Recognize Users contributions / review content +6
Problem Statement:
1. How do we showcase the best content in WiserEarth that could provide value for community members?
2. How can we compliment and recognize good contributions by community members and encourage further contributions?
Suggestion:
1. The content review system will do this. It should encourage wiserearthlings to also post high-quality content, or at least to make thoughtful content additions, beneficial edits, make effort to produce helpful/informative comments, and encourage collaboration in and between groups.. Overall, to encourage contributions that will enrich content, interaction, relationship and collaboration.
2.The user compliment/recognition/reputation system will do this. It will signal engagement and reputation of passionate and committed community members. It will also encourage new wiserearthlings to provide valuable contributions to the community.
Original Post:
One thing I believe WE is under leveraging is the ‘star’ system where people are recognized / rewarded for participation. In WiserEarth’s world that would be something like +2 points for creating content and +1 point for editing content. It’s a bit narcissistic and not something I really go in for but it’s clear that it works on other sites.
Some ways to recognize user contributions:
- Colored stars for status – novice, intermediate, expert, jedi!
- Auto intro to editor status after number of edits
- Auto invite to key WE gatherings
- Most active contributor roll – and their content/profile on the WiserEarth homepage
- Suggestions / Requests to administrator are lent more weight
Some ways it benefits WE:
- Signals engagement and reputation on platform – more likely to trust an Expert or Jedi
- Encourages greater participation from the user
- Focuses WE programming
Emerging Ideas for recognizing user contributions and rating content for WE:
Summary: We promise to recommend to you relevant and high quality content, we will use the tool of content rating and user recognition, the bargain is you have to contribute for it to work.
- Reviewing content, Recognizing Users, and Providing Value to users through recommendations all inter-relate - we probably can't do one without the others.
- Reviewing content is distinct from recognizing people related entities. We should review: Resources, Organizations, Wikipages, Discussions, Events and Jobs.
- We should not review people (not sure about groups). They will be rewarded instead. - An emerging standard seems to exist (Amazon.com / Netflix) for content oriented sites: five stars, comments, rating of comments (helpful vs not-helpful), simple initial info with more detail a click through - we might want to adopt something close as users are familiar with UI.
- Badges are a great way to recognize users (Amazon 'Top reviewer', Yelp 'Elite', Ebay Star Levels) most are gained automatically through various metrics measuring contribution, some are applied for. Ebay uses an aggregate number for contributions but translating the number into a level is probably more powerful since it will be more easliy comprehended - e.g. is 3,000 good, 10,000? We may want to have a way of removing badges for bad actions that violation spirit of WiserEarth Principles and the Community Guidelines, or through long periods of inaction / dormancy on the platform.
- Allowing users to comment but not have to review as a default probably makes sense. To encourage reviewing we need a 'Review / Comment' Action in the right hand column - suggest that review require a comment which appends at the bottom of the page like any other comment. Presumably you can review content only once per person but be allowed to change that review / number of stars as the content evolves (better or worse).
- Reviewing comments themselves as 'helpful' vs. 'not-helpful' (and flag) seems to be standard but on WE we may want to take a more positive approach (such as Yelp) and have a 'Compliment Button' with optional comment field for rewarding good contributions. The same button could feature on a user profile. Compliments could generate in-mail to notify user. A variety of compliment buttons might be considered specific to our community.
- Limiting compliment quotas based on simple specific # allowed per person, per period would assure that power users don't have too much say and the compliment currency isn't debased. Alternative you could grant a certain # of compliments to bestow based on X number of contributions a user makes (a la ned) but this would concentrate reward giving with the power user community which seems a bit anti-commuity. Suggest we set a high quota of compliments allowed to be bestowed per month per person to limit power user bias a little (20 might make a nice number?)
- Icons showing contributions by type on the user profile might be useful - #s of comments, # of ratings, # of new content, # of connections made, # of peer reviews etc. With click throughs to lists.
- The power of ranking / rewards system will only be recognized if it pervades the WE UI and provides a tangible benefit to users. Profile sections, Top Lists (top rated, most recent, most discussed, and most viewed etc), and recommending content based on user browser hostory (e.g People Who Viewed This Also Viewed) etc are needed to make the whole thing work.
Ideas for Implementation (Phases)
Phase #1
User Recognition: Use 'all activity' option from user profile to provide total contribution number - laying the ground work for Top user badges. We may want to weight some contributions higher in value than others. For example successfully recruiting a new user seems a more valuable than making a comment. For transparency and simplicity sake though we probably should go with the raw 'all activity' number.
Content Rating: Provide 5 star rating for content (Resources, Wikipages, Discussions, Events and Jobs), one rating per person per content (no rating of people, or groups?), rating can be changed anytime. High limit of total ratings allowed per person per time period (60 per months?).
WE UI Improvements:
Allow Rating as an icon in Action box to right of page
Better display total contribution number on profile - along with other stats breaking that number down
Showing ratings on content: Average rating and Number of Ratings
Show highest rated content on homepage
Allow browse and advance search by rating level
Phase #2
User Recognition: Calculate badge awardees based on total contribution number (rolling tally over one year period calculated monthly, sticky for three month period if you drop out). Grant an absolute number of badges - Top 1, Top 10, and Top 50 for now. Grant Top 100, 250 and 500 badges when the user base expands to 25-50K,
Content Rating: None?
WE UI Improvements:
Phase #3
User Recognition: Yelp like 'Compliments' can be granted by any user to any other user by pressing a button on user tagged content such as a comments. Alternatively you can grant a compliment straight from the user profile. Compliments are categorized "e.g. Great idea, Great collaborator, Good networker etc" come with an open field for comments. Down the road these compliments become a way for the community to surface particular skill sets useful for the movement.
Content Rating: None?
WE UI Improvements:
Total number of compliments shows up in user profile
Total number of compliments show up next to user name wherever that shows.
Most complimented roll call per period on WE Homepage
Compliments generate an in-mail to person complimented with link back to content
Sample rewards / recognitions approaches
Below is data gathered from different websites on various examples of rewards / recognition approaches:
1. YELP
2. eBay
3. ned
4. Amazon.com
5. Netflix
6. .......
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Site Name: YELP
Site Address: www.yelp.com
Sample Profile: Walker S
Type of reward / recognition:
Profile lists the total number of reviews (contributions) they have made, the number of "fans" they have, photos they've uploaded, total events submitted, etc...also lists "Compliment buttons", Useful/ Funny/ Cool ratings for all reviews. Red 'elite' badge.
Purpose of reward / recognition:
To reward users who take the time to contribute to the site and write quality reviews, to send compliments, quickly give feedback (anonymously), help users identify those who are particularly useful/funny/cool, to flirt
How it works:
The profile displays the type of contributions a user made on yelp with mini-icons. Also, users can click on one of these buttons on the bottom of each Yelp review to provide feedback: Useful | Funny | Cool. On the top of every member's profile page, the number of useful/funny/cool votes they have received is also listed, along with the number of reviews and contacts they have. You could also go to a profile page and send a "compliment button" (Thank You, Hot Stuff, Write More, Great Lists, Cute Pic, Just a Note, You're Cool, You're Funny, Good Writer, Like Your Profile, Great Photo) that will appear on their page. The most active users can apply to become Elite (see '07 Elite' badge in top right hand corner of profile). This is granted for acombination of: lots of reviews, profiles that really sing, real picture for profile, real name, personal pizazz.
Implications for WE:
Reward and recognize comments, users, and organizations or events in a very simple and effective way. WiserEarth could think about other "compliment buttons" that are more relevant to the site. I don't think WiserEarth would need too many... We should make this process transparent. I think Yelp system is close to right for WiserEarth. It'd be useful to see right away how many new orgs/resources/events/jobs someone has added to WiserEarth.
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Site Name: EBAY
Site Address: www.ebay.com
Sample Profile: Standard User / Power User
Type of reward / recognition:
Feedback stars are awarded to eBay members for achieving 10 or more Feedback points. Feedback stars are displayed next to the member’s User ID and the total lifetime number of feedback points collected and a ten-level star icon (details in the "How it works" section. The example below is the third-from-top-level star icon).
A more complex Feedback profile can be reach by clicking on the user’s feedback number. For the regular user this shows: a tally of positive, neutral, and negative feedback against 1 month, six months and 12 month time periods, and actual comments tabbed by source type (seller or buyer).
For the power user the Feedback profile shows: Lifetime # of Positive and Negative feedback comments, Feedback aggregate score, % of positive feedback, and then details 1-5 star average rating results for four criteria: Item as described, Communication, Shipping time, Shipping and handling charges. It also shows specific feedback comments from most recent backwards.
Purpose of reward / recognition:
To provide a quality signal - comments and ratings are aggregated into a valuable indicator of personal reputation as a buyer or seller on eBay
How it works:
Feedback stars are awarded to eBay members for achieving 10 or more Feedback points. Feedback stars are displayed next to the member’s User ID. Here's the details on how the feedback works. In brief:
Members receive:
+1 point for each positive comment and rating
0 points for each neutral comment and rating.
-1 point for each negative comment and rating.
Here's what the different stars mean:
Implications for WE:
Simple and intuitive system that quickly tells a user how experienced a user is base on a lifetime number. Perhaps lifetime contribution of the user is the most valuable indicator than most active during a recent period of time. However, I also like the simple Feedback profile of a standard user which shows feedback comment tallies against different time periods, and aggregated comments by source type.
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Site Name: ned
"Ned.com is a global, all-volunteer, member-governed, online social network (in combination with real-world locations) that is made up of social entrepreneurs, activists, artists, social purpose enterprises, grassroots nonprofit, non-governmental, and community-based organizations, and is collaborating and taking action locally, nationally & globally, in order to make the world a better place."
Site Address: www.ned.com/home/
Sample Profile: Mark Grimes (also a WiserEarth community member @ markgrimes)
Type of reward / recognition:
Profile list the number and types of positive(+) / negative(-) feedbacks received and given. The feedback system not only applies to users, but also to other entities (workspace/wikipages, discussions, comments, groups).
Purpose of reward / recognition:
In general:
- By giving positive feedback, members can "bubble up" items of interest to the rest of the community.
- Conversely, by giving negative feedback, members can reduce the prominence of things on ned.com.
- If the feedback score of a topic, comment or workspace turns significantly negative (is much less than zero), the item runs the risk of becoming suppressed (still available but requiring an extra click to access) to anyone on ned.com.
- If the feedback score of a member is pushed significantly lower than zero, that member will lose privileges on ned.com
How it works:
You can change the feedback score of anything on ned.com by assigning it points from your feedback bank. Anywhere you see a "+|-" link, you can give feedback by clicking on the appropriate link (either "+" for positive or "-" for negative) to give feedback. The total feedback score is displayed beside the username in all pages, comments. etc. See here for the details of how the feedback system work.
The feedback bank is interesting and seems to encourage active involvement in discussions, editing, etc. Here's a short explanation of it:
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When you join ned.com, you start with a feedback bank of 10 points. Your feedback bank can be given away, one point at a time, as either positive feedback or negative feedback to any member, workspace, comment or discussion.
As you use ned.com, your feedback bank will increase, based on how you use ned.com, and what you do. You basically get more "credit" in your feedback bank the more you contribute. If you simply "lurk," which means you don't ever post a comment or start a discussion, etc., your feedback bank will grow far more slowly. If you are an active discussion participant, and you contribute to a group's workspace, your feedback bank will grow more quickly. In fact, even the act of giving feedback will help your feedback bank grow. If someone gives you positive feedback, your score will increase by one and your feedback bank will increase by one-half. |
suggestion.
Note: the tagging system looks interesting and something that can add to the ongoing discussion on implementing tagging here in WiserEarth. In ned.com, tagging applies to people too! Click here for more about their tagging system. And there's also a section on listing "popular" items, voted through the same feedback system. Check it out >>
ned is based on open source software open-gon (might be a fork from Plone) using Ruby on rails so some of the code might be accessible for WE adoption / adaptation.
Implications for WE:
ned.com's feedback system seems simple and intuitive enough (weighted + or -) and applicable across entities (people, comments, groups, pages, etc.), which is something that should prove attractive for WiserEarth. Combined with the "compliments buttons" (for user/people) from Yelp and the "star icons" indicating "lifetime rating" from eBay, we may have something quite suited for WiserEarth.
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Site Name: Amazon.com
Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, and Japan.
Site Address: www.amazon.com
Sample Profile: Content: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
Personal: Robert Steele
Type of reward / recognition:
Average Customer Review based on average on all reviews using a five point scale with the number of reviews along side.
Users can earn the following badges: Top reviewer (various levels #1, Top 10, Top 50, Top 500, Top 1000), Real Name (confirmed that you are who you are), The (Confirmed that the person making comment is the celebrity whose name this is), and Community Forum 04 (participated in a key forum).
Purpose of reward / recognition:
- Five Star ranking provides user-generated feedback on the quality of a product. Presumably rankings feeds into product purchase recommendations made to individual users by Amazon
- Badge recognizes and incentivizes user comments
How it works:
Any user can create a comment and rank a product – as many as they like but only one per product. Each comment can then be ranked by users by using helpful / not helpful buttons and separately through an open text box. Comments ranked ‘most helpful favorable’ and ‘most helpful critical’ rise to the top of the comment page for a given product. A histogram of all comments is easily accessible by clicking on the average customer review.
According to Amazon: “You can earn badges by creating good content on Amazon.com. Some badges may be temporary, like Top 10 Reviewer. Other badges, like the Real Name badge, you earn once and get to keep as long as you use your Real Name.” The user page profile aggregates a user name, photo, badges, latest reviews, latest purchases (with rss), location, and rank number amongst all reviewers
Implications for WE:
- Very intuitive and easy to understand system. Reward is easily comprehended and comments system taps into user enthusiasm (or passionate dislike) of a product.
- Amazon’s system helps users make purchase decisions and encourages honest feedback about products. This is quite distinct from a social system like WE where users would feel more circumspect about providing negative reviews to another community member / org / group etc.
- Most survey expects dislike three and five point scales because people often chose the middle point simply not to offend. Their preference is for a four point scale where people are forced to choose on either side of neutral. An alternative is simply to make the ranking optional by having a no ranking option and then the star choices to the side. Netflix has this kind of system. I do think we should allow users to make verbal comments without making a ranking – if they so choose – but that they are encouraged to make a ranking by default.
- Comment on products are themselves subject to ranking based on 'helpful' 'not helpful' buttons. In WE this might be equivalent to a Yelp compliment button.
- Amazon makes a distinction between its ranking system for products and Users. Products get a simple average ranking while users have a Top reviewer badge. WE probably wants to make the same distinction between content review (orgs, groups, AOFs, resources, jobs, events, wikipages), and user rewards (i.e. people). But I dont think given WE content focus that we can have user rewards without content ranking. So I suggest we fold this suggestion into another: Recommendations, Ranking, and Comments on content
- The user profile page shows dynamic content based on activity of user. We might want to show most highly ranked content created by user, and most high regarded comments by user as part of the WE profile.
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Site Name: Netflix
Site Address: www.netflix.com
Sample Profile: Content: Mansfield Park User: Zephyr
Type of reward / recognition:
Unlike other sites we have reviewed so far the seem to be few community wide recognition/reward mechanisms. There is a reviewer ranking but it is not prominently displayed or used on the site. Films are ranked with a five point system.
Purpose of reward / recognition:
The key reward for users are that rating helps discover films you will like, and reviewing/sharing watched list lets you express yourself to your friends who may want to know what you are watching.
How it works:
When a user joins the site they are actively encouraged to rate a large number of movies to establish a set of preferences for content. The film initially shows with red stars the average ranking of all users on Netflix. Then you can either rate the film from 1-5 stars, say you are not interested in rating (No symbol - as in No Smoking), or clear the review. Once ranked the stars shown are yellow and the average user ranking displays as small numbers below (see example of Mansfield Park above). Based on your ratings you are recommended specific films. Similar to Amazon.com users can rate reviews using a simple 'helpful' 'not-helpful' system.
Users can create profiles for public view and share their rankings and reviews with friends and through Netflix's matching (X% similar to you) with a wider audience of like minded people.
Implications for WE:
- Netflix rating model appears to loosely follow that of Amazon.com - five star rating, reviews, rating of reviews (helpful/not-helpful). Perhaps WE should simply adopt what appears to be something of a standard UI - at least it will be intuitive for many users.
- The power of recommendation - other users sourcing together the best films (content) for each other would seem to have a powerful analogue for WE. How can we make it easier for like-minded people to find each other and each other's favorite content. Presumably we need so sort of system that makes recommendations based initially on user defined portions of the profile and over time their browsing history on WE. See these related suggestions: People Who Viewed This Also Viewed.. and 'Who should I know and connect to' tool ________________________________________________________________________________________
Comments (1 - 20 of 47)
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Flag comment for removal ianelwood 27 days ago
@ Angus: Agreed, I think the Owl is a great symbol and a good way to commend expert contributions.
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@ Ian: Great points. Having a set number of points / qualitative compliments to give out gives them some value - also we could have a 'use it or lose it' time period before they expire to encourage people to come on the site. My main concern and reason for limiting points per person per time period is to not over emphasize the opinions of power users on the site - but in some way this really may not be much of an issue since a single user could only have one active rating per record and we really want as many ratings across the site as possible.
As for more qualitative compliments I think that is a great idea - we could create a series of categories - funked up owl logos - it would be fun to determine what awards we want to bestow as a community. One that I am keen on seeing is a 'wise or expert owl' award for making a particularly expert contribution. Using these awards the community can help identify and thank the thought leaders. But I can imagine multiple awards types. Perhaps this should be its own suggestion / discussion thread. We could even highlight it on the homepage and ask for modified owl icons and vote on them! Could be a lot of fun. |
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Sounds like the discussion has pretty much reached the point of consensus before I read this, but Slashdot has a really nice points based system, called Karma. Each registered user is allotted the same number of points per week, and they can "spend" them on rating the comments of other users.
They can be "+1 informative" "-1 flamebait" and the like. These points effect a user's overall Karma, but what is being judged by the community of editors is the comment itself, so it avoids directly judging a person (which is impolite, I think).
Also, for more qualitative awards, Wikipedia has a really nice nonhierarchical encouragement system, where anyone can add a "barnstar" to a persons profile. The stars relate to what type of contributions that person has made:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BARNSTAR
Examples are "The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar" and "The Tireless Contributor Barnstar." It is simple, but allows a diversity of contributions to be recognized, without creating any tensions about one contribution being more valuable than the other.
I don't think the two systems are mutually exclusive either. You could have the quantitative Karma points, then special awards for particular acheivements.
Really good to hear so much thought go into this, I look forward to seing how it pans out in development.
@Everyone:
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Take a look here
Nice way of graphically showing a user’s contribution and their reputation. I could see:
Compliments Made Compliments Received Connections Made – this is key to the site’s effectiveness and something we need to encourage more, these can be passively made connections….i.e. when new content is developed Edits Made
Anything else? |
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@JTHESSERT: Thanks for your comments. As an Editor (i.e. member of the WE community not paid or part of NCI) let me lend you my thoughts and reflect back on what I think I'm hearing from you:
1) Rewards
I think the word can be misinterpreted to mean some form of financial compensation. This is not intended to be the idea. The WE community basically operates on the 'put something in / take something out'. No one is likely to pay for contributions - nor should we set-up that expectation which could not be met in any case. The rewards are recognition for a person's contributions. This is precisely the way how most sites - commercial and non-commercial operate. Perhaps we should rephrase with 'Compliments and Recognition' - I think that does better
2) Ratings
I think, but I'm not sure, that you are suggesting that somehow NCI is going to censor content using ratings. Am I completely misunderstanding your point? Perhaps! Anyway, the point of ratings is that anyone who is a registered user can rate any content (only once - it's not vote often and early like in Chicago!). No one user has any more power than any other. What's great about this approach is that all WiserEarthlings help each other surface great content that should be highlighted and brought to the attention of the community. To make sure that power users don't unbalance the system we have talked in this wiki of limiting the total number of ratings (and compliments) anyone one user can make in a month.
3) Governance
More generally you raise the issue of ownership / governance of Wiserearth. This is indeed a difficult issue for any new community. In my work with networks I have seen it take numerous years to get a well functioning system up and running. I know that NCI is very keen to see an orderly transition over to community ownership - at the same time, like you yourself said, they have developed a great tool and are responsive to suggestions. I would bring up these concerns in another forum on WiserEarth - its a much bigger subject than this specific suggestion.
Hope that helps and thank you for the compliments! |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
This comment was removed for violating WiserEarth's community guidelines. Please be polite and civil in your discussions with others. Use of defamatory language is inappropriate and harmful toward building a community. |
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@ Angus
Thanks, Angus, for exploring what content on our the site would merit a rating system. I have a feeling people will eventually want to rate organizations, or leave testimonials in some way. In some mockups we had done previously with the organization profile, we had allotted room for such a rating system, and it's good thing you brought this up and reminded me that we had considered this before.
I could definitely see the application of ratings for discussion threads and wikipages, since those are very information heavy, whereas a resource page might be quite spartan and simply be a website link. Jobs not so much, since it's difficult to rate a job unless you've either done it before, and most people would looking at our job listings to search for one, rather than to help promote it within the community. Perhaps we may try rolling this out first for our discussions, since it is long overdue that we overhaul our forums and make it a much more advanced and robust space.
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I just wouldn't want it to get to the point where NCI feels they can indirectly censure an individual, or hide a group on an individual's profile or anything like that.
We certainly wouldn't want it to go that far. Indirect Censorship. We would hope NCI would have the integrity to simply send a polite direct request using the "send message" tool .... if they had any concerns/ requests.
That would be the right thing to do. That would be consistent with the values of the community. That would be communicating effectively.
Or maybe NCI thinks they can decide what is WISER and what is not?
Do they feel they can make this decision because they are the "loci of power", because they have power?
If you write a book, make a speech, develop a website about an idea -- does that give you power to define / limit the growth of the idea? (even if the defining/ limiting is a direct contradiction to the idea's central theme/core?)? Does it give you power to abuse truth? To manipulate values/ ideals? To indirectly censure? To treat/communicate with those not in the 'loci of power' with a condescending / snobby tone/ manner?
I promise you that I don't need -- and will not need -- anyone in Sausalito California (or anywhere else) to tell me what is right and what is wrong.
And I am sure most everyone on WiserEarth would agree. |
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First, I am not nearly as computer tech savvy - at the moment - as the majority of contributors here, so thanks in advance for your patience (thus my comments come with appropriate humility)...
So this is a "layman"s perspective...
And I love the wiserearth site, find it to be truly educational, an awesome resource! Thanks NCI!
And I might be feeling the temptation of the dark side... of is it the force telling me to be truthful in the face of superficiality? = In other words I am fully aware this comment might not win a wiserpopularity contest but I kind of feel it needs to be said ( I am not trying to be rude: though this might seem like venting... I believe the comment is wrote with the questioning/ critical spirit that NCI/wiserearth markets/ advertises eloquently in several mediums...):
Check out:
http://www.wiserearth.org/resource/view/77eb5dc2698468bf40533f14334a6f82
JPMS wrote: " At some point NCI might even consider offering some of these some sort of compensation for their commitment to the community"
My thought is :
Forget about compensation! Who cares who edits 4 million times ( though that is certainly a valuable contribution...)?
How about NCI remembers their purpose! (qouted from the NCI site) : We believe that we are moving from a world that is created by the privileged, to a world created by community. This change in the loci of power calls for a new system of awareness, support, communication, and collaboration. That is WISER’s purpose.
There also are some qoutes in this group about rewards for solutions?... Solutions for some fix on this website???
Or solutions for a fix in the real world??
I checked out some of Dbells comments in the Hypercar Group and felt like screaming at someone -- in POWER -- to coordinate with him to make the appropriate networking/ connections necessary to bring that vision to fruition...
If that kind of thing happens (creative ideas with real-world applications are born here on this site...), and someone employed from NCI / Wiserearth can't lift a metaphorical finger to give more than a two-line reply??
How does that reflect on what is being advertised here? What is that supposed to make someone who has no background in the social/environmental justice non profit world think?
Why should someone bother to contribute to a community networking website that is run by an organization where person X does not seem to make an effort to honor the values / purpose being advertised?
Why should anyone care if they get a jedi mark for 4000 edits? Or if they get x amount of money for x edits?
How about good idea Y gets support and gets put into action!
Does it really matter how good / tech-enhanced the website is... if ....
the whole thing is fake and talk -- like much of the world -- it kind of undermines what everyone on this site is supposedly working toward right??
If it comes down to it -- and you get a shot at honoring the words you advertise, you get a chance at honoring the values of the community, you get a chance at networking an idea into reality that could transform the world into a just and sustainable world created by community -- and you can't even lift a finger???????????????????????????????
Kind of makes the layman -- from his layman's perspective -- 'arch a metaphorical eyebrow'.
Not trying to be a difficult/ or a jerk, I will let you all go back to your discussion about jedi marks.
But just remember about the real world -- that is what the purpose of the website is: to facilitate change in the real world right?? (I didn't write the purpose/ mission of NCI; I don't take ownership/responsibility for the diction/ syntax/ language used).
Words mean nothing if they don't get backed up with actions!? Right?!?
I would hope NCI/ wiserearth would be pleased that someone would hold them accountable in, what I hope, was just a slip??!
Because if this kind of thing goes further and we dont nip it in the bud now: non profits like NCI basically take a role that is analogous to the governments they criticize; check out that linked article again!
Maybe its all about power? Maybe its fake? Maybe the existence of the website is a subtle way to absorb power and influence?
Can you prove it isn't?
Can you prove the purpose of your organization will be honored in a "moment of truth"?
Will you try to make me into a Darth Vader for questioning?
Am I Luke Skywalker standing up to the Empire?
Are you slaying the evils of the government... just to see your own face look back out at you from beneath their helmet?
Am I Darth Vader?
Or am I Luke, begging Darth Vader to remember who he was... before the Dark Side swallowed him...?
I don't want to have to reach for my lightsaber (shakes head). Too much is at stake. But if it comes down to it -- for the republic -- I will do what must be done.
peace
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@ Honore: Your question is a great one to ask: "I'm curious what our users would find compelling to rate (orgs, jobs, resources, etc). Possibly resources, I think."
For me personally I would be keen to rate most everything. For sure the very content heavy entities so perhaps in this order: Solutions (not yet existing), Resources, Wikipages (imagine, we could do away with our +1 in the titles in Suggestions for a start!), Discussions, Events and Jobs. It's becuase if the community rates stuff, I can rely on the wisdom of the crowd in deciding what is worth looking at. It will also help me browse content and select content for a group. It also gives me a sense of purpose in being part of the community - I am doing work and helping others by rating and bringing attention to stuff I care about. In fact, I see rating as essential for efficiently filtering content for our community.
Then the question becomes wich of the people related entities do we rate? Those being Organizations, Groups and People.
People: To my mind rating People is off-limits - it just isn't constructive.
Groups: Rating Groups also seems unnecessary - first because its a collection of people and who wants to be part of a group that is low rated - and second because it would encourage group admins to create private groups and hide away from the wider WE community. Also, the content of a group can be rated - so you can see with a brief glance of the home tab how much high rated content (and high rewarded users) are part of a group. Organizations: So, the final question is do we rate organizations? On that point I would lean towards 'no'. Again WE is in part a directory of organizations and we want people connected with them to update their listings, also many users have affiliations with these organizations as employees, board members etc.
My question back to everyone is might we consider 'compliment' rewards for organizations and groups? |
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@ Honore: I agree you could implement these two efforts separately but there are numerous synergies and interlinkages between rating content and rewarding users. They did start life as two separate suggestions.
A couple of thoughts:
Rewarding - through badges and Yelp style compliments is a form of reputation currency. In effect it turns into a positive rating approach for people - you are more likely to trust a contribution from someone who has been highly rewarded by the community. It's also a natural thing to do - thank people - and builds a sense of community.
Rating - is not only a way to surface good content, but it is a form of activity (that leads to badges) and provides feedback to users (the wikipage I wrote was highly regarded and helpful).
All the sites we surveyed do some form of each - in fact at Ned they are the same thing (which troubles me - like you). When I see a pattern like that I start to wonder why? It seems to me that most sites (including WE) are about content and people and the interaction between the two. In my opinion. we can't really have a meaningful rating or rewards system without integrating the two. |
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Jumping in here while I try to gather all the ideas that's been fleshed out, I wil say that I'm not a big fan of the NED system. If we're picking at particulars, just the screenshot of the Mark Grime's profile is already overwhelming, even for a techie person like me. I'm much more in favor of a 5 star system, though I'm curious how it would apply to WiserEarth.
I'm still a bit curious why a rating system and a recognition system share a same thread. In my mind, I definitely see them as very different and distinct projects, where either one could be built without needing the other to be in place. I can easily see how they would tie together, such as getting recognition points when you're rating something. Nonetheless, I would approach these as two projects to work on.
I'm much more in favor of getting the recognition system out, to have those badges conferred to highly active users. The rating system comes much more into play if WiserEarth adds a solution module, since that's content that begs most for having community ratings. But with the current content in our database, I'm curious what our users would find compelling to rate (orgs, jobs, resources, etc). Possibly resources, I think.
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Rethinking separating ratings from comments
Perhaps we should require a comment when someone makes or changes their rating (at least within the 30 minute edit period allowed for comments). People managing/contributing the solution should at least get some indication of why it was rated a certain way.
Also perhaps if we require comments with the ratings we can call them reviews which seems less in your face than rating.
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Rethinking top % badges
When I did the math I realized that a Top 25% badge would include a lot of inactive / barely active members. The reality with all sites such as this is that the active community usually only amounts to a few percent at most. So I actually think that Amazon.com's approach of having an absolute number works best. We could start off with a Top 1, 10, 50, 100 user badge and then expand to 500 when the user base is big enough. Even with an absolute number users can still loose their badge status through inactivity and its still relative (i.e. if the site activity increases then a badge holder will have to keep up). Still think badge status should be sticky for a while though. |
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@Bowo: Great summary of problem. I added it to original post.
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@Sheri: To add to my previous respond to your remarks on "stories" and "media component":
Perhaps it's one of the suggestion you made a while ago: Suggestion for NEWS unit (currently at +4)?
Or perhaps it's what Deborah (boatsie) suggested in the comment section of WiserEarth Community Roles page::
The discussion on "roles" of editors by the way, is done over at the WiserEarth Editors group in the (SETUP) Roles and Responsibilities of Editors and Administrators thread. Feel free to elaborate further there.
If you think this needs to be a working group of the Editors group, where editors with "reporters" role collaborate on news-digging and newsletter-making, feel free to suggest it's creation in (SETUP) Working Groups thread. Deborah would I believe love to be working with you on this. I'd love to help out too.
@Angus:
Regarding your previous comment on responding to my "hardliners" comment, I forgot to mention the same thing you mentioned, which is to set the initial rating quota high enough. Your suggestion of 60/month would be enough I guess, and we'll review as we go for "harlinders" and for reconsideration whether the number is high enough or not.
Also liked your idea of calculating ranking ratings only after a minimum of three ratings (from three users) is given to an entity. That should pretty much remove the bias of single rating. |
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@Sheri:
Thank you for your appreciation for this conversation thread. To date, this probably is my most favourite thread in WE. Wish I can rate it already... :) ----------------------------------------------------------------- For your important questions:
Angus wrote:
Restating, I think the problems are:
1. How do we showcase the best content in WiserEarth that could provide value for community members?
2. How can we reward and acknowledge good contributions by community members and encourage further contributions?
The answers being the suggestion in this page and the pages for related suggestions.
1. The content rating system will do this. It should encourage wiserearthlings to also post high-quality content, or at least to make thoughtful content additions, beneficial edits, make effort to produce helpful/informative comments, and encourage collaboration in and between groups.. Overall, to encourage contributions that will enrich content, interaction, relationship and collaboration.
2.The user reward/recognition/reputation system will do this. It will signal engagement and reputation of passionate and committed community members. It will also encourage new wiserearthlings to provide valuable contributions to the community.
Elaborating further to your remarks on the content rating system:
Not sure what the thread was, but you're probably referring to the one about the group in Zaadz that collects stories about the Zaadz community itself? If it is, then the thread is hosted in WiserEarth Editors group. It's the one I quoted at an earlier comment I made (this one).
But if you're talking about areas of focus (AoF), there is none at the moment. There was an elaborate AoF portal design that can seem to accommodate this, but Mike (MichaelK) informed us that it was eventually used for the design of groups. I tried crafting one my own (unfinished) where there will be sections in each portal that will list "in-depth" resources, "case studies", "tools for change", and "featured discussions" relating to each AoF. The "featured discussions" section will link back to each host forum/group for further participation.
Or perhaps Angus'es other excellent effort on Peer Reviewed Solution Directory will be the one you're looking for? ----------------------------------------------------------------- As for your following question:
----------------------------------------------------------------- Last but definitely not least is an important and insightful questions Sheri asked:
I think she is referring to a different level of both content rating and reputation/recognition/reward system here with her mentions of Open Money, Regenerosity, and Smartocracy. From the definitions below, smartocracy is designed to tie up with a reputation system in a social network that will aid in a meritocracy-based group decision making.
"Open money is a wealth-acknowledgment information system... It enables your community to create new types of money and use them to cultivate the kinds of wealth that really matter... It puts currency creation directly in the hands of communities so that they can create wealth-acknowledgment systems for tracking all types of wealth--tradable, measurable, and acknowledgeable--and so that they can tailor the tracking to fit their precise needs... Right off the bat, communities can use open money for simple things like Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), Time Banks, barter networks, carbon-emissions trading programs, baby-sitting co-ops, reputation tracking systems, business loyalty programs, etc. But the interesting stuff will happen when communities apply their creativity to invent new currencies that solve wealth-acknowledgment problems we don't even have names for yet."
"Regenerosity is a system for recognition of voluntary service, philanthropy & gift, civic engagement, trade, commerce, work, and any other contributions to the health and wealth of our communities. If you are a member of any community, whether as a person, as a non-profit organization, or as a for-profit business, there is something in it for you. As a person, you receive recognition for voluntarism, philanthropy, civic service, and many other types of community-building participation. As a non-profit organization, you receive tools for volunteer & donor recognition and access to untapped sources of support. As a for-profit business, you receive tools for customer loyalty & econometrics and access to untapped sources of working capital. As a school, you receive interactive tools for teaching economics & civics and for promoting community service. Everyone receives tools for measurement and analysis of social capital (their own and that of their communities) and practical tools to build community self-reliance and sustainable local economy, including community-based mutual credit systems."
"Smartocracy is a social software system for collective decision making. The system is composed of a social network that links individuals to those they trust to make good decisions and a decision network that links individuals to their voted-on solutions. Such networks allow a variety of algorithms to convert the link choices made by individual participants into specific decision outcomes. Simply interpreting the linkages differently (e.g. ignoring trust links, or using them to weight an individual's vote) provides a variety of outcomes fit for different decision making scenarios."
Wish we can bring knowledgeable people for each concept here (as Sheri suggested) and help us out to come up with a rating/reward system that will be suitable for a community like WiserEarth. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding:
Yep, that's certainly is a possibility. Fire away with a suggestion page on this and let's have a look at the advantages/disadvantages. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @Angus: Good analysis on ned's system:
And I like the top percentage recommendation and how it's implications will be.
The implementation phases you wrote was also excellent, but I will reserve my further comments in light of Sheri's insights on open money, regenerosity and smartocracy. I think they will provide us with a more community-oriented approach to the rating/reward system as compared to the examples so far (yelp, eBay, ned, amazon, netflix) where mostly were commerce-oriented.
There's no denying that the former ones are pretty much at the conception and experimentation phase, while the latter ones are tried and tested. But I think we should wait for more insights from the former. Because once implemented and used, I imagine the rating/reward system will be pretty difficult to change. |
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@Everyone: I've added some ideas for phasing implementation into wikipage above. Any comments?
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@Sheri: I'll try to answer your questions and make comments along the way.
#1 Simplicity and elegance: what would be the first step in the direction of ratings/reputation. so we don't jump into complexity before we need too. a design principle I like to use which nature tends to use well is what don't we need to design this, and what's the next elegant step we could take to move in this direction?
Very good suggestion. I suggest we phase in the different functionality and see how the community responds. Will also make the developer's life easier. We believe we need to interlink user recognition with content rating since I don't think we can do one effectively with the other. At the same time we need to make explicit the value of the system to the user base through surfacing good content and recognizing good contributors. I will make a implementation suggestion in the wikipage above.
#2: Angus, is Ned the next iteration of Omidyar?
Yes, Ned is using Omidyar sourcecode and building from their initial community. Site stats are as follows below.
Ned and WE share some basic functionality (but not code I think). Ned does have a simple transparent rating system which combines user and content rating. Now that I have had a better look at Ned I am less convinced this works for WE. For content the rating shows like this:
Posted to: Art + Technology + Participation in Development by Lars Hasselblad Torres (83), Tue, 06 May 2008 07:36:47 PDT
Showing numbers for total views and total comments is nice and something that relates to another suggestion currently in discussion Web statistics on all pages but the feedback score (effectively content rating) doesn't work for me. The Score is the total of +1 and -1 ratings, in this case 8 - as such it really reflects popularity more than quality. I would rather see an average of positive scores (e.g. 5 stars) and then a number of ratings made to gauge the quality of content e.g. 4.5 stars by 10 people. This just seems more intuitive and easier to make comparisons between content and make a search based on a simple criteria e.g. over 4 stars. How would you search on Ned? Over 8 points, over 100? Presumably the baseline in Ned constantly shifts upward and older content would have an advantage over younger content regardless of quality.
For people rating Ned is like this: Feedback positive/negative/bank: +169/-0/26 (give feedback) My issues here are on the negative rating. It just doesn't seem very positive for the type of community that WE is to be able to rate a person negatively. I like the more uplifting Yelp approach basically rewarding a user for a great contribution. #3: You pondered about Bowo's comment "As for the reasonable period of inactivity, somewhere between six to twelve months perhaps? And the definition of inactivity being "less then a certain number of edits" for each status (intermediate, expert, jedi) within that "reasonable period" of time? I suggest that this is a wrinkle that we can probably work around and still remain simple. First, provide a total contribution number - like Ebay's Number next to a user's name. This shows the total number of contributions ever made by a user on WE. You can't 'loose' this number and we can use it to recognize long term contributors. Also signals a significant user to others in the community. Then consider a badge for Top 1%, Top 10%, and Top 25% contributors (variant of Amazon's top 1, 10, 50, 500, 1000) that shows up next to the user name wherever shown on WE - perhaps this can be on a rolling one year tally of contributions. Since a % is relative to other users activity and number of users it has a couple of in built advantages: (1) an inactive user would loose his status over time but the status could be sticky i.e. you wouldn't loose it for three months after you had dropped off the list. (2) as the site grew more people would be included in each % band of the status. #4: Finally, you asked about content rating. This has been discussed here but also here: Recommendations, Ranking, and Comments on content. Basically, I think we need to do these two things together.
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Hi all
What a fantastic robus substantive essential conversation. Inspiring.
I'm just getting into this thread (and I am wishing I could comment on comments and have sub threads :) - is that a suggestion possibility?), so I am slowly moving my way into this conversation and will try to absorb more and more of it and dialogue a bit as I go along. I feel this is an essential conversation and appreciate deeply that so much thought and care has already gone into the conversation.
Two questions initially:
- simplicity and elegance: what would be the first step in the direction of ratings/reputation. so we don't jump into complexity before we need too. a design principle I like to use which nature tends to use well is what don't we need to design this, and what's the next elegant step we could take to move in this direction?
- Angus, is Ned the next iteration of Omidyar?
Back about 9 |