I think this whole power point/ rating bend the discussion is taking might be a little out of topic.

It's true points feed vanity, but it is also true that it is nice and useful to have feedback on contributions.
The whole problem with the points is the current voting system give real value to diffent votes and you will have great community feedback and dinamic interaction on the whole website.

That idea has always been seen as impossible to implement though... I can't understand why.

Baarb wrote:
Well, partly I agree but I can also see if one has created a page and it gets a bunch of low marks then one recognises that it's not something that people think much of and try to improve it.

Yeah, but this doesn't always work. Sometimes, the owner of the page has such a massive ego, that he/she makes NO improvements at all, despite the
low marks.

If the pages could be EDITED by a respected and trusted individual, then THAT would solve the problem of the page lacking the updated information.

And, some folks LOVE Power Points, but I have never completely understood WHY. Hey, just the Nature of the Human Beast.

mvs wrote:Now today, I'm arguing for a new way to contribute, that is by a combination of occasionally creating mountain/route pages, and by roving around editing and improving on public sections. It would be great if that is rewarded too.

I would be a bit more conservative on that one, and would prefer if editors of open pages would not receive any power point for their edits, for the following reasons:

1) It would be very difficult to define how an edit should be rewarded. Same reward for a new chapter or for simply correcting a typo?

2) Members obsessed with power points might be tempted to edit virtually everything... (and even with safeguards, they will easily find the loophole)

3) Members currently afraid of the possible novelty will certainly mention the above point as a reason why we should not go partly wiki...

4) Most members willing to contribute in a collaborative way by opening their own pages and improving other open pages are probably not much interested in power points, but more in quality and simply in helping to improve the site.

If a "reward" should be given, then maybe in terms of visibility by automatically mentioning the name of editors somewhere in the page and/or have a line with "number of edit" in you profile page (similar to your "number of posts" in the forum).

Perhaps I can tie power points back into the conversation. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I am not particularly interested in the opinions of folks who have joined recently and have made no contributions to the site. How they think Summitpost ought to be changed should carry no weight. How a contributor that has a lot of power points (from contributing pages and content rather than just pictures) think Summitpost can be improved, well, their opinion matters since they are the ones who have made the site what it is. The power points are part of what establishes a timocracy. Who do we know these newer members are here to stay? What have they invested into the site to make us think their opinion ought to matter? At this point there is nothing.

Do not construe this as coming out against new members or their participation. On the contrary, I encourage it, but I am just not inclined to take their suggestions seriously. Put differently, I encourage their contributions, not their whinging.

That being said, I think this thread has moved away from the OP, which is the question about how and to what degree or if at all pages should be opened up to public editing. Now it has moved into the "I think this aspect of Summitpost sucks" discussion. While I think that the site does need a significant overhaul (it has been more years between SP2 and SP1 than it was between SP1 and the launch of the site), I do not think one is immediately forthcoming. Ergo, we work within the means that we have to improve Summitpost. That means that those of us who can change how the site works do what they can and what the community thinks best and the rest of us should keep posting pages. Let's be grateful for what we do have on Summitpost, which is, for my money, the most comprehensive outdoor rec site on the internet.

Bruno wrote:

mvs wrote:Now today, I'm arguing for a new way to contribute, that is by a combination of occasionally creating mountain/route pages, and by roving around editing and improving on public sections. It would be great if that is rewarded too.

I would be a bit more conservative on that one, and would prefer if editors of open pages would not receive any power point for their edits, for the following reasons:

1) It would be very difficult to define how an edit should be rewarded. Same reward for a new chapter or for simply correcting a typo?

2) Members obsessed with power points might be tempted to edit virtually everything... (and even with safeguards, they will easily find the loophole)

3) Members currently afraid of the possible novelty will certainly mention the above point as a reason why we should not go partly wiki...

4) Most members willing to contribute in a collaborative way by opening their own pages and improving other open pages are probably not much interested in power points, but more in quality and simply in helping to improve the site.

If a "reward" should be given, then maybe in terms of visibility by automatically mentioning the name of editors somewhere in the page and/or have a line with "number of edit" in you profile page (similar to your "number of posts" in the forum).

I have not thought this one all the way through, but I think that it would be best, even in Summitpost's current configuration, if power points were apportioned by weight of contribution on any given page. For example, I own of Mark Doiron's aforementioned pages in which he has supplied a large quantity of great work (Charon's Garden Wilderness). I have always felt guilty for his not being rewarded for his effort. If we're to be split the points in proportion to our contributions, I think that would be much, much more equitable.

The game with the points may depend on the popularity of a man, if a person has many friends.

Sometimes a lonely queer fish is very busy on SP, but this member can get hardly points for his famous images.

Perhaps this is the solution: You look at points on SP as a welcome and a little recognition of your working, then one point is enough, and sometimes a kindly comment.

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down is good. And just to keep from changing too many things (as if we aren't already :p), the Up/Down votes need to map to a page score 0-100% just like before.

As for how to divy up points among the different editors of a page, what about keeping track of the # of changed characters per changeset per user, and portioning out points that way. In that case, Mark's Charon's Garden Wilderness page points would mostly go to him, and because Bubba Suess made just a handful of edits it would work out that he'd get 10%. Eventually, after Bubba made dozens of changes over a couple of years, his "changed character count" would be higher than Mark's, and the bulk of points would therefore shift over time to him (rewarding his efforts).

It's a lot of fun stuff, and really this is probably a separate, and equally interesting topic. I daresay it's a bit less divisive too, because seems like I've heard *everybody* complain about one aspect or another of the current voting/point systems.

All the best,
--Michael

ps - just saw Hiltrud's good comment. Indeed, roving gangs who upvote their stuff and downvote others could be an issue. Though we might already have this situation now too. I do know that there are people who, when they find an ignored gem, try to popularize it, and that is good.

mvs wrote:ps - just saw Hiltrud's good comment. Indeed, roving gangs who upvote their stuff and downvote others could be an issue. Though we might already have this situation now too. I do know that there are people who, when they find an ignored gem, try to popularize it, and that is good.

That will always be a problem in any form of community. But as with all things, who contributes for the sake of information, shared experience and for the fun of it, shouldn't mind the point hunters too much they are just part of how things go.

mvs wrote:Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down is good. And just to keep from changing too many things (as if we aren't already :p), the Up/Down votes need to map to a page score 0-100% just like before.

As for how to divy up points among the different editors of a page, what about keeping track of the # of changed characters per changeset per user, and portioning out points that way. In that case, Mark's Charon's Garden Wilderness page points would mostly go to him, and because Bubba Suess made just a handful of edits it would work out that he'd get 10%. Eventually, after Bubba made dozens of changes over a couple of years, his "changed character count" would be higher than Mark's, and the bulk of points would therefore shift over time to him (rewarding his efforts).

It's a lot of fun stuff, and really this is probably a separate, and equally interesting topic. I daresay it's a bit less divisive too, because seems like I've heard *everybody* complain about one aspect or another of the current voting/point systems.

All the best,
--Michael

ps - just saw Hiltrud's good comment. Indeed, roving gangs who upvote their stuff and downvote others could be an issue. Though we might already have this situation now too. I do know that there are people who, when they find an ignored gem, try to popularize it, and that is good.

I'm not so sure that rewarding people on quantity is a good idea. That will encourage point chasers to write pages and pages of mindess garbage which will not help to solve the quality issue. I think it is better to reward quality over quantity and that is only done by voting. The voting system isn't perfect; the scoring algorithm is terrible, people vote 10 on garbage pages, there are voting cliques, etc - but it is better than giving points based on quantity I think.

Of the options in the OP, I prefer:
* Adding an open section at the bottom of each beta page, between the last field and the image gallery, for edits and corrections. This would allow important updates to be more visible but allow page owners to maintain their vision of the page with minimal effort. This would probably be the easiest change to implement as well.

While I own no pages at the moment, I've created a fair share of them. It's a lot of work, especially if one wants it to be both accurate, very informative and good looking.
I've also created a wikipage. The way one loses control of a wikipage is irritating, especially when some bastard comes in every time you do something and changes it - even if that information is wrong. Too much hassle. Therefore the option of "a wiki with owner control" isn't the greatest either, it might take a lot of extra work, especially if we get trolls starting to mess with pages.

I see the need of letting others in, though. An open section would be quite sufficient, to reach that goal - which also can give an indication if ownership transistion is due, too.....

now I'm gonna read the other posts, maybe I change my mind, one never knows...
:-)

Alpinist wrote:

mvs wrote:...
As for how to divy up points among the different editors of a page, what about keeping track of the # of changed characters per changeset per user, and portioning out points that way. In that case, Mark's Charon's Garden Wilderness page points would mostly go to him, and because Bubba Suess made just a handful of edits it would work out that he'd get 10%. Eventually, after Bubba made dozens of changes over a couple of years, his "changed character count" would be higher than Mark's, and the bulk of points would therefore shift over time to him (rewarding his efforts).
...

I'm not so sure that rewarding people on quantity is a good idea. That will encourage point chasers to write pages and pages of mindess garbage which will not help to solve the quality issue. I think it is better to reward quality over quantity and that is only done by voting. The voting system isn't perfect; the scoring algorithm is terrible, people vote 10 on garbage pages, there are voting cliques, etc - but it is better than giving points based on quantity I think.

Actually you are right. I was ignoring voting (whether 1-10 or thumbs up/thumbs down) while I went off into geekland thinking about automatic systems. Thanks for the correction. Perhaps this calculation could result in a number that indicates page "effort" per author. Not something you vote on, but it would show over time who is doing the most to a page.

Bubba Suess wrote:

Bruno wrote:

mvs wrote:Now today, I'm arguing for a new way to contribute, that is by a combination of occasionally creating mountain/route pages, and by roving around editing and improving on public sections. It would be great if that is rewarded too.

I would be a bit more conservative on that one, and would prefer if editors of open pages would not receive any power point for their edits, for the following reasons:

1) It would be very difficult to define how an edit should be rewarded. Same reward for a new chapter or for simply correcting a typo?

2) Members obsessed with power points might be tempted to edit virtually everything... (and even with safeguards, they will easily find the loophole)

3) Members currently afraid of the possible novelty will certainly mention the above point as a reason why we should not go partly wiki...

4) Most members willing to contribute in a collaborative way by opening their own pages and improving other open pages are probably not much interested in power points, but more in quality and simply in helping to improve the site.

If a "reward" should be given, then maybe in terms of visibility by automatically mentioning the name of editors somewhere in the page and/or have a line with "number of edit" in you profile page (similar to your "number of posts" in the forum).

I have not thought this one all the way through, but I think that it would be best, even in Summitpost's current configuration, if power points were apportioned by weight of contribution on any given page. For example, I own of Mark Doiron's aforementioned pages in which he has supplied a large quantity of great work (Charon's Garden Wilderness). I have always felt guilty for his not being rewarded for his effort. If we're to be split the points in proportion to our contributions, I think that would be much, much more equitable.

Fully agree with your comment, for the current system. I actually adopted my second page here on summitpost from another contributor, and we are both mentioned under "Page by", although one is "admin" (the page creator) and one is "owner" (myself in that particular case, I just checked now). I had always assumed both were receiving the same number of points.

But if one day we would open some pages for public contribution (e.g. for members with power higher than 20, as initially suggested), then I would rather say that the editors should receive no power points.

We could imagine a system where 50% of the power point remains with the creator/owner (so that he can stay above the 20 points threshold), and the other 50% divided between the different contributors (e.g. in percentage of accepted edits), but you may have some folks who will simply add or remove a coma just to be listed as editors in order to collect power points... Really, I think, no power points for edits is preferable...

Anyway, that's rather a question of details... As long as there is no consensus on the main points, we can just dream about some significant improvements...

Josh Lewis wrote:Here's what helps me out. 1. Find a map generator that would produce a map as a .jpg 2. Take some pics on your trips which sometimes I take photos that I do not post just to remind me "there is a fork in the trail in 2 miles" or something like that.

With time recorded in photo files, this is also a good way to record time, whether it is hiking times, or times to climb a technical route.

PellucidWombat wrote:

Josh Lewis wrote:Here's what helps me out. 1. Find a map generator that would produce a map as a .jpg 2. Take some pics on your trips which sometimes I take photos that I do not post just to remind me "there is a fork in the trail in 2 miles" or something like that.

With time recorded in photo files, this is also a good way to record time, whether it is hiking times, or times to climb a technical route.

Don't forget the relatively new feature in SP for uploading GPS files, which I find very useful. (Sample.) I don't think points are currently awarded for GPS files and they certainly should be. I'd also like to see a "My GPS Files" section in the user profile page.

Whew, 18 pages is a lot to go through!

I am opposed to full wiki but optional wiki would be great as long as page authors get notified of the specific changes made vs just being told there was a change.

With regard to adding a section for additions/corrections, that would be fine too, except that there already is one and I haven't seen it get much use. Perhaps the real problem is in encouraging members to use it or whatever new system that might get adopted.

For the more noteworthy peaks though, as Bruno mentioned, it is cumbersome to sift through all the posts and I think this would happen with both the old and proposed new system. There is a fundamental problem of one size does not fit all. What is appropriate for Everest or Denali, may not be appropriate for some obscure local peak which might get at most one ascent per year if that.

With regards to taking over pages not up to par, as others have noted, there already is a 2 step procedure in place.

Step 1: Send a PM to author

If you don't like the results of step 1, then try

Step 2: Send a PM to the elves.

There are lots of people who are unhappy with unresponsive users, but I've never heard of anyone following through with step 2 and not being satisfied.

I think the above method works well and is flexible as the elves have a feel for the users and can handle things on a case by case basis.

However, I do think there is a problem with people not being aware of the above method. Perhaps it should be stated on the front page, prominently displayed in flashing red letters.

With regards to separating hiking and climbing routes I don't mind if this happens, but I don't see the point since they are already categorized by "Route Type" and "Rock Difficulty", but then again, I'm not a climber.

I don't see any of the proposals being bandied about as being of particular benefit to me though. There are 2 things I'd like to see.

1) a better plans and partners section
2) the ability to add a page and edit it before officially submitting it. Yes I'm aware that I can use a custom object and then cut and paste but I'd rather be spared the cutting and pasting part.