Stardock Forum Update - 4/29/08
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 by Zoomba | Discussion: Internet
As you've probably already noticed, we put out an update to the central Stardock Forum system today that comes packed with fixes, plus a handful of very useful new features. Instead of letting you guess randomly at what's new and how it works, I thought I'd give everyone a quick run-down of the new features.
- Forum Announcements
- Return of the Report Button
- Go to Top of Thread Button
- The New Karma System
Forum Announcements
In the past, we've been unable to let everyone know when there's a major bit of system maintenance coming up. If it was important enough, we'd run around to all the sites and make a front page news posting about it and hoped that people would see it.
Now, we can set a broadcast message that appears at the top of ALL forum pages. We can set these on a site-by-site basis.
Clicking on the Read More link will open a message with further details (if available).
Beyond the announcements, you'll notice a bunch of new buttons on forum comments...
Return to Top Button
Every comment has this little arrow now. Clicking it will return you to the top of the page.
Report Post
The report post feature returns. It is limited to logged in users only, and you must provide a detailed reason for the report. We'll know if you're spamming it, and we will hurt you if you do!
Give Karma
This is a completely new feature for the forums. In the past, we had the "Insightful" and "Informative" buttons, but in actuality, they didn't do anything (rather, they had once long ago, but not in the last 2+ years). So with the new forums we decided to add a real karma system. Now, you can give comments a rating if you found them particularly good or helpful.
Karma Points are shown under your user picture on the left of your posts along with your user number and online status.
See that little number? You can click on it to see a report on when you received karma, on which posts, and why people gave you the rating.
As you receive more points, the list will grow. You'll see your overall stats at the top with score and number of ratings received.
It's important to note that there is no way to rate someone DOWN. You can only give kudos to folks so it's a 100% positive system.
Here are the limitations on giving karma:
- The number of points you can assign is limited by your access level. Citizens can give +1, Apprentices +2 etc.
- You can rate the same person no faster than once every 10 minutes. Want to give Jafo a +1? See another post of his you want to give a +1? You have to wait 10min between ratings.
- You must provide a reason for your rating. It will be recorded on the reporting page. We also keep track on the back-end who gives what comments so we will find you if you're mean.
The points themselves don't DO anything yet, but there are ideas being kicked around on what we can do with these points. For now, it's a nice way to recognize people for their contributions on the forums.
So those are the major updates for the forums for April. If you have any questions, let us know!
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Reply #42 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 6:39 PM
Reply #43 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 6:42 PM
Where does that mention popularity? Anyone can vote.Maybe being helpful to others isn't your thing, but why hold it against those who are? Give the system a try at least.If it goes haywire, it can be fixed or forgotten.
I conform for no one I choose not to.'Nuff said
Reply #44 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 6:46 PM
Yep, I'm sure that Stardock would see increased revenue as Good Karma.
Reply #45 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:00 PM
While there are ideas floating around, there are no details on them yet. If we do take the karma points and do something with them, you can bet there will be controls put in place. Think of this as Phase 1.
Phase 2 could have a way of averaging out points to prevent abuses.
Example that was kicked around in a discussion in the office the other day :
Points awarded over the last 30 days divided by some number based on number of posts made.
This means you have to be a recent poster to keep your score. If you leave the site for more than a month, your score basically could be reset. This rewards ongoing participation.
Then there's the division by some number derived from the number of posts you made in the 30 day period. This, to some extent, would encourage people to focus more on meaningful posts beyond "me too!" all over the place. It wouldn't be a division purely by number of posts as that would actually discourage participation as it decreased the score, but it would be some small value that would try and balance out people who would just try to spam the forums for points from friends.
This is of course a massive over-simplification of the idea, but it serves as an example of the sort of things that can be done to counteract any attempts at spamming points.
And of course we could limit you to rating the same person up no more than once per day. We could also slowly devalue the karma points awarded based on how often you rate that person up versus other people. Like if you only rate 3 people all the time, eventually the points you give them become virtually worthless.
I personally see the future of the Karma Points system as a way to identify exceptionally helpful, friendly or interesting people in the forums, and somehow highlight them to the rest of the community. Would a good score give people special forum powers or privledges? No. We will always tightly control who can do any administrative action. Would it maybe give them a pretty "Community Helper" badge under their name? Maybe. Would it give them software for free, t-shirts, or anything of monetary value? Almost definitely not.
The act of recognizing an individual for making a positive contribution does not necessarily encourage conformity. Its not like having 1000 karma points will ever give you something super-special that the guy with 10 karma points doen't get. It's not like withholding a point can be used to punish someone. My saying "I like X" does not in any way devalue "Y" It doesn't punish "Y" for being different from "X"
Reply #46 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:00 PM
Reply #47 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:02 PM
Personally I give my Karma to people who I feel add something different, new, and innovative to the mix.
So, no. You're kinda wrong.
Reply #48 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:05 PM
Wow. You've succeeded only in taking this fun little activity to a stellar level of ridiculous. Why the 'sky is falling' attitude?
IT AINT THAT DEEP
Reply #49 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:20 PM
Ah Zubaz, have you checked your number?
Reply #50 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:27 PM
Reply #51 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:43 PM
CrapCrapCrapCrap,
Reply #52 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:50 PM
Crao.
CrapCrapCrapCrap,
Reply #53 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:05 PM
Same here. Guess some bugs still exist. Oh well, it is an adventure!
Reply #54 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:13 PM
kwyjibo , as far as the Wincustomize site admins are concerned there are only two types of members....those who abide by the site's rules of conduct and those who do not, and the latter are shown the door....in a timely fashion.
The new 'Karma' system has no bearing on that.
What it can represent, however is a public community's reflection on the 'worth' of their input....aka positive, helpful advice, etc. If, at some future time it's deemed to warrant some form of reward for 'services rendered' then it's much akin to the User Levels already in place.
At this stage it's a 'fun feature' [that Zubaz seems to be cheating in....how the heck do you get Karma when you can't even spell the word the same twice in a row? ... ] Let's see how it all goes....
Reply #55 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:44 PM
I love giving Karma...to people with talent, to people who are funny, insightful, etc.
Reply #56 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:57 PM
Reply #57 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:01 PM
Reply #58 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 11:11 PM
Jafo wonders what Zubaz's name really is.....'cos it's bound to be a typo in itself.....
Jafo needs no help to 'look bad' ..... he was born this way....
Reply #59 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 11:27 PM
...ain't that the truth......
Reply #60 Thursday, May 1, 2008 2:49 AM
Fuzzy thinks Zubaz aught to be well ahead by now...
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Reply #41 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 6:28 PM
You could also say that about the ratings system in the gallery library on skins, and downloads on skins. There are probably other ways that cliques can form here, I just can't think of any right now.
The key I think is that there is enough integrity here amongst the members, WC and Stardock staff for that not to happen.
Now folks will always feel that because something didn't go their way or they don't appear on some list that a cligue has kept them out.
My personal opinion is that it is perception versus reality. I could be totally wrong and people are just laughing at this reply right now, but I don't think so.