What do you think about rewarding agents with points?

Do you use Trulia Voices? I think it's a great product, in concept. Users can get help from real estate professionals and real estate professionals can promote their expert knowledge in their area and receive advice from others in their field.

We don't have anything like it in the UK, the closest thing we have is the real estate section of Yahoo Answers, but there's no real platform for the public to pose questions to the professionals.

I don't use Trulia Voices because I don't have any help to offer, I'm not an an expert in any given US location and I don't know 'enough' about the US real estate process to feel like I'd be much use to anyone. (Ahhhh poor me).

But there ARE plenty of people who don't let the fact they live in Nebraska stop them answering a question specifically about Florida. And there are also plenty of people who will post a carbon copy of a previous answer to the same question. Why? Because of the reward of lots of lovely points. And points means prizes people!

The same can be said here on AR, that people leave a comment on your blog saying 'great post' without even reading it or write their own posts about pointless drivel to bump up their points...and in turn bump up their place in the agent listings. This leads to a whole lot of noise and a diluted user experience.

But the question is, could something like AR or Trulia Voices exist without a point system? Would agents realistically be motivated to answer a question on Voices just to 'be helpful'? Or is there the hope that even though you don't have a shiny button saying 'top contriubtor' people will still identify you as a helpful agent?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because I get the feeling a lot of people don't like the point systems that exist in the world of real estate social media. But what alternative is there? How would ActiveRain have ever gotten off the ground without the points as incentives? Same goes for Voices. And if you don't really have an opinion on the matter then leave a comment anyway, you'll get 25 points after all! ;-)