Wedge
Public area => The Pub => Off-topic => Topic started by: xrunner on June 5th, 2013, 01:36 AM
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Has anyone ever looked into, what I'll call for the time being, a "power" ranking for each member. I hate for people to use the post count to determine who's a valuable/high contributing member.
Let's say John has 50 posts, but he doesn't really contribute much for each post, and he hasn't started any topics. Suppose he mainly makes replies such as "Good points in that post" and the like. If I added all the individual characters he's posted it comes to 2500.
Then we have Mary who has 20 posts, but they are really good and consist of several paragraphs each, and she's started 5 topics that generated, respectively, 10, 15, 20, 10, and 5 responses from other members. Lets say her character count was 10,000.
Mary provides much more content than John, generatates more traffic (topic replies) but has fewer posts. How to show this?
So a power ranking might be characters posted * total topics started (if greater than zero) * total replies to topics started (if greater than zero).
So if you take John, you have 2500 characters and no topics started and (therefore) no replies to your topics, the total is: 50 * N/A * N/A = 50.
Take Mary - If you have 10,000 char. and 5 topics started and 10+15+20+10+5 replies to each topic, the total is: 10,000 * 5 topic starts * 60 replies from other members = 3,000,000.
Now to avoid large numbers you scale them by, say, 1000.
So the power rankings would be -
John: 0.05
Mary: 3000
That's just a brainstorm I had, the values chosen for the calculations could probably be improved. Is that an idea (or something like it) worth consideration as a built-in feature?
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It's basically called reputation for which mods already exist in SMF to do pretty much all this.
I'm reluctant to put them in the core however because it's a fairly niche thing and prone to abuse.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism_(poetry)
They wouldn't agree.
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While Hermeticism is cool and all, the average community wouldn't really function best out of it.
Even the most well intentioned reputation mechanic gets abused by egomaniacs. For anyone who thinks I have an ego problem, hang around StackOverflow for a while and look at the attitude of the highest-reputation people.
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True. What I was saying is that ponderating post counts with char count could be wrong. It's quantity vs quality. Everyone has his style. Maybe one user makes a more qualified reply with less chars.
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It's essentially generating an assumed reputation out of computable metrics - and slightly naive ones.
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Maybe mixing quality (likes) with quantity (posts count, chars count, topics started count) could work.
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It's an interesting idea but you'd need to tune it on a per site basis IMO
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True. What I was saying is that ponderating post counts with char count could be wrong. It's quantity vs quality. Everyone has his style. Maybe one user makes a more qualified reply with less chars.
But it's also wrong to look at a post count and determine how "valuable" a member is from that number, yet many people think it's meaningful. Any idiot can post 100 times, but the post count is the weakest indicator of meaningful activity there is.
For example, there is some measure of value if a post generates 15 responses, even if the post itself is bad, because it generates valuable corrections and discussion, so to that extent the person who posted the bad post should get more credit for generating forum activity - because the very activity is valuable.
Surely we can come up with something better than the simple integer called "post count".
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We could come up with a standard algorithm, customizable under advanced settings (or something like that).
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That's the point, though, you're assigning a metric that doesn't necessarily hold up either.
Let's take something akin to a real world example: sm.org. Nao started the Aeva thread, it has something like 6000 replies to it which if I remember rightly is actually more than his entire post count there.
Then you have me, I didn't make that many threads (and it's screwed up because some of them aren't properly attributed to me, and I won't even get into the debacle of mod threads that are no longer attributed to me)... but I have 9x the post count, and of the topics I made, I suspect I probably merited a similar amount of replies *in total* to them. Hard to say but let's take it as a reasonable hypothesis. I don't know how many topics I started but including the private ones in the mod reviews board, let's say 100 threads in total. Vs the... 10? threads Nao made.
By that reckoning, my contributions to sm.org are 51k * 6k * 100 vs Nao's 6k * 6k * 10 = 30.6bn vs 360m - several orders of magnitude even with a linear scaling factor - and that's without distorting it based on size (since I wrote some pretty large posts too)
And that's being conservative in some areas. I like the idea in principle but the practice just doesn't quite work out. There are just too many variables to bring into a common field of statistical reference and too many ways to screw up such an algorithm.
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By that reckoning, my contributions to sm.org are 51k * 6k * 100 vs Nao's 6k * 6k * 10 = 30.6bn vs 360m - several orders of magnitude even with a linear scaling factor - and that's without distorting it based on size (since I wrote some pretty large posts too)
And that's being conservative in some areas. I like the idea in principle but the practice just doesn't quite work out. There are just too many variables to bring into a common field of statistical reference and too many ways to screw up such an algorithm.
That's what I'm trying to make better, somehow. :)
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Oh, I know where you're going and it's fundamentally a good place. Unfortunately until a machine can objectively rank something in terms of quality it's just not going to fly.
There is a certain forum I can think of where pretty much everyone doesn't really know the subject in question. Imagine that: a forum for beginners... by beginners. It doesn't work well.
Post count is a crappy metric. Topic count is a similarly crappy metric. Likes is better, so is reputation but both will to a point scale with post count - the more posts one makes, the greater likelihood someone will like them or upvote them or whatever.
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There is a certain forum I can think of where pretty much everyone doesn't really know the subject in question. Imagine that: a forum for beginners... by beginners. It doesn't work well.
Post count is a crappy metric. Topic count is a similarly crappy metric. Likes is better, so is reputation but both will to a point scale with post count - the more posts one makes, the greater likelihood someone will like them or upvote them or whatever.
But - I do know the post count can be hidden. Perhaps if we all had it to do over again, if forums were just being invented, we'd keep post count away from prying eyes like PMs. People would be judged as they are, day by day, by the quality of their contributions.
I know, I'm a hopeless dreamer. :-/
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Oh boy - that's got to be kindof entertaining to visit.
And then there's karma, which I hate. There, you get into karma wars and it turns into a pile of muck - with little meaning. That's why, because my members want it, I refused to allow it unless they fessed up to the karma action, so I use the karma log mod. At least I can see who's making B.S. karma and if the reason isn't to my satisfaction it will be removed.
But - I do know the post count can be hidden. Perhaps if we all had it to do over again, if forums were just being invented, we'd keep post count away from prying eyes like PMs. People would be judged as they are, day by day, by the quality of their contributions.
I know, I'm a hopeless dreamer. :-/
It's the middle ground, the 0-5k post ground to watch out for, by the time they're past that, they're almost certainly in it for the long haul.
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Well, I'm having a hard time coming up with anything else to add to Wedge. Either you have already added something I wanted, you've convinced me it is better left to a mod, or you've come up with an idea that I didn't think of but is very cool.
I guess that means it's probably going to be quite pleasing for me to run my forum with. :youretheboss:
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We try :)
I'm of the view that a lot of the things that are being added or have been added have rough edges that we can't see yet, e.g. the admin panel and some of the admin controls. And there's plenty of things I want to do, it's just a matter of writing them, since in most cases it's not really a code problem or design problem but a motivation problem.
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...since in most cases it's not really a code problem or design problem but a motivation problem.
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:whip: ?
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Hey, don't hit below the belt!
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A couple of weeks ago, I was looking into XF's trophy system, and tried to think of something for Wedge too, that would look a bit like it, but also be an indicator of someone's implication on a forum... So, I started devising (additive) points attributed by post (1), thought (0.5), per direct post/thought reply (since we have this in the database) (0.5), likes (depending on what it being liked, I couldn't make up my mind), topic (I think I settled on 0.2 per reply to it), but then I decided awarding points to replies might encourage trolling. Anyway, I couldn't settle on other things like points awarded for gallery albums and items, topic and profile views (minus bot visits), and more place-specific areas like uploading a plugin or theme here, or being marked as the one who successfully replied to a topic, so I just skipped to something else that needed my attention, so it's funny to see a discussion about something similar, but I don't really think it can be done, without at least giving the admin the ability to change the attributable points per item, and that's where it becomes complicated I guess. Ultimately, I wanted to see if we couldn't replace post-based groups with points-based groups, that is, awarding shy people for still being part of the community. But then, what prevents you from just Liking every single post in the forum..? A ban threat, maybe....? :lol:
Anyway, that's where I was at that point, and I couldn't decide, so I think I added it somewhere in my to-do list, and you know the story about my to-do list... It grows about 5 times faster than it shrinks, so it's never ending.
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... so it's funny to see a discussion about something similar, but I don't really think it can be done, without at least giving the admin the ability to change the attributable points per item, and that's where it becomes complicated I guess. Ultimately, I wanted to see if we couldn't replace post-based groups with points-based groups, that is, awarding shy people for still being part of the community. But then, what prevents you from just Liking every single post in the forum..? A ban threat, maybe....? :lol:
I guess it's that damn post count number. This person has 1,234 posts, that person has 456 posts, another has 2310 posts. After a certain amount, say ten or 100, do we need such an exact number to display? The exact number is almost meaningless as far as most members are concerned. Isn't it all relative at some point ... Oh maybe I got an idea ... I'll get back this evening. :)
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Personally I find all the Like/Reputation/Karma etc. systems I know more harmful than beneficial in long term. For example the 'Like' system used here. It works here because the forum is still small and the average active member level (as knowledge, attitude ect.) is way above the usual forum averages. But on most other forums such system after some time will induce an elitism - a group of popular members which get Likes even if they post "+1". Meanwhile most new members will not get a Like even if they post a scheme for working portable cold fusion reactor :). That is, most new members will feel unappreciated and will not post often or leave the forum. IMHO!
Now, maybe if there was a system which rewards those members whose topics/post induces traffic from search engines and/or from backlinks... maybe I would be interested in such function, or at least I would give it a try.
P. S. Excuse my (self learned :-/) English
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A couple of weeks ago, I was looking into XF's trophy system, and tried to think of something for Wedge too, that would look a bit like it, but also be an indicator of someone's implication on a forum...
So, I started devising (additive) points attributed by post (1), thought (0.5), per direct post/thought reply (since we have this in the database) (0.5), likes (depending on what it being liked, I couldn't make up my mind), topic (I think I settled on 0.2 per reply to it), but then I decided awarding points to replies might encourage trolling.
Anyway, I couldn't settle on other things like points awarded for gallery albums and items, topic and profile views (minus bot visits), and more place-specific areas like uploading a plugin or theme here, or being marked as the one who successfully replied to a topic
, so I just skipped to something else that needed my attention, so it's funny to see a discussion about something similar, but I don't really think it can be done, without at least giving the admin the ability to change the attributable points per item, and that's where it becomes complicated I guess. Ultimately, I wanted to see if we couldn't replace post-based groups with points-based groups, that is, awarding shy people for still being part of the community. But then, what prevents you from just Liking every single post in the forum..? A ban threat, maybe....? :lol:
I have this feeling that any such function beyond a fancy title is actually problematic.
The only difference is with reputation; you can give reputation but the amount of reputation you give is analogous to the amount of reputation you yourself have.
Does 'removing power to like' need to be a warning punishment?Anyway, that's where I was at that point, and I couldn't decide, so I think I added it somewhere in my to-do list, and you know the story about my to-do list... It grows about 5 times faster than it shrinks, so it's never ending.
I hear ya Nao. But same thing with posts. What prevents you from posting replies to every single post in the forum to get your post count up? A ban threat maybe? :)
I guess it's that damn post count number. This person has 1,234 posts, that person has 456 posts, another has 2310 posts. After a certain amount, say ten or 100, do we need such an exact number to display? The exact number is almost meaningless as far as most members are concerned. Isn't it all relative at some point ... Oh maybe I got an idea ... I'll get back this evening. :)
Personally I find all the Like/Reputation/Karma etc. systems I know more harmful than beneficial in long term. For example the 'Like' system used here. It works here because the forum is still small and the average active member level (as knowledge, attitude ect.) is way above the usual forum averages. But on most other forums such system after some time will induce an elitism - a group of popular members which get Likes even if they post "+1".
Meanwhile most new members will not get a Like even if they post a scheme for working portable cold fusion reactor :). That is, most new members will feel unappreciated and will not post often or leave the forum. IMHO!
Now, maybe if there was a system which rewards those members whose topics/post induces traffic from search engines and/or from backlinks... maybe I would be interested in such function, or at least I would give it a try.
P. S. Excuse my (self learned :-/) English
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But for every user for whom the precision is irrelevant, there is another where they want it. Especially if they're close to a milestone.
Option A
Don't show the exact post count number (except when someone views another member profile). Show a bar that goes from Zero to the post count of the highest posting member. On that bar, show a dot. The dot is where you fall on the range of post counts. The graph should not be so precise you can read it down to +/- 1 post - it's just a rough indication of your standing in the post counts. You can even make it a logarithmic graph.
Add-on: If you hover over the bar graph you can get the exact post count number if you really want it.
Add-on: Show tick marks where every post count group star is awarded on the graph. People are always asking about those set points anyway.
Option B
Show members a bar graph when they look at other profiles on the forum threads that is relative to their own post count total. Each member will see a different bar for other members based on a relative comparison of post counts. In this mode, members don't see any bar on their own profile but, OK dammit, they will see their own post count.
Now, if John has 250 posts and Mary has 1000, then John sees a bar length of +750 on Mary's profile or you could show something like "4x" because she has 4 times as many posts. If a third member Jack has 100 posts, John sees -740 bar on Jacks profile or 0.13x.
Mary sees, when looking at John's profile, -750 bar or 0.75x, and for Jack she sees -990 or 0.1x.
So, in this mode, you see a relative standing in relation to the other member's post counts - not absolute numbers (but they are still in the member's profile to view). Also, as suggested above, you can hover over the bar for the exact post count total.
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Some very interesting ideas there, but they all seem to me to encourage post whoring, I.e. always trying to beat the top spot. Yes, it will likely encourage participation, but I'm not convinced it will encourage *good* participation if that makes sense?
I do like the imagination being shown here, this all sounds like a potential to shake up the status quo and possibly even be worth experimenting here as plugins for some of it to try and get an idea of how well it works in a real environment, especially since I'm the current top poster :niark: But joining a forum like this one where the lead posters are not merely thousands ahead but tens of thousands ahead (remember, top post count on sm.org is 51k, followed by 36k-odd for a couple then it dwindles into the 20k range and tails off) and you sort of think it could be a bad idea in the long run if not handled carefully. Log scaling would actually likely make it worse for the newcomers since the mountain looks potentially even higher if you're not careful.
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I do like the imagination being shown here, this all sounds like a potential to shake up the status quo ..
I got another idea coming in a few minutes, in a new post. :)
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I'm trying not to be negative, I'm just wielding my weapon of choice, the Cold Hard Iron Bar of Reality ;) I think there is a lot of potential here but at the same time I can see it easily causing drama and putting off newcomers.
I find myself more and more curious about XenForo's approach, post count and stuff is hidden away until brought up with a popup, you only see avatar, title and name on the main view, heck even showing staff banners only came in as part of the upcoming 1.2 and then it's still modest rather than overbearing. The posh fancy-schmancy phrase which comes to mind is"delightfully minimalist" and it seems to work quite well.
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How useful is post / topic count?
I guess it comes down to what you want with your forum. High post en topic count in general, or meaningful discussions and help.
E.g. on our forum about UPC we are running a word game, just for fun, and there are members with thousands of post, but all of them in that word game topic. Nice for the overall statistics of the forum but the high post count of such a member hardly says anything about the value of the member in relation with the goal of the forum only how active he is.
Writing that.
I know that in SMF post in the trashcan aren't counted, but is there a setting to prevent post count for boards / topics of your choice?
If not, that would be a nice feature to implement.
Stupid idea.
What if post count would be shown per member per board?
E.g. If I am reading in "FAQ" and the post count of a member shows how many post the member made in "FAQ", if I am reading in "Bug Reports" the post count of that same member shows how many post he made in "Bug Reports".
It would make very clear how active that member is in a particular board. It says something about his interest in the subject of the board.
In his profile it would still show his total number of posts.
Probably a nightmare to program but he I said it was a stupid idea. :eheh:
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Yes, there is a setting for post counts per board. Changing it is also not instantly retroactive, but there is also (in Wedge, and maybe in SMF 2.1) the option to recount everyone's post count.
The problem with doing post count per board is that it is not centrally maintained. Post counts per member are stored in the member's account itself and updated when posts are updated, so when you make a post, your post count is increased. Having to recalculate post count on demand is not especially cheap, though it is an interesting idea. (It's not particularly hard to program either)