Hello. I've searched the site but can't find a link to what the "Bits" and "bank account" is on my user profile. Can someone link me or briefly explain?
ITs vbCredits 1 bit = 1 vbCredit- a feature for vbulletin forums.
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Bits are virtual currency for this site, similar to Linden dollars on Second Life and other virtual worlds (but far less developed at this time).
Your Bits increase by participating in the forums, for example by posting, creating a thread, voting on a poll, being a moderator or admin, etc. I will post the details on Bits crediting soon.
You can also get Bits from other forum members who give them to you, for example, if someone likes your reply they can give you Bits. You can give Bits to others for any reason.
You can can also spend your Bits on lottery tickets and try to win jackpots and gain more Bits.
In the future, can also spend your Bits on tangible goods and services on this site. For example, you should be able to pay Bits to the Central Bank to have infractions removed, or pay Bits for special other services. More on this later. This is an uncharted "new economy" so be creative. If you have questions, just ask, we will make up an answer if we don't have one 
For now, I encourge you to have fun with your Bits and give them to your friends for any reason you choose
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Can the banking function be explained?
Why move checking <-> savings?
I am not familiar with this concept of points here.
Thanks.
Savings accounts pay interest, current around 0.50% interest every 30 days, which is approximately 6% per year.
Checking accounts do not pay interest and are where you are paid (receive and send) Bits from system activity (posting, moderating, creating threads, voting on polls, etc.) and from Bits received/sent from/to other members.
Here is an idea: collective funding a pot for a charitable cause. For this to be set up it is best to list 10 charitable causes (regulated of course) and for which users can give their bits and have these sponsored through the real economy.
Hi figaro,
That is a good idea.
We are not yet ready for the "real economy" as the system need to mature. There is no basis to provide value between Bits and real currency at this time and would need considerable more work and participation to establish the Bit as a cyber currency.
We only released the Bit as a virtual currency a few days ago 
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0.30% per 30 days now, which is about 3.7% (compounded) per year. Of course there's a deposit fee of 0.15% (and a withdrawal fee of the same amount?) so moving things back and forth isn't a good idea.
Ah, interest rates for Admins and Mods is 0.50% interest every 30 days.
I guess we should raise the interest for Registered Users or lower the transaction fee between the two accounts?
Probably not a bad idea. I see that transaction fees have gone up since my post, though: 0.40% rather than 0.15%.
Yesterday the central bank reclaimed all Bits from members who have not been active since January 1, 2006. We zeroed their Bits registers and shifted the same amount to the central bank. Because if this, we can lower banking fees.
What do you think the fee should be for transferring between savings and checking?
Cheers.
-----Post Update-----
Today we added the forums MegaBits lottery to the Banking page.
0.2% or 0.15%, probably. If I knew *why* we had a bits system maybe I could make recommendations other than off-the-cuff, but I imagine you're just playing with it for now.
Can we have a calculation on the size that breaks even with a transfer from checking to saving and vice versa. For instance, if the average transfer is 100.000 bits, it should be charged with the same amount as starting one thread (or replying to a thread), which is 200 or 0.2% (or 100 at 0.1%). We need to see some break-even type of calculations which also show what we want the users to encourage to do: post messages, reply to messages, solve problems?
I also think some of the awards are quite high: for instance rating threads is 50 bits. Are we encouraging users to rate threads?
Yes we are. Rating threads helps search our Google site map algorithm to prioritize which threads are top priority to spider. In turn, this helps insure higher rated threads are visible when users search for information.
Google knows what to do with those? Is that a rel tag or something?
Yes, Google knows how to process Google site maps and our forum software knows how to build them
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset>
Oh, I didn't know the ratings went into Google sitemaps. Cool!
Yes, rating a thread/post effects the algorithm used to calculate the priority of the URL in the Google Sitemap.
Cheers.
The table at the following location can be posted into a sticky with automatic update as we continue to experiment with levels of bit-awards that we are comfortable with?
http://www.unix.com/post-here-contact-site-administrators-moderators/110210-bits-unix-linux-forums-experimental-virtual-currency-2.html\#post302318762