Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by lcarreau » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:20 am

Josh Lewis wrote: I may have a few other ideas to help combat this issue.



I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that YOU are completely "chock full" of valuable ideas.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Josh Lewis » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:26 am

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by colinr » Thu Jan 09, 2014 7:55 am

Most votes I have cast have been for mountain, route, or area pages that I found useful or informative for my own trips and planning. The updates to the front page layout and the addition of photo of the moment caused me to vote on images, trip reports, and articles much more often than before. If a quick vote method is added, I will be much more likely to vote on images that catch my eye within mountain, route, and area pages. I already do try to remember to vote on useful maps and route descriptors, but a a quick vote method would make that easier and more likely.

Thanks for all the work!


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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Bob Sihler » Thu Jan 09, 2014 1:42 pm

Josh Lewis wrote:
Scott wrote:Personally, I don't understand why so many people get so worked up about which photos are featured on the front page.


I think Bob was referring to Photo of the Moment.


No, I was, as I always have been, referring to POTD and POTW. While there are sometimes very silly POTM selections, they are just that-- momentary. POTD and POTW have been broken and a source of disappointment and frustration for years now, and the reasons why have been discussed over and over. I've proposed alternates to simply getting rid of them, such as three slots for POTH with controls to prevent manipulation, but there has been little interest in changing them. The changes to the selection process this past year helped a little but not really very much overall.
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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Buz Groshong » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:10 pm

Josh Lewis wrote:
lcarreau wrote:Can we completely eliminate POTM, but hang on to POTD and POTW ?


We should not remove Photo of the Moment because it is the most unique part of the frontpage in terms of freshness. However I would not be opposed to tweaks being made if this trend keeps on going. Fact: The bad photo of the moments often only have one vote. So if the system required two votes to make it in, this might fix the problem. The unintended consequences to this is that popular people might have a serious advantage to everyone else making them stay on the frontpage (no offense to the popular folks). I may have a few other ideas to help combat this issue. :)


My biggest gripe about POTM is that it includes user profile photos and photos from someone's dipshit wildflower album. We really should restrict it to photos that are attached to objects.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Scott » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:27 pm

My biggest gripe about POTM is that it includes user profile photos and photos from someone's dipshit wildflower album.


If the flower photos were taken in someone's yard, I see the point, but if they were taken on the mountain, they are part of the mountain. Wildflowers, wildlife, glaciers, and waterfalls are all part of the mountain (if taken on the mountain), though some get carried away with this. That's my own opinion.

If your opinion is different, I'd suggest refraining from the name calling, especially since some of your own submissions are of trees and flowers and half of your mountain submissions wouldn't qualify as a mountain in most people's book (several of mine [including one that I will add soon] probably don't either, but I know it's a lot less than half).

I don't agree with everything people submit either, but in the future, please refrain from name-calling of contributing members. All of us slip up at one time or another (I've done it before too), so all is forgiven at this time.
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PS, I don't really care for the POTW, POTD, the POTM either, but if you don't like it, why look? I don't get all the BS about people leaving just because they didn't like whatever photo was featured on the front page.

If you saw an ugly car on the road, are you going to quit driving?

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has a different idea of what SP should be. Unfortunately, we can only try to make as many people happy as possible.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Alpinist » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:58 pm

We're all familiar with the voting circle jerk and the games people play to get their photos on the front page. That leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth. However, I'd hate to see the POTW/POTD be eliminated. It's a great feature and we shouldn't let the minority ruin it for everyone else. Why not just set limits on how often someone's photo can be featured as POTD / POTW...? That would even the playing field and open the door for some new members' photos to be featured.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Buz Groshong » Thu Jan 09, 2014 4:37 pm

Scott wrote:
My biggest gripe about POTM is that it includes user profile photos and photos from someone's dipshit wildflower album.


If the flower photos were taken in someone's yard, I see the point, but if they were taken on the mountain, they are part of the mountain. Wildflowers, wildlife, glaciers, and waterfalls are all part of the mountain (if taken on the mountain), though some get carried away with this. That's my own opinion.

If your opinion is different, I'd suggest refraining from the name calling, especially since some of your own submissions are of trees and flowers and half of your mountain submissions wouldn't qualify as a mountain in most people's book (several of mine [including one that I will add soon] probably don't either, but I know it's a lot less than half).

I don't agree with everything people submit either, but in the future, please refrain from name-calling of contributing members. All of us slip up at one time or another (I've done it before too), so all is forgiven at this time.
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PS, I don't really care for the POTW, POTD, the POTM either, but if you don't like it, why look? I don't get all the BS about people leaving just because they didn't like whatever photo was featured on the front page.

If you saw an ugly car on the road, are you going to quit driving?

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has a different idea of what SP should be. Unfortunately, we can only try to make as many people happy as possible.


Good points. Yes, I do take wildflower photos, but I also realize that they are not the intended focus of this site. A few relevant wildflower photos on a mountain page could certainly be considered a good addition to it, but there should at least be limits. Is the site about the climbing or is it about the mountains? That question seems to get two answers. When we say that it is about the beta and one should not post a page about a mountain they haven't climbed, that says it is not about the mountains it is about the climbing. If that is true, then the photos of the flowers don't belong. On the other hand, if it is about the mountains, then we should have pages for all mountains regardless of whether anyone has climbed them.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by anita » Thu Jan 09, 2014 4:43 pm

why not eliminate "power" all together?

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Scott » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:01 pm

why not eliminate "power" all together?


It is needed for vote weight (fake avatars to up or down vote), but if the majority of members have a consensus that they don't want it, it may be able to be hidden (Josh can tune in on this).

Still, in many people's opinion, it is thought that those who contribute more high quality submissions should get more say in how the site is run. This has been discussed in previous threads. More people submitting more high quality stuff is encouraged. It's going to get boring if only the same people are adding stuff all the time.

Is the site about the climbing or is it about the mountains?


Both.

When we say that it is about the beta and one should not post a page about a mountain they haven't climbed, that says it is not about the mountains it is about the climbing. If that is true, then the photos of the flowers don't belong. On the other hand, if it is about the mountains, then we should have pages for all mountains regardless of whether anyone has climbed them.


I really don't get what you are trying to say. General consensus is that if you adopt or add a page than you should climb or attempt the peak first (or at least get as close to the mountain as you can, say an erupting volcano or sacred mountain closed to climbing). This has no bearing on whether the site is about mountains or climbing or both and has been discussed many times dating back more than 10 years.

Also most books on for example, climbing the Himalaya, Alps, Rockies, or whatever that contain pictures have at least a photo with a flower or two or some wildlife showing up in them. If someone adds more than one flower to an album, it doesn't affect the mountain pages. The previous owners of the site wanted to encourage more photo submissions, though there was a discussion about things like the windmill album et al which wasn't applicable. If a flower, glacier, or wildlife photo was taken on the mountain, many people like to see those photos.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by anita » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:10 pm

ok. vote weight...
so if you just have a simple 'like/don't like' option, then vote weight means nothing, right? instead of a score, you'd have "xxx people liked this" - like on Mountain Project.

their setup seems really simple and as far as I can tell, there is no never-ending battle/whine-a-thon re: POTM/D/W, what is relevant/what isn't, who doesn't like my flower, etc. etc. etc.
people get so many points for routes, images, ticks, etc. really simple. no whining or crying.

anyway.. that is my take on it. get rid of power/vote weight, get rid of scores. you either like or don't like, and if you must give people little cookies for their valuable contributions, then assign points to different items and let people accumulate points.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Bob Sihler » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:16 pm

Without points and weight, there's less incentive to put effort into making really good pages. Human nature. Honestly, most of what you find on rc.com and mountainproject with regards to routes is crap. There's just more of it since their focus is on technical stuff.
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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Scott » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:22 pm

get rid of power/vote weight


Vote weight is needed for the reasons stated.

get rid of scores.


OK, but then how would we weed out bad pages of which there are many? Can you think of a better solution? The scoring system is flawed on SP (in my opinion), but there has to be a way for quality control and it's better than nothing. If there is something better, ideas are welcome, but there has to be some form of quality control.

The elves could go through every single page on SP and delete anything they don't like, but I don't think it would go over that well. It's better to provide good feedback in the hopes that page quality will improve (if people would do this when voting, score wouldn't be so much an issue).

instead of a score, you'd have "xxx people liked this" - like on Mountain Project.


Although there is some good stuff there, Mountain Project seems to have poor quality control and a lot of bad pages (at least in the areas I frequent, such as southern Utah). As in a huge percentage. There doesn't seem to be much quality control there, but I don't use it that often. From a quality standpoint, I'd hate to see SP go the way of Mountain Project.

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by anita » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:33 pm

"Then how would we weed out bad pages of which there are many? "

comments?
if a page has more 'don't likes' than 'likes'?
make a 'report bad submission' button?

MP may not be flashy and full of pretty pages, but something keeps it going. have you seen the traffic there?
people even PAY to download their app!

there are certain people on this site, this 'circle jerk' some refer to... if one of these people made a page for the best outhouses in an area, it would get 10s across the board. what does it even mean then?

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Re: Changes to Voting (Opinions Please)

by Scott » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:39 pm

comments?


Yes, we use that.

if a page has more 'don't likes' than 'likes'?


You mean like a page score. That's basically what a page score is. The only difference is that with yours there will be two choices rather than 5. Personally, I'd be OK with this. In my opinion, 10 is too many; four or five seems best, but I'd be willing to go with the majority and I'd bet most of the rest of the staff would too. Personally, I'm not against a like vs don't like and I others have said the same. If people would be afraid to unlike something, perhaps something like "Needs Improvement" vs "Good" or something similar could be used. I'd prefer 4-5, but two may work. It's basically how the 10/10 is working now anyway since only few vote other than a 1/10 or a 10/10. The old system actually worked quite well. People have problems distinguishing the difference between a 7 and an 8 (for example) so they just vote one way or the other.

make a 'report bad submission' button?


Yes, we have one. It's the "Needs Major Updates" button. It just sounds a little nicer than "Report a Bad Submission". There is also talk of an adoption button for those pages that are either abandoned or who's owners want to put them up for adoption.

MP may not be flashy and full of pretty pages, but something keeps it going.


Something keeps SP going as well. What would be the advantage of making SP like Mountain Project?

have you seen the traffic there?


Yes, and it's similar to the traffic here. SP gets more hits, MP is currently a bit ahead in unique visitors. Overall, SP has seen more traffic.

As said earlier though, making every member happy is going to be impossible.

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