Could points for Helpful and Likes be Driving Wrong Behaviors?

Hello member of the same name spelling.

I am one of the people that score very low on using the Helpful or Like buttons provided in posts. I am not a social media participants therefore I think I lack the conditioning. I did discover the points anomaly you pointed out and thought, I could pad my scoring with that feature. It appears that goal didn't motivate me in the end.

I have thought, I need to make more of an effort to participate in the click ritual, if I hope to improve my selection for some Element14 activity that requires an application that looks at activity. Again this didn't motivate me to click.

I am a frequent visitors to the site. I read lots of posts and make comments when the urge strikes me. It seems I have developed a routine that spariingly doles out clicks..

I take my dog for a walks and it pees on everything. The animal must have a bladder the size of a football in order to have the capacity to leave the number of marks it does. I on the other hand have a very small click bladder it appears. The anomaly has the potential to be abused. I hope to never have the reputational score earned by having marked posts with clicks as much as my dog marks fence posts.

Sean

After your dog marks each time, be sure to text anyone that ever drove on that street that he did it  :-)

Joking aside, after reading all the posts, I realize the biggest negative behavior it drives is folks turning off following.  Perhaps just this thread will calibrate the forum use of the feature back to its original purpose and it’ll line out.

Sean ya,

other Sean

After your dog marks each time, be sure to text anyone that ever drove on that street that he did it  :-)

Joking aside, after reading all the posts, I realize the biggest negative behavior it drives is folks turning off following.  Perhaps just this thread will calibrate the forum use of the feature back to its original purpose and it’ll line out.

Sean ya,

other Sean

I like the helpful button, don't get me wrong - whenever anyone sees a post that was helpful, they should click it.  The person will appreciate it.

I'm referring to the action of marking every comment down the line as helpful.  One example over the weekend was a reply that effectively said "I don't know" in as few words and it was marked helpful along with 4 other comments.  It led me to dig deeper to see what was motivating it.  Having assumed there would never be a reward for just clicking, I clicked reputation and there was the howdy-do.  Points and points and points from clicks.  Maybe its just the shock of it after this many years not knowing.

I agree and find that it's just a handful of folks in this category, at least that run in my circle.

One other thought, for me - actually, I did enjoy seeing my points and level climb even though it doesn't get me anything.  I thought it was a measure of my content and participation in the badge system - and, in turn, a reflection of my mojo.  I now know - points and level just reflect my engagement on the web site - nothing more without running some serious reports.

Regardless, I do find e14 a great and helpful forum, just wish I could suppress the helpful from logging to my inbox.

See ya',

Sean

Now I'm getting sensitive to the fact that maybe I should _not_ click Helpful...

Just carry on exactly as you have been. Everyone is different. There are no set rules for when members should be using like or helpful, so we have all created our own idea of when they should be used - some are probably just more generous than others.

Hi Shabaz,

I too, like to have the convenience of the like button and the helpful button as it is the only way I can indicate that i have read and understood the posting of another member. If I feel that the information posted has provided helpful information to me or to the author of the original posting I will also click the helpful. Since the points award is equal for all members I have stopped worrying about the points that i may accumulate for just clicking. The purpose is to support the people that are doing a good job participating. As far as whether some members may be focused on some other objective like being the guy with the most points or gaming the system I feel that it is best to just ignore this activity. Even if I notice some one who appears to be clicking for points it is probable that I have misinterpreted their motivations The other thing I like to do when I see someone with clear thought and good posts is to request to follow that person. It is another way to complement them on their competence and participation. As far as the times I have seen that someone has liked or found helpful their own post I have to laugh as I remember my panic when I accidentally clicked my own posting. How humiliating. Fortunately I think I was the only one who noticed my mistake. I always feel that these self "likes" and self "helpfuls" are either an accident or a misunderstanding of how the system works. In any case the best approach is to give the  other person the benefit of the doubt.

Learning new things and new environments always results in embarrassing mistakes. When I was learning a foreign language I had an occasion where I was talking to a room of Catholic Nuns in a foreign country. It was my intention to tell the Nuns that I found the people in general of the country very charming. Unfortunately my choice of an "a" at the end of a word instead of an "o" said that I found the Women of the country charming. At moment I did not catch my mistake but I did immediately learn that Nuns know how to snicker.

John

Sean_Miller  wrote:

 

 

Joking aside, after reading all the posts, I realize the biggest negative behavior it drives is folks turning off following.  Perhaps just this thread will calibrate the forum use of the feature back to its original purpose and it’ll line out.

 

Hi Sean,

I don't get this. What are you saying, that people are not using it as intended?

I think it's just a tiny fraction of users that might click a lot.

Now I'm getting sensitive to the fact that maybe I should _not_ click Helpful...

Your title to this post suggests people have 'wrong' behavior.. but surely the majority of people _are_ using the Like button correctly, i.e. when they find stuff (subjectively I know) helpful to them?

I can't recall seeing it used wrongly for a very long time.. occasionally there might be some user but they don't tend to stay long after they've discovered it is a useless endeavour to do it purely for points and for no other reason.