SummitPost.org

chugach mtn boy that is actually the first time I have ever quoted that list of what the votes mean. Also the driver her could be to increase the vote weight of those who are looking at and thinking about the page, rather than change the behaviors of those that are being polite (I think that is what you were describing?)

And...

1. I grew up far closer to where you grew up than you realize
2. You live further west than me.

mrchad9 wrote:Also the driver her could be to increase the vote weight of those who are looking at and thinking about the page, rather than change the behaviors of those that are being polite

Two benefits of Chad's idea:
1. It rewards folks for using the voting system how it is intended.
2. The folks who put more consideration into their votes are more likely to be boosting/ un-boosting the page in the right direction of where it should rank.

@ chugach mtn boy: That was a fun story, I got a laugh out of it. Well written.

I want to be clear about something... this was not my idea at all... even though I do appear to be defending it. Scott suggested the idea to me and I thought it sounded interesting. I hadn't made up an opinion one way or the other but currently I don't see a lot of problems with it and I do see some benefits.

mrchad9 wrote:1. I grew up far closer to where you grew up than you realize
2. You live further west than me.

Yes, I am also a fallen southerner (or a risen one).

It's not really about being polite, just how people are comfortable acting. When I do an 8 or a 9 vote (and I've done some), it feels a little arrogant.

I don't really care if you create some system for multiplying the votes of the "honest" graders and weakening the votes of the high graders. I'm kind of idly curious how that would play out--if people who vote 8's become relatively more powerful, then their 8 votes will pull scores up more ... kind of like if they were weaker but voted 10 in the first place? But if you make that tweak to the system, it should be an end in itself. If you're expecting that it will change voting practices across the site, I think you're just deluding yourself, and your and Josh's talents would be better used on a different kind of engineering. Just my .02

I follow that. And no I haven't thought of the exact mechanism. There are several possibilities I can easily think of. But I'm not going to bother until it is decided if the concept is a good one.

Maybe if I can make it so 60% Bob's votes are randomly treated as a 7 or an 8 then everyone wins?

Maybe not.

We should corroborate with Jane Goodall, creating a "geek team" of monkeys that will do all the voting for us ... would be cheaper than a shiny robot ...



And, if one of those monkeys "down-voted" too often, all you'd have to do is Spank the Monkey ..

lcarreau wrote:And, if one of those monkeys "down-voted" too often, all you'd have to do is Spank the Monkey ..

It should be a percentage rather than a quantity. Otherwise us folks who down vote horrible pages would be penalized.

Josh Lewis wrote:

Marmaduke wrote:In fact I might go to Chad's pages and give him a bunch of 8's or maybe even 7's

Feel free to do that on my pages too.

Only 10's.

chugach mtn boy wrote: Let's say I go to Bob Sihler's for dinner. Bob throws some huge steaks on the grill that must have cost a fortune, but he leaves them on a little too long and they get a little dry. Meanwhile, the missus whips up some potato salad that's really pretty good. It would probably be between "Great Work" and "Amazing" on the scale Chad loves to quote. "Susie," I say, "This potato salad is out of this world." Now, I could say something to Bob about the steaks but I'll probably just talk about other stuff, unless he asks me directly. Bob goes for the Glenlivet. It's going to be a good night.

Wouldn't happen that way. For starters, I cook my steaks just past raw, so you'd never have to worry about them being dry. The missus knows I detest potato salad since I detest mayonnaise, so she'd be more likely to saute some broccolini. We'd also probably have cold steamed shrimp with some eye-watering cocktail sauce. And I like MacAllan.

So it's going to be a very good night.

Chad likes Scotch, too. Poor Josh-- has to have soda.

This might just be a regional thing.

Speaking of regional things, and this is related to what Surgent wrote, the system as desired makes it hard for people to vote 10 on the "boring" peaks. I think Chugach's NC pages are every bit as good and useful as the Shasta page, but there's far more to work with when you're dealing with a peak like Shasta, and it's far easier to make a stunning-looking page. For a lot of Eastern peaks, there just isn't that much to say and there isn't that much one can do in terms of pretty pictures, so to many people, such pages may look like a 7 or an 8 when in reality the writer did an outstanding job with the material at hand.

mrchad9 wrote:Bob it sounds like you are cognizant of the recent changes but are simply choosing to disregard them? If you are having trouble choosing between a 7 and 8 but then give a page a 10 instead then perhaps this suggestion in the OP will help you make up your mind more easily between the options.

Your explanations are leading me to believe this is a better idea than I had originally believed.

I have my standards for what an excellent page is. They are very different from, say, Josh's.

The current 7-10 thing as defined simply does not work for me in all but a few cases. To me, there is no such thing as "The best. Ever." That's just silly, I think. And "Wow! Amazing"? Come on. I don't feel that way when I read pages. "Excellent" is tops for me, and I see many pages that are excellent in their own ways. But "Excellent" isn't even there. I guess it's supposed to be "Great Work" or "Wow! Amazing."

And I always try to keep in mind what the person is working with and judge the effort in respect to that.

The idea proposed in the opening post would only lead me to curtail my voting, not change it. The second idea you floated, the one I said I liked better and which Josh liked as well, is something I would try.

I thought about Grinnell more and gave it an 8, as you did. Reason: excellent writing but only three pictures, and none displayed on the main page. Two of the images are virtually duplicates. Add a few more pictures and insert some into the display to make the page come alive a little more, and I would go to 10.

As I said, I think it's better just to give this time.

If there's really some tweaking to be considered, then I suggest it would be far more beneficial to address the issue of popularity vs. quality. I am in the camp of those who believe the scoring system discriminates in favor of the popular peaks, and in a system where the best stuff supposedly rises to the top, some very excellent material does not while in some cases mediocre material does.

Let's take two excellent pages as an example so no feelings get hurt: Bubba's Shasta page and Scott's Outlaw Peak page.

http://www.summitpost.org/mount-shasta/150188

http://www.summitpost.org/outlaw-peak/225744

Shasta: 332,672 hits and 232 votes

Outlaw: 11,690 hits and 73 votes

Outlaw Peak gets far more votes relative to hits than Shasta does (app. 0.006% of hits vs. app. 0.0007%), yet Shasta has the higher score. One could even argue that, based on hits vs. votes, Outlaw Peak is the better page.

No offense to Bubba, who has worked hard on that page and done an outstanding job, but I think Outlaw Peak is a far more valuable addition to SP than Shasta is. If you want to find information on Outlaw Peak elsewhere, good luck.

And there are lots of pages like Outlaw Peak out there. Scott's page having as high a score as it does probably has a lot to do with the fact that he is a high-profile member, the page was featured, and he has a trip report and article attached that were featured as well. It's an excellent page regardless but does have those other factors going for it.

This, in my opinion, is an issue that is far more important to address than whether enough people are using 7-9 when they vote.

I want to be clear about something... this was not my idea at all... even though I do appear to be defending it. Scott suggested the idea to me and I thought it sounded interesting. I hadn't made up an opinion one way or the other but currently I don't see a lot of problems with it and I do see some benefits.

Yes, it's true. The reason I threw around the idea (which may or may not be practical) was that when people vote 10/10 on everything, it kind of makes the voting system pointless from a quality control standpoint.

I won't feel bad about pointing a few pages out on public only because the members are inactive, but here is one I brought up on another thread which had all 10's before it was pointed out (some votes of which were just changed or removed).

http://www.summitpost.org/avenue-twin-peaks/389599

In fact, the Getting There section for the page above just says to look at someone else's page.

There are many other weak pages on SP, but most are voted all 10's (another random example from an inactive member):

http://www.summitpost.org/hachita-peak/155241

I guess that it (the voting) is not that important, because (to me) sharing (hopefully accurate) information is the most important part of SP. Voting (at least in my eyes) is supposed to provide quality control and to indicate that pages that need work rather than to make someone feel good (though you you still have to be fair, encouraging, and give everyone a chance), "win", or whatever. Voting 10/10 on everything is kind of pointless from a quality control standpoint, which is why I made the suggestion (which may not be practical or work). By saying this though, I don't mean to offend anyone or accuse those who vote 10/10 on everything, but sometimes wonder why it is done even on completely blank pages (which the elves delete). Rather than 10/10 on them, in my opinion, it's better to give the page owner constructive criticism on how to make the page better. You might be surprised that some people even listen to constructive criticism and make improvements. This is better (in my opinion) than just mindlessly voting 10/10 on everything.

Personally, I miss the old 4 star system since it's much easier to distinguish between a 3 and a 4 page than a 8 vs 9 page. It sounds like the 10/10 system is here to stay though.

Anyway, for my own personal viewpoint, I don't think I care what the voting system is as long as it provides quality control and doesn't give bias to popular/crowded mountains (which is what Bob is pointing out). Unfortunately, coming up with such a system is probably very difficult.

I agree with much of your post above Scott.

To me is it is also much more important that the 'crowded' peaks, those that get a lot of hits, have the best and most accurate information since there are so many people utilizing them. If that objective is met then how many votes they get is of secondary importance.

Well guys, just to talk about downvoting, can i vote 1/10 the POTD of today? Pic is nice, "la chica es bonita", but the description on the user page is quite wrong...this is not Cordillera Blanca! I think the user has quite seen Cordillera Blanca only on a postcard!



http://www.summitpost.org/users/angel-robledo/104181

As someone who uses SP mostly for route information, can I just say that all the preoccupation with voting and page scores seems a little over the top? I've been using this site for years and when I look up a mountain (for information/pics), only one page is available. So it doesn't matter to me what that mountain's score is and I rarely even notice it. I can't (for example) choose between a Shasta page rated 98% versus a different Shasta page rated only 72%. I get the one Shasta page and take the info available and read all the relevant trip reports. Any info available is going to be cross-checked against maps and guidebooks and other sources anyway. I'm usually looking for pics and personal experiences with the route in question.

Anyway, my point is that the voting and page scores are really just nice incentives for the people who make the pages. Anyone who makes a page is going to appreciate some feedback and enjoy knowing their efforts didn't go unnoticed. But to someone simply looking for information about a mountain, the score and the number of votes don't make much difference. So I can't see why micromanaging the votes with ever more complicated algorithmns is really that important? Why not spend the time adding useful features to the site?

To me is it is also much more important that the 'crowded' peaks, those that get a lot of hits, have the best and most accurate information since there are so many people utilizing them.

Yes, Chad, though we agree on much, I think that is an important area where we don’t necessarily do so. To me, having accurate information is equally important on a well know vs. little known peak and in some cases even more important on the lesser known peak.

For example, if someone botches the (hypothetically; the current page on this mountain is great) page on Mount Whitney, there are many other sources to check, verify and use as a resource.

If a description is botched on a page that is only on SP or has very few other sources, there is no other way to check the information until you do the climb (which is why it is important to be accurate).

I could use my own page that I maintain as an example:

http://www.summitpost.org/temple-mountain/613272

While a prominent landmark, (as far as I know) this page is the only detailed source on Temple Mountain that exists. Unfortunately, part of the information was not correct.

Read the summit logs and comments:

http://www.summitpost.org/temple-mounta ... log/613272

http://www.summitpost.org/temple-mounta ... nts/613272

Because SP was the only place to get the information and because there was an error, it resulted in people underestimating the peak (including Matt Lemke and Josh Lewis whom attempted the climb and are posting in these threads).

When the first person posted the error, I just thought his comfort level was different, but more people started making comments (I should have kept all the corrections; I deleted some) and I adjusted the page.

Very recently I learned that the route had changed and a ledge had fallen away; making the climb much more difficult than in years past.

Given no errors were intentional, but I think it does demonstrate the importance of accurate information on pages for lesser known peaks, and especially on ones where there are few or no other sources to check. Of course, if a peak is a walk up on all sides, it doesn’t matter as much, but on peaks with technical or complicated routes, it is very important.

Anyway, my point is that the voting and page scores are really just nice incentives for the people who make the pages.

Yes, that's what it usually comes down to, but as said above, voting (to me) is supposed to provide quality control and to indicate that pages that need work rather than to make someone feel good.

In the end though, I agree voting is of secondary importance.

ywardhorner wrote:As someone who uses SP mostly for route information, can I just say that all the preoccupation with voting and page scores seems a little over the top? I've been using this site for years and when I look up a mountain (for information/pics), only one page is available. So it doesn't matter to me what that mountain's score is and I rarely even notice it. I can't (for example) choose between a Shasta page rated 98% versus a different Shasta page rated only 72%. I get the one Shasta page and take the info available and read all the relevant trip reports. Any info available is going to be cross-checked against maps and guidebooks and other sources anyway. I'm usually looking for pics and personal experiences with the route in question.

Anyway, my point is that the voting and page scores are really just nice incentives for the people who make the pages. Anyone who makes a page is going to appreciate some feedback and enjoy knowing their efforts didn't go unnoticed. But to someone simply looking for information about a mountain, the score and the number of votes don't make much difference. So I can't see why micromanaging the votes with ever more complicated algorithmns is really that important? Why not spend the time adding useful features to the site?

Nice post ywardhorner. I tend to agree. Matt is working on some new features now that I think will be nice additions to those we've put in place recently. Hopefully we will see some of them soon!