Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

 Bupulga     great  post    

 

 

Mike

Solid-

Thank you. I want you to know that your feedback has been great. The one thing I love about coming here is that people, in general, are very forward and helpful.

Mike-

Thank you also.

 

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jump! jump! jump!...didn`t it feel good!!!

I`ve just found this post and may be jumping on board here a bit late.

However, I`ve got to say what I think.

Up until a couple of days ago, I really didn`t have a need for a rating system. I`ve just found a young lady on here who helped me and I wanted to reward her by showing my support.

When I`m reading a post....if it interests me, I continue reading it. If it doesn`t, I go onto the next one. Plain and simple.  I don`t care to bash or set on a pedestal one person or another just because they`ve said something I may or may not agree with nor if I like how they say it. I feel it`s irrelevent to the purpose of the forums.

How about this? Have a little thing which has been suggested to where you can leave typed feedback for others but make sure it has only positive things to say about the person. Is this forum not here to help people with their issues and to bring up their spirits? I`ve just read an article concerning maintaining a winning attitude. One way to keep a winning attitude is surround yourself with winners. Sometimes when one person doesn`t get something from what another says, does not mean someone else won`t.

Then you have some who just love to debate regardless of topic, regardless of right and wrong, regardless of common sense. Maybe you guys need to do what I did on my forum once. I produced a War Room for people`s debates. It was the only place allowed on the forums someone could verbally attack someone else. So if you`ve got a beef, sound off in the War Room but let`s just get on with our lives outside.

Dan

eLance.com has a great rating system. Its sort of the same as ebay user ratings.

When you rate someone else, and click to see the details of their rating, it shows all of the ratings they have received as well as listing who left each rating. You can also click on any username to see what ratings they have left for others.  So you can check and see if someone is leaving lots of bad feedback for others. Also if someone posts a bad rating for you, you have the option to post a reply in your defense. It doesnt change your rating, but at least youcould explain things or state what the situation was from your point of view.

I *DO* think users should be rated - and not posts/forums. It is good to see who has continually provided useful information to others in many areas and not just having one good post.

Thanks for listening to us!

My experience has little to do with SuN as I am new here. I started using
public and private forums or mailing lists in 1982 so I have observed a
few things over the years.

1. When a score is being kept people game the system or otherwise focus
on the score. This is not bad if the score means something and is
consistently used. They say that you will improve what you measure. To
measure nothing is to produce more or less random outcome.

2. Measures can be subtle. Maybe you have a group of friends or
supporters. Hence the scoring can be something that is not very visible to
the new or casual user. On a mailing list where there is no scoring a
group become known as the wise folks you turn to for critical advice.
Until they post something the topic continues to be debated.

3. People should be rewarded or otherwise recognized for consistent
contribution. Some scoring systems give you points for showing up. If
strength comes from large numbers then you have to reward showing up.
Some let you accumulate points for having a good response to a question
or the best response to a question (Yahoo`s Answers has both).

The more social aspects of a forum maybe do not need scores. For topics
that are more advisory knowing who are the topic or domain experts as
measured by the community does have a lot of value.

4. If a scoring system has a way to show support for a response it is a
good idea that there be a mechanism for negative feedback. Not to attack
a person as much as balance out some incorrect votes. I have see
technical topics where a more naive user will provide a positive tick or
bump to the score when they see a response that sounds correct. Only
later does it come out that the response was actually completely wrong
and potentially harmful if taken as accurate. The Motley Fool allows
positive recommendations but there is no way to vote down a response.
They are trying to show a hot topic but the system has somewhat evolved
into a way of support a position with no real way to show how many do
not support the specific position posted.

5. Rewarding someone for attending for a long time is good. Anniversary,
milestones for number of posts and other ways to show continued
contribution. It does not have to be a score. Yahoo`s Answers and the
Motley Fool both have levels people reach after contributing X posts.

6. Running a successful business might include a lot of mistakes and
failures along the way. In that sense a scoring system is more about
contribution here than it is about a person`s business success. Everyone
gets scored everyday so is it any different to be scored here?

On a different level almost all of us are using money and other business
metrics to keep score. We talk about returns to the investor and other
forms of external rewards once specific goals are met. Having people
compete can be good for business if the rewards are aligned with the
direction of the venture. If we want to score or reward people here on SuN
then we need to have a sense of direction and why the scores matter.
Something the community buys into.

7. New people do benefit from knowing who the `regulars` are and from
knowing who the community judges as being worth of listening to. As the
topic range can be broad here it can be hard to see someone scored
highly for their finance contributions posting advice on programming.
Very few people are going to be good at a lot of things. Still it helps to
know who the more seasoned folks are. If someone has a high score they
tend to know when to say that they are addressing a topic they are an
expert in vs. a topic where they are completely naive.

All the normal commentary about the above being only my opinion...