Feedback scores

Each member, workspace, discussion, comment and group on ned.com has a feedback score associated with it. You can change the feedback score of anything on ned.com by assigning it points from your feedback bank.

In general:

• By giving positive feedback, members can "bubble up" items of interest to the rest of the community.
• Conversely, by giving negative feedback, members can reduce the prominence of things on ned.com.

• If the feedback score of a topic, comment or workspace turns significantly negative (is much less than zero), the item runs the risk of becoming suppressed (still available but requiring an extra click to access) to anyone on ned.com.
• If the feedback score of a member is pushed significantly lower than zero, that member will lose privileges on ned.com

Anywhere you see a "+|-" link, you can give feedback by clicking on the appropriate link (either "+" for positive or "-" for negative) to give feedback.

Feedback bank

When you join ned.com, you start with a feedback bank of 10 points. Your feedback bank can be given away, one point at a time, as either positive feedback or negative feedback to any member, workspace, comment or discussion.

As you use ned.com, your feedback bank will increase, based on how you use ned.com, and what you do. You basically get more "credit" in your feedback bank the more you contribute. If you simply "lurk," which means you don't ever post a comment or start a discussion, etc., your feedback bank will grow far more slowly. If you are an active discussion participant, and you contribute to a group's workspace, your feedback bank will grow more quickly. In fact, even the act of giving feedback will help your feedback bank grow. If someone gives you positive feedback, your score will increase by one and your feedback bank will increase by one-half.

There are also some things on ned.com that will cost you points from your feedback bank besides just giving them to people or objects.

• creating a new group on omidyar.net costs 10 points
• sponsoring a new group on omidyar.net costs 5 points
• creating a new discussion on omidyar.net costs 1 point
• creating a new poll on omidyar.net costs 1 point
• creating a workspace or adding a comment to an existing discussion are FREE
• voting in a poll can cost points depending on how the poll was set-up. Check the poll settings before voting.

The size of each members' feedback bank is displayed on their profile for anyone to see. On the profile, the first line of information below the member's name includes the member's feedback bank size.

You can check the size of your own feedback bank at any time by looking at your name in the green bar at the top of any page. The size of your feedback bank appears in the parentheses to the right of your feedback score.

Here's how it reads: your name (feedback score/feedback bank)

Giving feedback to people

To give positive feedback or negative feedback to a person, click on their feedback score and you'll be linked to a "Give Feedback to User" screen. This screen will be accessible by either clicking on the user's feedback score where it appears next to their name, or by clicking on the new "feedback" link that appears on their profile page.

On the "Give Feedback to User" page you choose what type of feedback you wish to send (positive or negative), how much (up to three + points at a time) as well as choose to send an optional message to the feedback recipient.

Furthermore, you can choose for this message to be sent anonymously or attributed to you (it arrives in the recipient's box just like any other Private Message here on ned.com). If you choose to send the message anonymously by checking the appropriate checkbox, the message will arrive in the recipient's box as coming from "Administrative User."

You can also give feedback to a person who originated a discussion by selecting the appropriate radio button at the end of the discussion and then clicking SAVE.

Reading a user's feedback score

The feedback score is the number, in parentheses, that immediately follows a person's name. This number is the feedback score received by everyone on omidyar.net: all the positive feedback minus the negative feedback. Click this score to learn more about how a member got it. By clicking the score you will be taken to a page on which you can leave feedback for the member. At the top of this page you'll see something like this:

If the number of people under positive or negative feedback is a link, you can click it to see who has left feedback for that member.

The first line of the profile, under the person's name, shows how much positive feedback they've received, how much negative feedback they've received, and how big their feedback bank is (how much they can give away).

Notice these are net scores.

If a user has a higher feedback score than the total number of people who have given them feedback, it means that one (or more) people have given the user more than one feedback point.

If a user has a negative number in their negative column, it means that someone has given them negative feedback (and if any one person has given five or more negative feedback points, their name will appear on the profile of the recipient, as well as the total number of negative points they've given).

a simplified illustration

If you and I both give the brand new user Belbo two positive feedback points each, his feedback score will be (4) and his profile will show 4/0/10 (positive/negative/bank). Why didn't his bank increase by one point? Remember we all start out with 10 in our bank, and when I give him his fourth point, his score is at 3 (bank max = three x feedback score = 9), so the bank balance does not increase. In addition, it will list my name and your name in the "positive feedback from:" section of Belbo's profile.

For some reason, I decide to give Belbo a negative feedback point. His feedback score is now (3) and his profile shows 3/0/10 (remember, these are net scores).

If I give Belbo yet another negative feedback point, his feedback score is now (2) and his profile shows 2/0/10 and my name no longer shows up in the "positive feedback from:" section, but yours is still there.

Now, I'm on a tear. I give Belbo yet another negative feedback point. Belbo's feedback score is now (1) and his profile shows 2/-1/10. Your name is still on the "positive feedback from:" section. Mine is not, and a new entry appears on his profile that says "negative feedback from: 1 person" Anyone else can see that while you like Belbo enough to give him two points, someone gave him net negative feedback for some reason, but they don't know who.

For what it's worth, people are listed in the "positive feedback from:" section in the order of most given to least given. So, the person listed first in the "positive feedback from:" section has given the user the most points.

also see Help on: User Page

Giving feedback to discussions

There are two ways one can give feedback to a discussion.

1. At the top of the discussion, there is a "+|-" link next to the feedback score. By clicking on that link, you can leave positive feedback or negative feedback.
2. At the bottom of the discussion, below the "add a comment" field, you can leave feedback by selecting the appropriate radio button before clicking SAVE. You do not have to leave a comment in order to give feedback, simply select the appropriate radio button and click SAVE.
3. All discussion and topic feedback is disclosed and if you click on the amount of feedback for a discussion or a topic, it will show who gave how much feedback.

also see Help on: discussions

Feedback decay

If a discussion or workspace page has been inactive for seven days (meaning no one has added a new comment to the discussion or edited the page), the feedback score of the discussion or workspace page will decrease by one point per day until it reaches zero. This feedback decay feature helps to insure that old discussions that are no longer topical do not choke the Top 50 list and prevent new topics from bubbling up.

Giving feedback to workspace pages

There is just one way to give feedback to a workspace, and that is by scrolling to the bottom of the workspace to find the page statistics. Click on the "+|-" link next to the page's feedback score to leave positive feedback or negative feedback. This feedback is fully disclosed the same as the topic and comment feedback.

also see Help on: workspace

Reading an item's feedback score

Clicking on the feedback score of an item will reveal the number of positive and negative feedback points given to that item as well as the number of points decayed due to inactivity. For example, you might see:

In addition the name of the user and the net amount of either positive or negative feedback will be listed on this page in the following format:

The impact of negative feedback

The following are tiers of user performance degradation according to their negative feedback scores:

A list of people to whom you've given feedback

To see the feedback given to others go to "my ned.com" tab on the left of the green bar and then select "feedback" on the right side of the brown bar.