SummitPost.org

Oh, for crying out loud. We ALL deserve some comic relief, so I think I WILL post the pic ..

The punchline was, do you catch my DRIFT ???

Scott wrote:Personally, I try to add accurate information on a route, regardless of difficulty

And judging by the few pages of yours that I looked at, you're doing a pretty good job of it. I'd like to see more pages like yours and fewer like this one http://www.summitpost.org/kaskasapakte/151705 .

I haven't climbed Kaskasapakte, so I'm not allowed to own the page, but I'm familiar with the area and could provide some useful information on red tape, climbing season and getting there. I don't have any useful pictures of my own, but I do have friends who could probably supply some. I also noticed you have climate data in some of your pages; that too would be easy to add if we could just edit the page.

guhj wrote:

Scott wrote:Personally, I try to add accurate information on a route, regardless of difficulty

And judging by the few pages of yours that I looked at, you're doing a pretty good job of it. I'd like to see more pages like yours and fewer like this one http://www.summitpost.org/kaskasapakte/151705 .

I haven't climbed Kaskasapakte, so I'm not allowed to own the page, but I'm familiar with the area and could provide some useful information on red tape, climbing season and getting there. I don't have any useful pictures of my own, but I do have friends who could probably supply some. I also noticed you have climate data in some of your pages; that too would be easy to add if we could just edit the page.

You now have editing rights to that abandoned page. If you ever climb it, you can be the page owner. Go ahead and add that info you mentioned.

I'm taking a chance here; you're a new member without a track record. Show us that giving others access can work.

And if you mess up the page, it's bad enough already that deleting it will be no skin off SP's back.

Well done Bob!!!

PellucidWombat's comment about updating old pages got me thinking (always dangerous).

The solution for PW is to put up those pages for *sharing*. If he's left Utah, post a "For Sale" notice on the Utah board, and share ownership/editing with some Utahns whose pages he likes. Save a copy of his last version if he's a little worried.

Ditto for inactive users/pages. Instead of threats and deletions, the transitional state should be: new guy tries to contact old owner, gets nowhere, talks to elves. Elves add new guy as owner, archive last version of old guy's page. New guy makes it better. They both share the REI discount.

Problem: old guy rises from the dead, is pissed off that his intellectual property has been modified. Potentially a real issue, though really old guy's IP was just used as a resource for new guy just like any other web page. (Don't like it? Don't post on the internet.) Solution is to restore old guy's page, let new guy have a duplicate page, hold a Celebrity Death Match in the forums to pick a winner.

Unrelated: just reduce the power points from photos to 10% of what they are now.

I might be an idiot, but what the heck are these REI discounts??????

Am i missing something???
Is there actually COMPENSATION for contributing??????????

Bob Sihler wrote:Show us that giving others access can work.

It's 4 am here, so I'll get to it as soon as I've had some sleep.

Guhj, excellent example of a page that needs fixing. In the old days of SP, such pages were more acceptable, but luckily quality standards have improved.

Here's hoping that you will be able to climb the mountain and fix up the page.

Unrelated: just reduce the power points from photos to 10% of what they are now.

+1.

Hi everybody,
One problem is that some of us don't think in terms of power points at all, and others think about it a lot. That second group can't imagine anyone doing anything without power points at stake, and seeing the world through that lens, they mistrust or expect the worst from anything new that might allow "unfair" raises in power points. I've been amazed by the creativity of the scenarios mentioned. I can't refute them however. I am starting to think that in order to go forward with these ideas meaningfully, we'll also need to include rule changes on photo power points and other changes to voting to bring them more into line with what the strong page owners here want. If such a massive "give" to an alien point of view is to occur, then they'll need to have long-standing grievences addressed as well (I've seen the grumbling about power points and voting for years. Since I come from a different point of view, those aren't my concerns. I can't dismiss them though. Especially since I feel my point of view has been given an excellent hearing here).

Would it make sense to cap this thread and produce a summary statement of the ideas within, along with a (rough) measure of their support? We could then open a thread for other needed changes. Please continue discussing as needed, I have just noticed exasperation with the length of the thread. I think we've got strong opinions at the poles, and lots of creative ideas working between them. It's possible that more discussion would just be exhausting.

BTW, I also experience the bug with asynchronous forum reply cursor movement (AFRCM, to coin a phrase ). Could it have something to do with a refresh/reload of the toolbar at the bottom?

Thanks,
--Michael

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.

mvs wrote:Hi everybody,
One problem is that some of us don't think in terms of power points at all, and others think about it a lot. That second group can't imagine anyone doing anything without power points at stake, and seeing the world through that lens, they mistrust or expect the worst from anything new that might allow "unfair" raises in power points....

This brings up a good point that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread: As an editor or admin on a few pages, I don't receive any power points. No big deal. But, some of those pages I've put a great deal of effort into. Although my name does appear on the page sometimes (if I'm admin, but not if I'm an editor), the page does not appear on my user page unless I manually put it there (which at least a few of us have done in our description of ourselves). Maybe more folks would be willing to be a partner on a page if they actually received some credit. I won't lie, I enjoy seeing my power points rise. But, I always try my best to earn them. And don't let the fact that a given task earns none get in the way of doing that task well. But, as mvs says, not all folks are so magnanimous (sorry if that sounds like self-aggrandizement).

--mark d.

Along the lines of Mark Doiron's comment: why do any work if you aren't proud of it? So of course you want your name on it.

As for PowerPoints-TM: I think they're important for new members as validation: "Thanks, we appreciate your contribution, we value your presence in the community." After some point (50? 100?), they're not particularly motivating because people know your name and value you as such.

PS to gabr1: the REI discount is a long-standing joke -- the more points you have the bigger your discount. Alas, just a joke.

PPS to gabr1: keep an eye out for the other joke, which refers to "this idiot" or "this loser" with a hyperlink that sends each user back to his/her own home page.

PPS. There's another joke, we'll let it be a surprise but it's like the second one.

Good point Mark. I'm wondering about a less automatic Power Point system. I often use a programming website called StackOverflow, and there people earn points by the credibility of their answers to questions.

Part of our issue is that people contribute in lots of different ways here. Some people are almost exclusively forum creatures, and their posts have provided me lots of insight. I'd like to increase their power points if I could. Other people are all about mountains, routes, areas. I agree that is the mainstay of the site, and it seems that the point system rewards those contributors well. 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.

Instead of the 1-10 system, which no one seems to know what to do with nowadays, we switch to a "+1" and "-1" system. Not voting means "meh." Voting with a +1 button means, I like it! "-1" is for things like illegal activity, copyright violation, pissing off the Navahos, etc. Any more nuanced criticism can be dealt with in places like "Additions and Corrections," Forums, PMs, Elves, etc. Additionally, these +1/-1 buttons are scattered around. In forums, the "thanks" button can map to a +1 that affects your power points. In page comments, there is an icon next to each user allowing for +1.

I know a big problem is "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours." I think there are algorithms to look at a days voting pattern to find that. Egrigious violators get a -1 that nullifies the attempt to game the system.

Maybe I should have opened that can on a new thread...For the record, I basically vote this way now, using 1 and 10 as the -1 and +1 scores. I know that this style of voting is decried as problematic...

How about a variation on the -1/+1: Thumbs up/thumbs down? Then, that is reduced to one value for display on that page, say "73 thumbs up" for 79 thumbs up and 6 thumbs down.

--mark d.

MigTigman wrote:Why does a page or photo or whatever is presented need to have any sort of "Rating" or "Evaluation/Voting" process at all? Why can't people just post things and it be left as such. Post up a Route or Photo for all and anyone to look at, enjoy or utilize for information.

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. I think it's particularly important with photos on mountains which everyone goes to and wants to add their pictures to. It would make it very difficult finding the most useful or spectacular ones if one had to browse through hundreds of others. Ideally these would feature on the main page itself but that's often not the case for whatever reason.