Hey there, it's 
You might have noticed last week that the leaderboard has changed. This is intentional, and something that we've discussed internally for a while now. We want to make sure that all of our content creators, big and small, have a chance to get noticed. Not only that, but we want the path to greatness to be more transparent. If you want to top the charts, you should be able to know how to do it.
We still have the points values next to each name, but soon, you're going to see something a little different when you look at that point value. There's actually a reason for this! Your point values are decided by two very important factors:
Time Spent Streaming
The more you stream, the more base points you get. Just being active and online can go a long way.
Chat Activity
The more people you have tuned in, talking to you on 
Some of you guys have already reached out to us about your point values decreasing. Turns out, this is because we also reworked the algorithm that assigns points, as well. So while you might be getting more points now, so is everybody else. We're more or less correcting what we felt to be over-inflated points numbers. Should stabilize pretty soon. Also, if you're worried about your points values dropping too much, strike up a conversation with your audience! Get them chatting with you! Every little bit helps.
If you look at the leaderboard now, you'll see a couple of categories. Everyone who has streamed in the last 30 days will fall into one of these categories:
Each of those tiers represents a different ranking, determined by the points mentioned above. The more points you have, the higher your ranking. If you stream even once in the past 30 days, you're automatically added to the Bronze tier. It's really as simple as that! If you want to reach Silver tier, you have to rank in the top 50% of all streamers on the site. To reach that awesome, shiny Gold tier, you need to rank in the top 25% of all streamers on the site. And to reach that coveted Platinum tier, you need to be in the top 10% of all streamers on the site. And to top it all off, we highlight our Top 5 streamers. These are the people who put in the effort, built out their network, they are the best of the best and we want to let you all know it! Plus, it's a good goal to have.
Part of the reason behind this change is that we want to put
The other added benefit to this new leaderboard system will come as infrastructure upgrades happen. We could offer features to everyone Silver and above, or everyone Platinum and above. Something that will give you guys reason to rise up the leaderboard, but also treat it in a way that could be considered fair. This way, the rewards for the tiers feel like a worthwhile goal, and we can use it as a guideline for other features. Believe me, there are some really great things we can do with this to help build up smaller streamers while shining a spotlight on the brightest stars on the site. I think we've got something amazing here, and we can really make this into something great!
One final reminder: Drop into someone's stream today. Maybe make it a point to do it a couple times this week. Say hi in their chat. Interact with them a bit. I cannot tell you how much more fun it gets for the streamer when someone drops into their chat and starts talking to them. You can make someone's day, right there. Even if you're the only person in chat, you still go a long way to help them out. Especially now that we've made the points system more transparent!
@vimm on Fundition!