I don’t think it’s fair to have an expiry date. It doesn’t motivate me to lose points and I watch them… People pay good money and they don’t get what they paid for. I want to stockpile my points but I can’t. Stockpiling points might be for a reason you are not aware of. For example, I might want to input for 12 months and build up points (36,000 points) and then use these to have 72 conversations (1 each day for 2.5 months). That would be a good way to get good at output rather than having to pay extra just so you can talk for more than 6 times per month @ only 15minutes each. 36,000 points would be possible if the expiry date was not enforced. Have you considered that people might be better at output or happier if they had this option??? Is that worth thinking about Lingq? This is such a demotivator for the language learner. Why should Lingq decide who gets the points? Why not the person who pays for them? Should somebody who pays good money (already) have to pay for a content provider? I don’t think so because we are already paying for Lingq. Content providers deserve more from Lingq. Lingq should stop pretending they are Robin Hood here when they are closer to Royalty in this situation. Lingq should pay the content providers instead of inventing a charitable system where the content providers still get paid peanuts. The person that pays never benefits if you punish them by taking their points. Lingq is pretending that it’s fair and not listening … WE are paying for this…do you want to motivate content providers or new language learners or existing language learners…I’d love to hear what you say
@Triescuarenta - While we don’t have any plans to change the points expiration system, what you say about the price being different does make sense. In fact, it doesn’t make sense that points purchased with a Premium Plus membership are discounted, whereas points purchased in bulk through the Points page are not. In a future update we do have plans to bring the price of bulk points more in line with points included with membership.
@Alex - I think you either avoided what I actually said or you read my message incorrectly? Were you repying to me?
@Treiscuarenta - I apologize, I didn’t mean to be ambiguous! It’s been mentioned a couple of times that we’re not planning on changing the points expiration. There are quite a few threads on the forum about this, and here’s one where you can see this discussed in more detail:
I suppose individuals who are points-wealthy could work together to foil this Socialist-style redistribution of points?
Let’s say Spatterson has 10,000 paid-for or hard-earned points which are about to be seized and redistributed: well, he could just gift them all to me, and then I’d wait one day and gift them right back to him minus a 5% handling fee. (Then the points would be freshly laundered and good for a new 90 days, right?)
Hi Alex - this thread originally was not a request to end with points expiration, but about a warning about points expiration.
In the thread you mentioned, (Simple New Guy Question About The Point System - Language...) I read this:
" … points expire:
- To encourage people to use them instead of hoarding them. When we launched LingQ, points had no expiration date and we saw that people wanted to hoard them. We expect that points should be used up within a month but we give you 3 months before they expire. This keeps the points in use which is better for learners and tutors." - Mark
“We do not want points hoarded and not used. We want activity on the site.” - Steve
I guess the reasons why people let their points expire are basically: first, they are recent users and don’t even know of that feature; it takes a while to be familiar with everything in Lingq; and second, they are busy studying or doing something else and lose control of time.
So the existence of a points expiration warning would I guess meet the Lingq Administration purpose. Nobody likes, I think, that points are taken from them, so they’d use them in the Exchange or with tutors before expiration if they were aware of the precise date 2 or 3 days before.
The problem here is that you want 2 different things: on the one hand, the official speech is that you want points to be used on the site by members, on the other hand, it is advantageous to you to have some points unused to “offer” them to content providers.
@ ALex
It’s really strange that this is not a higher priority or at least not a priority at all? Seriously, how can you justify taking the points away that we have paid for? Inactivity happens for many reasons. People (not just me) are frustrated by this and you are taking directly from the pocket of the subscriber… yet Lingq is ok with that to continue? That is really strange…is it lack of awareness from Lingq that they are unfairly taking points or is it so they can reduce costs by getting the subscriber to pay the content providers?
This topic has been discussed in the past ad nauseam. LingQ is not willing to implement such a warning or a longer or no expiration.
Treiscuarenta,
Oh, I think the answer lies in this thread
"We love feedback from our members, and we regularly take this feedback into consideration when further developing the site. However, we don’t want to create a culture where our members automatically expect that their suggestions or requests will be implemented. In fact, we’ve been trying to move away from this as we grow larger. "
Don’t create a culture where paying members expect reasonable and rational suggestions to be taken seriously. Yeah. That’s a recipe for success
@nd71
Are you frustrated with Lingq or seeing these topics appear again and again?
These are my first posts on this topic. You may have seen this type of thread before. Surely a repeated thread on this topic then indicates that this issue might be more sensitive or take higher priority. Lingq might be willing to change this as it is an issue. I was not aware of other similar threads until recently.
I read that thread yesterday and I agree that their comments no longer apply. Many people are not happy about this yet Lingq may be grasping onto this culture of “individuals” making complaints as their default response. What do you get when you have a group of individuals…a community…a PAYING language leaning community…not just 1 individual making a complaint.
@ Alex @ Mark @ Steve
You pointed me in the direction of a previous thread to highlight that you don’t have plans to change the points expiration situation… That still doesn’t answer “why” though? The culture of individual complaints is no longer applicable and not justified as this thread appeared AGAIN and many people are dissatisfied. I think the stubborness at Lingq is perhaps going to be a bigger issue later on as these ignored problems escalate (especially when they are financially based problems). This is poor customer service. You can focus on not letting 1 person (i.e. ME and blame it on ego or something but it’s my money and others which you are risking losing) push this decision but I’m not alone in this. Lingq has nothing to lose by dropping the expiration? (Lingq believes in greater activity but this is profit based in the short term and a downfall long term as you are upsetting current and potential customers). The fact is that we’re not getting what we paid for; that makes it a poor product (a result of 1 person’s decision which could be easily changed). There should be no condition of points used to get your monies worth. I don’t believe that Lingq is invested in the motivation of language learners. I think you are looking at the business model by hoping that early activity will generate the desire to buy more points. This is a demotivator and poor management from the top down in my opinion…You might be profitable but I believe that if lingq was more responsive then they would have grown quicker and had their customers recruit others. The Lingq staff size is a very big indicator of profitability and growth…Also, the fact that Alex is a lone soldier (or insufficient staff to deal with everything for Lingq’s benefit) in trying to fix all these technical problems is another issue. Are you sure you’re doing the right things long term? I don’t believe you are…your cabinet might need reshuffling…it just occurred to me that your business model is a “Speak/Profit from day 1” model ironically…focussing on now and potentially butchering things longterm…
Read this thread from 2011, and you will understand what I mean by “ad nauseam”. It’s only one of many.
Search for the pertinent keywords if you want to read other threads about LingQ’s point policy. There are enough answers/refusals from the LingQ staff.
Tried 4 times to enter the bloody captcha…
@nd71
Thanks, I thought it was interesting that Mark said Lingq will never change the points expiration. He also said it was an epic fail before…in what sense?..financially or based on inactivity? Also, I thought it was shocking that he said that it was a motivator for the language learner to use their points before Lingq takes them back EVEN though we’'ve paid for them.
I have only been active here in the last few months but, I’m glad I read this thread as I was not aware of how inflexible Lingq was.
My annual subscription expires in July and recently I was debating whether it was worth the price. I looked at how many italki conversations I could get per month for the same price as Lingq. I worked out that I could get a total of 600 minutes of speaking from italki and only 90 minutes/month for Lingq!!! I can get a report from italki just by asking the tutor too. I can use Readlang/Learning with texts/Lang8 and download free podcasts to get the same functionality as Lingq for no extra cost. I can also use Duolingo and other free resources. Lingq has convenience but serious downfalls…
Here are a couple of comments.
Learning with Texts does not have the same functionality as LingQ. It is missing a lot of important functions.
I just found a French teacher on italki for 5 bucks an hour.
“Or, better yet, the point expirations should be abolished.”
I wouldn´t like that, unless LingQ finds another way to reward content providers. I only get 2% of my “income” from my shared content, but I only created a little more than ten lessons. Some members, (Veral, Marianne,Emma from Japan and others) have created hundreds, if not thousands of lessons. It doesn´t add up for me, but it probably does for them.
“I just found a French teacher on italki for 5 bucks an hour.”
The others tutors will find out where he lives and teach him a (free) lesson.
@kimojima
I pay $39 per month on Lingq with my subscription and don’t buy anymore points outside of this. I like short classes at Lingq and that is why I’m still here. However, with italki I would not pay $20 per hour for a Spanish class for just 1 lesson so I agree with you on the benefits of Lingq.
With italki, I study Spanish but I can also get Russian lessons for less than $5 for an hour (which is next for me). Some languages cost more obviously. I can sometimes buy group packages for even less which might be an option for you with French to reduce the cost (as in you buy blocks of 5 or 10 hours rather than a single lesson). With Lingq, I don’t like to go over time as it’s not much money for tutors without going over the 15 minutes. I think at $5 per hour on italki I would not be blowing anything but I can see your point for higher priced lessons. It would be better if italki offered shorter lessons however, I have been able to rearrange 2 classes that were cut short due to skype problems and consequently got another class so in theory it is possible and I’m sure some tutors would negotiate with you on this.
@ ColinJohnstone
Learning with texts would be a poor replacement I know but it has got me thinking as I import most of my own articles…
Yeah. Paule – I wasn’t going to say anything a few days ago – but you hit the nail smack on the head. One second… let me just find my tin foil hat.
Ah yes, here it is. Let’s begin.
Back when I asked for a “bulk upload” feature I didn’t get any reaction from the major content providers LingQ… EXCEPT someone gave Alex’s “No, we’re not gonna do that” post a Rose. So hmm… why would a content provider not really want a bulk upload feature. And Berta’s thread that nd17 posted really makes it clear.
If I was really smart I could import hundred and hundred and hundreds of free resource into LingQ – project gutenberg for example – for practically every language. Guess who would be the biggest point earner then?
Oh, and I’m 100% convinced the push back from LingQ is not the developer time… but the threat of misuse just like this. If members uploaded literally hundreds of thousands of gigabytes (non-techies think “my iphone capacity” times a bunch) text and audio and seriously impact their server performance and memory usage.
I’ll take my tin foil hat off now. Hot potato. Who’s next?
Kimo – Well, good think about your nonsense is that it doesn’t stick around long. Let’s get back on track. This thread is about the expiration and warning of expiration of points. Whether those points are a good deal is a completely different matter and argument.
@kimojima
You might be surprised with how good a non-native is and you can always try them for 10-30 minutes very cheaply (sometimes). You haven’t tried yet, have you? Mike Bondesan was my Lingq tutor for Spanish and in my opinion he was better for me as a teacher and his reports were excellent…
As a learner of Chinese, I would be unable to spend any points for speaking sessions, as there are no Chinese tutors, and if, they offer tutoring at 3 a.m. in the morning. Even for writing corrections - no tutors. As a result, spending points can be quite difficult here. What’s more, if you are ill or on a longer holiday, the 3 months expiration is a joke. I was quite active @ LingQ, and I lost many, many points (under a different user name), and IMHO the best solution for a serious language learner is to make up one’s own mix of language learning offerings on the web. LingQ alone is not the best solution.