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| Dave Rathbun |
 Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:00 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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Borderline content is going to be posted. In my opinion, no matter how simple you make the rules, there will still be posts that seem to be on the edge of passing the content guidelines or not.
Right now it's very simple: every post counts. If you make an inappropriate post and a moderator deletes it, your post count goes down. The thing is, there has not been a lot of moderation on this board so far. As we get more and more active, the amount of moderation will have to increase. If off-topic / random posts are deleted then the system works as well as it can without any additional rules or processes.
I run another board with 15K users. We have a no "me too" rule. If your only contribution to a topic is "yeah" or "me too" or "that's right" or any of a number of variations, you are supposed to get a polite note from one of the moderators asking you to stop. It's a relatively professional board, so most folks don't repeat the issue after a reminder. By "professional" I mean that it's a board for discussion a fairly high-end database reporting system, so most people on the board are employees of larger companies or consultants of some kind. It's a far different environment than what you would find, as an example, on a video game discussion board.  |
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| Im Not Warren Buffett |
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:04 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Before I become completely engaged in this debate of what qualifies as a good post or not, a simple system for rewarding good posts could be as follows: lots of movie review sites, etc. have a "was this helpful" poll built into the post. It reads something like "8 out of 11 voters found this useful" or something similar. Would it be possible to include a small thing like that with posts, and let people vote, with a certain number of positive votes giving the poster an e$ bonus? |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:25 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Im Not Warren Buffett wrote: | | Would it be possible to include a small thing like that with posts, and let people vote, with a certain number of positive votes giving the poster an e$ bonus? |
Yes, it's possible.  I've seen variations on a theme, where in some cases you rate the poster, and in other cases you rate the post, or perhaps the topic. I use the topic rating version myself on another board, and there is a graphic indicator on the topic listings that shows the relative value that a group of people have put on the topic. In that case, there are only positive ratings, no negative ratings are allowed. And you're only allowed to rate a topic once. The sample graphics look like the cell phone bars for signal strength:
    
Rating a post instead of a topic would not be a big change in the code. But the way I think you meant it to be, you would allow negative votes as well as positive votes. In other words, a truly "bad" post should be different from a post that has simple received no votes. We didn't want that on this other board, but it might be appropriate here.
And it will still require active moderation. And I would suggest that you need to have a minimum number of posts in order to cast a rating, otherwise you will have people registering "shill" accounts to bump up their post ratings. Witness what happened to eBay ratings before they restricted them to participants in an actual transaction.
Moderators / administrators would need a way to view a log of the voting record, in order to see if there are voting patterns of some kind, and you would have people paying e$ for votes, and so on.
I keep pointing out the negatives, and it's not to be negative. It's just to show that there are ways to cheat the system no matter what you try. And in my opinion, the more complex something gets, the harder it gets to manage. Simple is better. And this discussion is good too... if the site continues growing, the monthly prize could very well increase as well. It would be great to have a firm process in place before we get to that point. |
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| frusnak |
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 10:33 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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| I take exception to the fact that my 26 word post is only worth 1/2 a post. If I added a bunch of "fluff" and such, that wouldn't change the basic Idea that was being conveyed on the basic question that Ben presented. |
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| jdunn72 |
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 10:52 am Post subject: |
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Member of The Month
March
Joined: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 1407
This Month: 0
11261.55 e$
Net worth: 11,261.55
Portfolio Value: 0.00
Monthly Return: 0.00%
Trades this month: 0
Churn Rate: 0.00%Items
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| frusnak wrote: | | I take exception to the fact that my 26 word post is only worth 1/2 a post. If I added a bunch of "fluff" and such, that wouldn't change the basic Idea that was being conveyed on the basic question that Ben presented. |
I apologize for singling out your post as an example, and didn't mean to offend you. I was simply showing how your single post which, probably didn't take much of your time, was relevant on topic and would count towards the competition in a tabulation for the active posters rankings. Don't you think someone should be able to make at least twenty such posts in a month in order to win the dough? I think it's all shot anyways so anybody can write anything and it's just as good as the informative posts of others. Oh well, bodes well for the shameless poachers. 
And not so well for increasing posting volume and content. So, the old addage simple is best, may not work in this case. Most of the time the simplest solution is the best but, not always. |
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| frusnak |
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:47 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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No offense taken, just wanted to say that we need our members to post and they shouldn't be discouraged from it. I do think there should be some content to the post and 20 may not be a bad idea.  |
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| domgen |
| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 7:32 am Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
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In order to succesfully get people posting I think it important not to make assumptions based on the posts they are making for better or worse. If you make assumptions that someone is putting in fluff. poaching etc you could be wrong. Some people posting on this site are going to be much more to the point just like real life. Some people are not going to as comfortable with the topics and will take longer to get their point accross & yes some will intentionally ramble or make benign posts. Does an extra 10000.00 e$ due to longer or "fluffy" posts really make a difference? At the end of the day the site is meant to get people communicating and involved. Make them uncomfortable they will move on... just like real life.
Something to ponder. |
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| frusnak |
| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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| domgen wrote: | In order to succesfully get people posting I think it important not to make assumptions based on the posts they are making for better or worse. If you make assumptions that someone is putting in fluff. poaching etc you could be wrong. Some people posting on this site are going to be much more to the point just like real life. Some people are not going to as comfortable with the topics and will take longer to get their point accross & yes some will intentionally ramble or make benign posts. Does an extra 10000.00 e$ due to longer or "fluffy" posts really make a difference? At the end of the day the site is meant to get people communicating and involved. Make them uncomfortable they will move on... just like real life.
Something to ponder. |
Very good point!!  |
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