Some feedback for Steve and his team

Open Forum
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Hi guys,

I have been a registered member on the site for about 2 weeks and I have signed up for a monthly subscription as I love the service and I know I will benefit from it greatly. The core system is brilliant, it’s a fantastic example of what the power of the Internet can do for language and we should have been doing it years ago.

My current dilemma is with the point system, however. I am very happy to spend money on LingQ, but I feel that the current ‘pay for points’ system is encouraging isolation more than integration - and we all know that LingQ is about integration and community spirit.

Just so you know I’m not being stingy and that I actually believe the above statement, (rather than just trying to get some free stuff) - I will add that I plan to pay for LingQ for a very long time and I will be upgrading my account in the future. I do however, truly believe that with so many talented and generous people already online, it is near impossible to find any ‘open’ requests in my native language so that I may earn points and get help with my target language, Infact there are only currently 3 open requests and that is with the filter set to ‘all languages’.

So, buy points you say - but that will only solve the problem temporarily and the truth is that many, many new members will not be buying points and will enjoy the system for a few days and not become part of the community - because they are unable to ‘pay’ a tutor to correct their writings. And so they go elsewhere.

It is rare that any online service/group/game would adopt both a subscription based product and premium content model at the same time, not least having an easy (but slower) way to earn the premium content on your own. This was obviously the intention behind LingQ, to allow members to earn points, but LingQ has grown and it is now near impossible for a new member to amass points on their own.

Many thanks for a great service.
No hate here, just some community spirited feedback.

  • Kyle
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@Kyleleitch - Thanks for your feedback, and it’s great to hear you’re enjoying the site!

Any sort of exchange is always a bit of a chicken and egg game. If we have too many tutors but not enough learners then tutors will begin disappearing, but if we have too many learners and not enough tutors then learners will begin disappearing. We’re always open to suggestions and feedback, and the current exchange was largely based on feedback that we received from our members.

What we have done recently is shifted LingQ’s commission on these points. Instead of the commission being taken whenever points changed hands, instead we now take the commission only when points are cashed out. This then means that there will be more points in the system and more users will be able to use their points to post requests.

Note that not all requests are public, which also contributes to the number of open requests that are available at any given time. What you can do is subscribe to receive exchange request notifications through the Settings page. This ensures that you’ll receive an email each time a request is posted in the language(s) you would like to tutor.

The exchange is now just a couple of months old, but it looks to be progressing well. We are continuing to promote it in various different ways and hope that more and more people discover the great functionality that the Exchange has to offer.

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