Take in example reddit trying to avoid becoming digg and hacker news trying to avoid becoming reddit, what is everyone trying to avoid? Competition for points and essentially leaderboards.
However for something like games leaderboards are essential as they can provide an incentive to keep playing.
> However for something like games leaderboards are essential as they can provide an incentive for achievement-oriented players to keep playing.
Leaderboards will do nothing for other types of players, and may actively repel some (explorers who are given too "transparent" a view into the system through an itemized leaderboard score.)
One of the major problems with leaderboards is that they can discourage those who don't have the time, resources, or sk1llz to compete with the top of the (local or global) food chain. Restricting leaderboards to "just your friends" only resolves the issue if everyone on your local list plays at a similar level of seriousness.
Also, it should be pretty easy to make it newb friendly: Just don't make any of the stats lifetime stats. Monthly or Weekly should be good.
"Leaderboards Considered Harmful" http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2008/12/leaderboards_...