Use of the Reputation System - An Appeal

[roddy]

Mornin'

This is one of those rare occasions when I just outright beg people to do something

We've got a reputation system - if you look at the bottom right of a post when you're logged in you've got green and red buttons to indicate your like or dislike of a post. To keep things generally positive, you can give loads of green points per day, but only two red points.

I've recently added a 'Popular Posts' block to the front page to highlight posts that lots of people like. I'm very keen to have a 'Popular Posts' page, bringing up posts that have been highly rated over the last day, week, month, year, and a list of posters by the number of points they've received maybe.

However:

The reputation system is getting used a lot to indicate that people like funny one-liners. Xianhua's post here is currently sitting at 10 points, which would make it one of our highest-rated posts ever. There's nothing wrong with the post at all, I laughed and obviously so did lots of others.

But:

Compare it to a few other recent posts, all of which have actually been in place much longer:

Imron's post on 平凡的世界 - 6 points (as of time of writing)

Launch of the Challenge!Your!Chinese! blog - 8 points

Two excellent First Episode write-ups here and here - 3 points (!) each.

Msittig's visa write-up - 3 points again.

There are many other examples, both of high-rated jokey posts, and valuable stuff that's been rated much less highly. Only one post has ever been rated higher than 10, and that's . . .a more substantial joke. Are those posts really as valuable as Brian US's Beginners Guide to Renmin University?

I really have no problem with regular members cracking a joke - but it's not the best of our content, and it seems reasonable that it's not what we want to highlight. If you want to give it a green point, fair enough. But can I please ask everyone (and particularly those who are voting up the funnies) to also reward substantial, valuable posts on the actual business of learning and using Chinese, living in China, and so on.

It's clear that people are aware of, and use, the reputation system. That guy who thought we had a direct line to government Internet censors had his post plummet to -26 in no time at all, which actually really surprised me. But it's getting used in a somewhat skewed way, and it makes it a lot less useful when we try to use it to bring out what I think (and I hope most will agree) is the actual excellent content that keeps people coming back.

If you like this post, please don't give it a green point

Roddy

PS I'm putting this in the main section of the board, rather than the Help and Usage section, as I'd really like people to see it.

[creamyhorror]

If you like this post, please don't give it a green point

So you'd be fine with us giving it red points?

[roddy]

I'd be finer with people reading it, stroking their chins and thinking 'Hmmm, that makes sense, I shall try and take that on-board'

[Brian US]

But if you get enough green points the topic will show up under popular posts on the home page and more people will see it! On another note, would it be beneficial to have a quick breakdown of most viewed posts? I know you can search for it by view count, but maybe quick tabs for most viewed topic of the day/week/year.

I'd also like to add that daofeishi's post was extremely funny and pretty much every one liner anonymoose posts.

[roddy]

I'd also like to add that daofeishi's post was extremely funny and pretty much every one liner anonymoose posts.

Yes. But do you see my point? Last time I looked Daofeishi's attempt to actually get people reading a book had only (admittedly in only 24+ hours though) 3 points.

[Brian US]

Yes, there is some excellent content with the learning Chinese sections that is overlooked. I really should spend more time there.

[Daan]

I'll plead guilty to giving green points to funny posts more often than to serious posts, perhaps because it's an instinctive thing to do when you're laughing and want to share that with the other forum members. Whereas with serious posts, I'd be more inclined to finish reading the entire thread and then actually post a reply. But I do see how this means that our best content doesn't show up in the "Popular Posts" block, and that's not what we'd want either, so maybe I should try to hand out green points to serious posts more often.

[Guest realmayo]

Consider my chin stroked agreeingly. Did you consider allowing yourself to give extra votes to a post? -- can't see any harm in admins gently nudging things in the direction they see fit. Though can see how it'd be nicer if there was no need.

Did enjoy red-carding that poor -26 dude, felt like some sort of cultural-revolution style mob-criticism there.

[Scoobyqueen]

Why not consider a combination between rating and number of hits to determine if a post is useful to others if you dont already do this.

Some people tend to reward people with green arrows if they respond to a post of theirs.

[Meng Lelan]

Just do away with the reputation system and your problems will be solved.

[Lu]

I think it's a combination of a few things, including that it's a button that basically says 'I like this', and of course a funny one-liner has more universal appeal (and is quicker to read) than an informed post on Renmin Uni, and that we're such a civilized bunch that we want to show we think something's funny, but click the green button rather than replying 'LOL'.

I don't know if this can be solved by an appeal to us voters. Perhaps apart from the reputation system, there can be a more undemocratic system where users or admins can propose posts to be 'featured posts' or something, to be determined by the admins?

Edit: Also, on second thought, I shall try and be more generous with my upvotes. The Huozhe project isn't interesting for me as I've read the book years ago, but that doesn't mean it's not a good plan.

[imron]

Perhaps a more fine grained system beyond just 'good' and 'bad' is needed. Pehaps a lol button and/or an agree button.

[adrianlondon]

On other forums I use, most people get green ticks, "thanks" or "positive rep" when they crack one liners. And most people get red crosses, "groans", or "negative rep" when they've been an arse.

You can't use them on those sites to work out USEFUL posts as against popular ones and popular posters. For that you need human interaction and a sticky system.

So I doubt it's going to work much here, although this being less of a social interaction forum than others, there will be less funnies and more useful posts, but still most people will tick a funny post and, as even yourself demanded, just rub their chin and think "good post" when a useful one comes along.

[roddy]

Thanks for all the responses folks, and the red mark for my original post

I agree it's a very natural thing to give points to something that makes you laugh - I've done it myself, will no doubt do it again, and if I crack a joke and people like it, I think 'yay, people like my joke'. I'm not going to try and fight that, just point out that it's making it more difficult to discover content which is more . . . significant.

I'm not expecting everyone to suddenly change the way they use the system, but if we can see a bit of a shift, that'd be great. If one or two of our top ten posts are still jokes, fair enough - but a while back I checked the top five, and I think three were what I would call jokes. It's like the New Yorker deciding its best article of 2011 was a cartoon.

It might work, as adrian says it might not. If it fails I'll maybe keep an eye on who's giving the reputation and drop them a line asking them to have a read of this, and there is also the option of admin staff being able to make editorial decisions on what ranks where. I'm reluctant to do that though - I'd rather it was more organic, and my intention with this post is to have more overall use of the system, not less.

Pehaps a lol button and/or an agree button.

This from the man who not so long ago poo-pooed a 'like' button as too-Facebooky. Should we have a ROFL button too?

More seriously, I'm not going to make the system any more complex. If what we've got doesn't work, it doesn't work.

[putonghua73]

Agree with Meng Lelan in that whilst I can see the benefits of a reputation system in terms of drawing people to threads that they might not have noticed - and an indicator of good and bad posts - these things quickly become beauty / popularity contests.

I already have my own mental lists of posters whose posts I generally deem of high quality due to a mixture of their writing and thought processes.

if you're going to keep the system then keep it as it is. I wouldn't really want further complexity and/or social media type functionality that distract from the actual content i.e. what people actually write.

Certain forums and/or topics will always get more traffic than others. Nature of the beast.

[Meng Lelan]

Perhaps a more fine grained system beyond just 'good' and 'bad' is needed. Pehaps a lol button and/or an agree button.

Yes, can we do that?

[stoney]

The reputation system works well for rating replies to a post. If there is a post with 200 replies (which almost never happens here) then the system helps weed out the offensive and trivial replies.

For individual posts, I have always judged their worthiness by a combination of ; the title, the number of views, and the number of replies.

If you want people to read your favorite posts, maybe you could have a " Roddy's Picks" section.

[querido]

"Helpful"/"Unhelpful" is how I'd rather the buttons be labeled and used.

[imron]

Speaking of the reputation system, is it possible to get the reputation buttons and tallies on the mobile version of the site?

[roddy]

I'm very keen to have a 'Popular Posts' page, bringing up posts that have been highly rated over the last day, week, month, year, and a list of posters by the number of points they've received maybe.

A very early iteration of what this might look like./

/goes downstairs happily to make a cup of coffee, rushes back to up to fix permissions . . .