')

So believe me, Vlasta keeping things as they are is way better :))