Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 39 replies
  • Subscribers 574 subscribers
  • Views 1943 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Could points for Helpful and Likes be Driving Wrong Behaviors?

Sean_Miller

I often am happy to see my inbox summary showing a lot of messages available to read, but then I often get disappointed because the majority of them are folks marking "helpful" in discussions I was part of. 

The reason its disappointing is that it looks like they are nuking the entire discussion.  Every single person that commented is tagged with a like and helpful.  Even posts that are just saying "thanks for posting" are tagged as helpful or liked.  Total dilution of the purpose of the button.

 

At first, I thought - well that's super friendly.  Then I dug a little further and looked at profiles of the users doing the nuking and I saw that what is happening is they are scoring 10 points per click.

 

To me, this seems like the points rewards are driving the wrong behavior here.  A behavior that actually doesn't boost one's reputation in the real world - particularly, because it clutters my inbox with bogus helpful tags. Also, the person that took 3 hours to blog on something is getting less points than the guy nuking every comment as helpful.

 

So, my feedback is, do we really need to reward for clicking like or helpful?  When someone is helpful, I'm compelled to click it anyway without the expectation of getting rewarded.  I know they'll get points and its a good virtual way to express thanks.

 

Or, best yet, can I suppress the "helpful" notifications from my inbox?

 

-Sean

Parents

  • There are a few names that come to mind when it comes to Like/Helpful "bombing". It can be especially annoying when older threads suddenly seemingly get revived by a few liked/helpfuls for the sake of point collecting. There's probably a daily limit on those actions, but those who are point-hoarders will probably end up doing it consistently. Part of the reason is that unless you look at a thread in the inbox, the number of "helpfuls" is displayed, but the actual person that conferred the helpful rating is not, and I suspect some people might be hoping to hide their point-rigging behind this.

     

    In some senses, I would agree with your sentiment that it seems to be abused for point-gathering, but at the same point in time, it forms a game that results in people engaging with the forum in the sense that they come back to scroll through the threads to click the buttons. Whether they read the threads or not is another thing ... but the whole reputation centre was an engagement-driving feature, so I'm not sure how keen they would be to make changes. Perhaps as suggested by , it should not confer points to the person clicking helpful ... combined with stricter daily caps on points for helpfuls ...

     

    Other sites seem to do things a little differently - some call it "karma" but ultimately, you collect points from when others mark your posts helpful, which you can then dole out to other posts which you find helpful, starting with a limited budget of course. This perhaps inspires people to be a little more selective about handing out "helpfuls" only when it's genuinely deserved.

     

    - Gough

Reply

  • There are a few names that come to mind when it comes to Like/Helpful "bombing". It can be especially annoying when older threads suddenly seemingly get revived by a few liked/helpfuls for the sake of point collecting. There's probably a daily limit on those actions, but those who are point-hoarders will probably end up doing it consistently. Part of the reason is that unless you look at a thread in the inbox, the number of "helpfuls" is displayed, but the actual person that conferred the helpful rating is not, and I suspect some people might be hoping to hide their point-rigging behind this.

     

    In some senses, I would agree with your sentiment that it seems to be abused for point-gathering, but at the same point in time, it forms a game that results in people engaging with the forum in the sense that they come back to scroll through the threads to click the buttons. Whether they read the threads or not is another thing ... but the whole reputation centre was an engagement-driving feature, so I'm not sure how keen they would be to make changes. Perhaps as suggested by , it should not confer points to the person clicking helpful ... combined with stricter daily caps on points for helpfuls ...

     

    Other sites seem to do things a little differently - some call it "karma" but ultimately, you collect points from when others mark your posts helpful, which you can then dole out to other posts which you find helpful, starting with a limited budget of course. This perhaps inspires people to be a little more selective about handing out "helpfuls" only when it's genuinely deserved.

     

    - Gough

Children
  • in reply to Gough Lui

    I like the sound of the karma approach.

     

    I went to turn off my "following" and found it already off.  I don't get emails, just my online account inbox is what fills up with them.  Seems like 2 to 1 unfortunately.

     

    Otherwise, I like the reputation system of element14 - points for clicks versus contribution, I could do without, though.

  • in reply to Sean_Miller

    As far as I can tell, if you like/helpful a conversation you get all activity on that thread. I ignore all helpful remarks in my in box. I also use the activity in top right corner to see new items. Sorry if I like or mark a few occasional items that I am interested in. Find a theme that makes sense to you. The rest is extra's...

    My two cents worth,

    Clem