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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

  • The points system has issues with not reflecting effort or merit etc. which many of us have lamented on and proposed alternatives, but even with its downsides it is still a pretty positive aspect of the forum.

    I never used to click on "like" at all, and I don't on other forums.

    But on element14, I now click on a "like" a lot. I do this to encourage participation by indicating I appreciate the effort involved in making comments and participating.

    I definitely do not need more points and they don't lead to anything if I do get more points. I wouldn't change my behavior if clicking on "Like" resulted in 1 point, 10 points or no points. I might change if someone proved that clicking was detrimental to the forum.

    It takes effort to read all the comments and click on a lot of "Like" buttons and deal with tons of email notifications, but if it helps to keep participation levels up and keep the forum vibrant, I think it is worth the effort. I get a lot out of the forum.

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  • The points system has issues with not reflecting effort or merit etc. which many of us have lamented on and proposed alternatives, but even with its downsides it is still a pretty positive aspect of the forum.

    I never used to click on "like" at all, and I don't on other forums.

    But on element14, I now click on a "like" a lot. I do this to encourage participation by indicating I appreciate the effort involved in making comments and participating.

    I definitely do not need more points and they don't lead to anything if I do get more points. I wouldn't change my behavior if clicking on "Like" resulted in 1 point, 10 points or no points. I might change if someone proved that clicking was detrimental to the forum.

    It takes effort to read all the comments and click on a lot of "Like" buttons and deal with tons of email notifications, but if it helps to keep participation levels up and keep the forum vibrant, I think it is worth the effort. I get a lot out of the forum.

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