networking points vs. karma vs. blabberpoints vs ???
I challenge thee all to debate:
I'm not really competitive, I'm not really down with the blogosphere, and I hate what computer games do to people's lives (such as my own dear loved ones), but I this silly Door64 contest got me trying to earn points...
And then I got to thinking, as some of y'all probably did, about the "fairness" of this contest, and how some people can obviously crank up their scores with a bunch of "me too" posts and such.
And then I got to thinking how these points compare to, say, Slashdot's karma or Cory Doctorow's whuffie or all the various rating systems out there.
So, I thought I'd start a friendly debate:
What's really the best way to "rate" the best uses of a community site?
And then I realized this is probably a debate that's raged already on many other sites -- but too late. We're debating it now!
[Remind me to reveal my secret agenda later.]
I'm an unabashed blabbermouth... But I do find the idea of a post rating system interesting.
Yeah, I pondered that. Then I tried what I'm doing now because I couldn't think of something more creative.
I tried to lay some rules of conduct, attempting to curb the "me too" posts. In reality, if someone wants to "me too" everything, it's hard to moderate. Next week will have an added feature to the contest - an additional way to earn points.
All that said, I'm all ears when it comes to spurring member contribution, and awarding members who contribute quality often.
Matt
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Have you heard about the attempt to make computers recognize the user's mood? The idea is that if you get frustrated with something, the computer should recognize it and offer help (a mutant Microsoft Bob). See http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/downloadable_mooddetecti...
Personally if my computer popped up a quiet graphic with a soothing voice offering help every time I got frustrated, that computer wouldn't live very long.
But the technology would have applications for rating of content. Wouldn't that be cool? If I liked the content the computer would recognize that and automatically give it a positive ranking. That gets pretty close to whuffie.
Interesting idea. It would be interesting to implement with textual assessment (versus facial). In theory, one might implement a spell + grammar checker that analyzes the user's text to quantify how much of it is real sentences. First pass, this would prevent someone from typing random letters or random words which have no meaning. Of course, analyzing the cohesiveness between sentences (do the sentences make sense) would be the next step (but how??). Perhaps mood could be derived from all that (active voice, passive voice, etc.)
On the lighter side, perhaps I should implement a successive capital letters checker. The more caps typed contiguously, the more shouting is going on, and in turn the site can send some Kenny G .mid files over the webwaves.
Matt
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So you never did reveal your secret agenda?!?
I'm not sure about some of the other ratings systems you mention, but there are boards out there that allow other forum readers to give you points for relevant posts or comments. Forum posters can earn 'reputation' points in combination with the number posts, which can be used to give them higher status on the forum.
In this case though, I really understand what you are going for Matt, which is to get some more traffic going on the site.
While it may start as a 'game', you are probably hoping it grows organically and posters continue on beyond this.
No need to overcomplicate things, I agree.
Is that you audrey, inside my head? You're figuring it all out - shh! ;)
Yep, I agree that the peer-based rating on posts is a good idea (e.g. digg) -- I just haven't done that yet. I have some more pressing things that I'd like to get done on here.
Matt
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User ratings are the way to fly.
Oh yeah, my secret agenda(s):
;)
~ Ms. G
Yet Another Austin Weirdo
No MEGAFAIL. I would like to change the rating system to something more original.
* Matt finding time to do so. [PRIMOFAIL]
Number of posts (or other activities) is only one axis of the graph. Some moron posting a bunch of crap just to get his score up doesn't really do the rest of us any good.
You also need a reputation scoring system, so that a contribution with a high value gets more points than an empty "me too". And only the other posters & readers in that thread can really tell you what the value is for a given post.
Sure, you can use "thanks" buttons, and if someone has a particularly good post you can "thank" them, but I don't know how well those work in practice.
You can also use a YouTube-like grade on a per-post basis, and you get points based on your current average (or maybe median) grade. But it might take a while to develop a workable system on this concept.
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Brad Knowles brad@shub-internet.org
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bradknowles