Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 39 replies
  • Subscribers 574 subscribers
  • Views 1945 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

  • I agree. I don't see why you should get 15 points for clicking  "helpful", or 5 points for clicking "like" on someone else's post. Perhaps you need to get something as an incentive to support them, but I'm not totally sure about that. The only person who should definitely get points is the person who wrote the post.

     

    I also think that only getting 5 points for posting a reply often does not reflect the amount of work involved in composing the reply.

     

    Similarly (and I have said this before in another thread!) !5 points for a blog post frequently does not reflect the effort involved; however, a significant increase in this "reward" could easily lead to gamification by some unscrupulous members posting 1 line blogs!

     

    Neil

  • in reply to neilk

    Yes, I think I have more points than I should have.  I've learned a lot on this site, and appreciate all the information provided by others.  When I learn something, I click Like or Helpful to reward the writers, give them the points they deserve, not to build up my total.  The effort put into a detailed blog, or project14, or a road test deserves a lot more than general discussions.

Reply
  • in reply to neilk

    Yes, I think I have more points than I should have.  I've learned a lot on this site, and appreciate all the information provided by others.  When I learn something, I click Like or Helpful to reward the writers, give them the points they deserve, not to build up my total.  The effort put into a detailed blog, or project14, or a road test deserves a lot more than general discussions.

Children