Off topic: how do you spot the people who really grow a small community?

[MurrayMof86]

Slightly off topic, but this seems like the right corner for it.

I help run a chat server for people who revive old laptops with minimal Linux setups, around 450 members. Most of our regulars arrived through a few people who keep inviting friends and then walk them through their first remaster and extension list.

We wanted to thank those people with a role, and the numbers we had were useless. Accounts that joined for five minutes counted the same as people who stayed for months.

We ended up adding a lightweight invite tracker that ignores fresh accounts and removes leavers, and the list finally matched who we knew was doing the work.

Does anyone here run a group and keep track of this, or do you prefer to keep it informal?