Scoring is an issue. I don't know how to address it, but I've taken over old pages that were lousy and got lousy votes, and improved them a lot. But they still have an overall lousy score because people don't revise their votes, or people who placed lousy votes don't really visit the site anymore, etc. I'm not exactly sure of the benefit of the present scoring system.

As far as a Wiki system goes, I wonder if that will allow people with big egos to completely change a page. There is a lot about a mountain or route that is subjective, and people get pretty big heads and can be very prideful that their mountaineering knowledge is superior to someone else's.

I don't get the current scoring system at all, I have one photo rated around 40% even though the three votes on it are 7, 8 and 10.

Secondary to that perhaps if voting was anonymous there would less issues over down voting? People would give the score they thought appropriate without fear of reprisals. If that's been discussed before forgive me.

Further as someone mentioned before there are voting systems based on reactions, such as 'Beautiful', 'Scary!', 'Huh?, 'Seen it before'' etc. Could also work as a tagging type system to help find things, e.g. photo with most 'Scary!' votes.

I'll ask...
What is it that makes changing the voting system so hard?
I know it's been adressed hundreds of times, but i still haven't understood what the problem is in implementig a different voting system.

About anonimous voting, it wouldn't work, i think, because some people would end up downvoting files from people they don't like...

etsnyd wrote:Scoring is an issue. I don't know how to address it, but I've taken over old pages that were lousy and got lousy votes, and improved them a lot. But they still have an overall lousy score because people don't revise their votes, or people who placed lousy votes don't really visit the site anymore, etc.

You can contact an elf in that case to get low votes and negative comments erased in such cases.

It's my understanding that in the old days, anonymous voting was a problem because of voting wars and avatars. I think it's a good thing that people are accountable for their votes; it's just a bad thing that we unintentionally lower scores with 7, 8, and 9.

Honestly, I don't think you're going to see a change in the voting system anytime soon, if ever. People have been discussing it for years, and it's always been indicated that a change to voting is not in the works. Thus, I think we're stuck with what we have and ought to try to make the best of it.

Personally, I'd be very happy if we simply ended voting on pictures. I'd bet money that it would result in a lot less clutter and off-topic material and encourage better submissions according to the site's intent. People who post pictures for votes and comments could go post on Facebook and get people to like their stuff.

Back to the purpose of the thread-- I'm going to report to Matt that the option most liked and least disliked is the idea of an open corrections section on the main page, which I believe is the one he said would be the easiest to implement. Additionally, I'll share the idea of page owners being able to check a box opening additional sections to editing, on a per-section basis, with the default option being keeping the page closed. Finally, although it's not related to this thread, I'll ask about a save-draft feature, which many on this site have expressed a wish for.

Thank you for your input from all angles, and thank you for keeping it civil here.

Bob Sihler wrote: People who post pictures for votes and comments could go post on Facebook ...

Bob, is there an option to "Facebook?" A lot of "older" folks like me find "Facebook" to be potentially intrusive and full of avatars and trolls.
Sorry, but I refuse to post there.

lcarreau wrote:

Bob Sihler wrote: People who post pictures for votes and comments could go post on Facebook ...

Bob, is there an option to "Facebook?" A lot of "older" folks like me find "Facebook" to be potentially intrusive and full of avatars and trolls.
Sorry, but I refuse to post there.

I think Bob just meant that you *could* use Facebook for photos among friends. I find the community there has *fewer* avatars and trolls than SP but the management of FB is evil. SP elves are not. Well, except for that *one* . . . .

To post photos for the enjoyment of strangers, I'd recommend Flickr.

Arthur Digbee wrote:

lcarreau wrote:

Bob Sihler wrote: People who post pictures for votes and comments could go post on Facebook ...

Bob, is there an option to "Facebook?" A lot of "older" folks like me find "Facebook" to be potentially intrusive and full of avatars and trolls.
Sorry, but I refuse to post there.

I think Bob just meant that you *could* use Facebook for photos among friends. I find the community there has *fewer* avatars and trolls than SP but the management of FB is evil. SP elves are not. Well, except for that *one* . . . .

To post photos for the enjoyment of strangers, I'd recommend Flickr.

Outstanding idea! Think I'll OCCUPY Flickr.

As someone who mostly uses the site for non-technical information, and as a gateway to sharing in a passion for hiking, climbing and all things outdoors, I would support changes that made it a bit easier for others to add information, but only if page owners maintain control. As many have said, I put a lot of love into the few pages I have created, and would be put off if that was taken away. HOwever, I am open to suggestions from people about information, and would absolutely love to include some in my pages, because it´s impossible to be an aboslutel authority on something. That´s my two cents, though I am currently serving in Peace Corps El Salvador and won´t really have much internet access for the next year and a half (and therefore won´t be contributing a whole lot, though I have a few things in the works on my laptop...)

Thanks to those who make summitpost work! Best website online

Happy climbing. All those in the States, enjoy Fall for me...

stinkycheezman33 wrote:Happy climbing . . . . enjoy [a] Fall for me . . .

I might phrase that differently.

Bob Sihler wrote: People who post pictures for votes and comments could go post on Facebook and get people to like their stuff.

On facebook nobody likes my photos! I get lucky to get a like on a random lamer photo of mine, but then a friend of mine posts my photos and everyone is suddenly liking it. It would be a little bit sad to see the photo voting go away, but it's not a super big deal though. But then how would we go about sorting images on pages?

What? 20 pages? And no Darija involvement!

MoapaPk wrote:What? 20 pages? And no Darija involvement!

Fascinating - you also don't see the "Ogling Llama" posting anymore. Where is the world going to ???

Josh Lewis wrote:

Bob Sihler wrote: People who post pictures for votes and comments could go post on Facebook and get people to like their stuff.

On facebook nobody likes my photos!

I refuse to post on Facebook. If strangers want to see my face, they can IMAGINE how much I resemble THIS man ..

There are a lot of good ideas and suggestions here, and some bad ones as well. Let’s not modify the vote system to entrench what is bad about it already (having a +1/-1 or thumbs up/down vote that is the same as voting a ten or a one) and OMG there are enough thanks in this thread already… having power points for a thanks count is the worst suggestion I have ever heard!

Adjusting power points for edits, especially the number of characters in them, seems like another bad idea. I appreciate pages that are concise, and the most valuable edits are not the longest.

It is amazing to me that people are sitting here requesting features that SP already has, such as being able to see only technical routes or being able to categorize photos as beta photos and filter on them. Both of these are very accessible features already.

Some other things I picked up from the preceding posts:

1. This is not about taking over poor pages from INACTIVE members. The issue here is actually pages that need additional information and are held by ACTIVE members who may be slow or absent in improving them.

2. To those who say to leave SP the way it is… look at the Cloudripper page. It’s a very popular peak and the content is terrible. With the current process it just isn’t worth trying to update it. Users are worried about being seen as point grabbing or the annoyances of having to go through someone else who may ignore them just so they can help others. There is a better way, otherwise I would have added to the Cloudripper page already.

3. A good point by Redwic “I also would really hate for people to start whipping-out new Mountain/Rock pages with little/no information, and especially if those page owners have not even attempted the peaks in question, just expecting other people to "fill in the blanks".” mvs wrote of wiki-style “more people would step up … because they can rely on the community to fill in items that they lack.” I am not in favour of pages in progress, or owners being able to choose to fully open pages or sections they created, for the reasons Redwic stated here. I am not in favour of a wiki-opt in.

4. We need a mechanism so that users can have complete control over their pages, but if submitters are neglectful they can be bypassed. I view my pages as a complete work, trying to incorporate a variety of photos and approach options for example, and do not want others to have access. But something that allowed users’ edit to show if I did not review a potential addition should be reasonable. Brian Jenkins suggested 90 days for an approval, otherwise the edit would show without approval. I’d go for 45 days.

5. I don’t agree with a time limit or power score that affects other members’ ability to submit edits. The process could require owner approval to show an edit, unless it was ignored 45 days, then that should address the concern a minimum score was attempting to control. With a final section that showed current conditions/corrections that didn’t need owner approval, I would be as interested in what a user with no power points has to say as anyone else.

6. If a user edits a page, something that showed who contributed the content would be excellent. I’d like to know who wrote something if I am relying on it for information, so I can weigh it appropriately. To do this, it would need to be implemented in a way to avoid showing names for simple grammar corrections, etc… perhaps when the owner approved a revision they could check a box to not show the contributor (if it was a simple one) otherwise the default would be to show the name.

7. The goal should not be to have duplicate pages, or discussion lines on a page, or to use TRs to submit what should be on the main page. I like SP over sites that feature more of a TR format because I just want the details needed for the peak, on one page, without a lot of fluff. I never want to browse through a handful of pages to see what is best. TRs for content generally don’t get the job done anyway, or we wouldn’t be discussing this now.

8. Route pages are submitted far less often than mountain pages, so much so that many mountain pages include the route information on the main page. I see no reason to split them into technical or nontechnical (which you can already sort by), and that doesn’t really solve the issue here at all (knoback’s temper tantrum notwithstanding… and btw it wasn’t he who raised the issue of editing existing pages, rather I did to diverge his thread into something more constructive).

9. mvs wrote “nothing will change the way people vote...I don't think that even an addressable problem!” Well… that is a flat out asinine comment. The issue with the voting is how the scores are calculated, in that only 10s can raise a score. The way you address it is to change the scoring system. Completely addressable in every way.

10. Aldocious wrote “1. have the author of a trip report be able to moderate his/her comments. So in other words be able to delete any comment” well… that is another bad idea.

Fletch said it well here:

Fletch wrote:Im trying to save the site from itself. It's not a matter of "the site is going down hill." News flash, it's been going down hill for some time now. Quality is what I'm talking about. These statistics make my head spin...

I looked up the power score for all of the new members going back to 01/01/11. Since January 1st of this year, Summitpost has had 4,392 new members. This makes up ~12% of the total membership (36,148 total members). Of those 4,392 new members, only 24 of those currently have power scores in double digits (i.e. more than NINE). 24 out of 4,392 have contributed more than a profile pic. UNFREAKINGBELEIVEABLE. That equates to 0.546% of new members ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING. And of those 24, only 6 of them have a score above 50. Does anyone else see this? Six freaking members for all of 2011.

Why isn't the new membership contributing anything? Either they don't want to, can't figure it out, take no pride in it, or the existing pages are too protected by their precious owners that most folks say fuck it, let one of those 'old school' guys make a page?

I just think we need to spice it up a bit. Otherwise, the contributors will someday get fed up (as they have over the last few years - knoback, 1000pks, DMT, etc, etc, etc), leave, and the 'old school' will be left sharing butterfly pics with themselves and bitching about POTD...”

OK that’s all I wrote on my flight… I’ll clarify my suggestions on the train home, especially what I had pictured for the freely editable section at the end of pages (I’m going to take credit for my idea despite the possibility that may erode some support for it) since that is what folks seem to agree on most and I had a pretty complete picture of what folks might like there.