Seems there are two equally tough parts to this question:

Part one is:

What kinds of interactions and community do we want to build here?

Part two is:

What kinds of tools can help to foster these interactions and the kind of community we want?

My answer to part one is that I'd like to contribute to a community that is both pragmatic and blue sky. Which is to say I'd love to get things done, and have the chance to explore big ideas.

At the same time, I'd like to be a part of a community that attracts people with similar interests and people with divergent interests. In other words, I'd like to encounter people who share my interests and can enrich my thinking around them, and at the same time be exposed to really interesting new ideas and have that opportunity to learn as well.

The second part is a little more difficult - I haven't seen a site more reviled and at the same time successful at making that happen than O.net. One of the things that made it successful was that anyone could join. Its Achilles tendon was that anyone could join. I am not sure how to get around that.

A reputation system is part of that. Obviously Arthur you are deeply invested in the language surrounding "currencies," and I have a tremendous amount of respect for what I have been able to learn from that. At the same time, I am most comfortable with the language of reputation systems, and I don't see the link to "currencies." In fact, I find that the former constrains my ability to think clearly about the latter! Be that as it may, I am open to the discussion and will try and keep reconcieving the language...

From the get go, I disagree with what seem to be two premises:

1:	Negative points "destroyed" O.net
2:	Positive points "only amplified the noisemakers"

It is going to be difficult for me to continue with this discussion if a) these are in fact shared "assumptions" and b) if O.net is going to be our primary frame of reference for how reputation systems work.

Can you clarify for me Arthur if there are a) places where you have seen negative feedback play a positive role, and b) where you have seen positive points amplify "valid" contributions (ie not noise), so that I can get a little better understanding of the breadth of our frame here?

Also, I happen to believe that the "output" model for a vibrant community like <Ned> can and should be a lot bigger than "gems." I don't have any clever bit to crank out of the "tumbler" analogy of information processing, but I think that other outcomes of non-outcome-oriented participation can be:

• Fun
• Bonding
• Trust-raising
• Learning
• Experimentation
• Failure

Could you help me understand how "outcomes" like the ones listed relate to "gems"?

Finally, you wrote that, "As has been pointed out, this is silly if it is about stroking our egos." Well, predictably, I disgree. Given that we are social as much as thinking creatures, "nuzzling," "stroking," whatever is part of what we do - its part of what makes us feel "complete." It kind of follows, at least to me, that the extent to which people can build one another up through ego-stroking in a social network, the more successful it will be. What seems to be lacking, however, is a way to distinguish the results or outcomes of this behavior from other kinds of indicators, for example the reliability of information provided by a user in a particular subject area.

In a nutshell, I don't have a problem with someone getting a big fat reputation for being "the hugger" in a group - its who they are, its what they do. Their contribution is clearly valued as much as the guy who can expound on boundary geometry...

What I do think is silly is "point trading" with no apparent purpose than to artificially inflate traders' banks. At least ego stroking makes sense.

Thanks Arthur,

lars

I'm thinking that the only way to get a true sense of what the "community" thinks of a comment is to make everyone rate every comment they read - before they can go on to the next comment.

I'm thinking a subjective scale like:

• inappropriate
• not relevant
• repetative
• no opinion
• mildly interesting
• insightful
• brilliant

or some such. Perhaps each rating could fade the comment to a particular color so that inappropriate comments quickly fade to black - for example. That could work very well for filtering for only insightful or brilliant comments - and if one's reputation was built on how people rated your comments I'm thinking we would all be more careful (thoughtful?) before we posted.

David wrote:

I'm thinking that the only way to get a true sense of what the "community" thinks of a comment is to make everyone rate every comment they read - before they can go on to the next comment.

Is that workable (practical) and healthy? One key feature of a solid reputation/rating system (to me) is the capacity for anyone to opt out of it.

Hey Lars,

Thanks for jumping in. I'm leaving town shortly, but will try to address some of the questions you posed back to me.

First, I agree that the language of currencies can be confusing and off-putting to people. I don't think I used any of that language in my post except in a tag. In another place/group/thread I'd be happy to talk about the nature of feedback loops as flows and currencies as a tools for shaping flows/currents. But here I'd just like to stick to the question at hand about this community and the things that may foster the kinds participation we want.

Did neggies destroy o.net? I probably wouldn't have said so, but that was already asserted and being argued about in the thread that I posted it to, so I guess I was piggy-backing on the issue with a dramatic section heading. We can't know all of their reasons for shutting down the other place, but I can and do know the reasons why I and many others didn't participate more. Noise.

Noise. There was too much to sort through. It was hard to stay on top of things. I sometimes had to abandon threads that I started because they were hijacked by noisemaking arguments and I couldn't figure out a way to bring them back on topic without causing more argument. I would consistently try to keep to the topic, and limit tangents to links to a place they should be discussed, and I still couldn't do it. I even created a team of 4 or 5 of us to try to keep something on topic, and we couldn't manage to do it collectively. Not all threads went this way, but unfortunately far too many did.

However, o.net also attracted some high caliber people and participation, so amidst the noise were quite valuable gems. But I didn't have the time to sort through it all myself, and the collective intelligence of the community wasn't very well harnessed for that purpose to assist me.

Neggies as it turns out actually increased noise rather than decreased it as would be hoped or was apparently intended.

I probably shouldn't have used the word "only" in talking about posies "only amplifying the noisemakers." I was specifically referring to the fact that your bank grows from posting. Norbert had over 20 times the points to throw at things than I did because he posted at least 20 times more often and 100 times the points of the person in 100th place on feedback given (who was still in the top .005 percentile of point givers). If feedback is used to guide people's attention, don't we want the community to have more of an even footing in being able to give that feedback? Do we want the person who is already producing the largest volume of content to have the most influence over the attention on everybody else's content?

If the ability to give feedback is not evenly distributed in the community, then we don't have a level playing field and we are likely to end up with a similar dynamic of having only about 50 out of 20,000 members being very active or vocal. The marginal voices are drowned out by the core users' abilities to focus attention. Even when the core users have good intentions to include them.

We don't have to share the assumptions that a) neggies destroyed o.net and b) posies amplified the influence of the already loudest voices. However, if we can't acknowledge consistent/inherent patterns shaped by neggies and bank growth, then I don't have much faith that we can have a useful conversation about the role a feedback system plays and hope to move toward creating one here.

Regarding o.net as our primary frame for how feedback systems work. For me it is not, and I wish that it didn't already shape people's assumptions so much. When I look at feedback and reputation systems, I include Olympic medals, Zagat ratings, grades in school, belts in karate, Nobel prizes, trophies, awards, certifications, honorific titles, ebay ratings, 5-star ratings, boy scout merit badges, VIP clubs, frequent flier miles, and hundreds of other applications. O.net is only minuscule fraction of where these kinds of feedback tools are used. However, <Ned> is running on o.net's software and has migrated o.net users. A repeat performance of what happened there is looming over us, so it is an extremely important frame of reference.

I'll try to get to some of the other clarifications you requested. If participation stays at about this pace, I may even be able to keep up with this thread. :)

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Is that workable (practical) and healthy? One key feature of a solid reputation/rating system (to me) is the capacity for anyone to opt out of it.

I imagine it as each comment shrunk to the first line - opening up when the reader clicks on it - and then the reader clicking on one of the rating terms to go to the next comment - perhaps first sorted for all comments rated mildly interesting and above. I'm not a programmer so I don't know if there are technical problems.

Could you say more about why it might not be healthy? If everyone always rated every comment they opened it could be anonymous and anomalous ratings would be averaged out - yes?

I have always felt it important that people can speak their mind, whether it be positive or negative. Just so positives should not be considered a "Massaging" of the ego, just so negatives should not be considered a "defamation of character." At the moment there is a hint of the avoidance of negativity, where constructive negativity tempered perhaps with a bit of diplomacy would be really beneficial.

I put up an idea on Omidyar a few months back and it received zero comments/responses, which I generally read to meaning that people didn't like it. However, I still don't know "why" people didn't feel it relevant to comment.

If we are going to be truly "ideas-based", then take the "every idea is a good idea" approach, except that some ideas need a lot of (or too much) "honing" to be practical. If we are a mature community, then some harsh critique of some ideas or concepts should be possible. At the end of the day a bad idea needs to be put to bed, not left to waste time in a state of limbo. It's not as though another idea isn't around the corner!

Here are some possible observations, which might help:

1. You don't actually want feedback on every post that you make, as plainly some comments are just that - comments, which you are making to assist.
2. Some posts you make you are "actively looking" for response, because you genuinely feel you want some professional feedback. At the moment these are lost in melee of posts.
3. Although the posting of useful links is extremely helpful, I am not certain they deserve the same kind of "positive feedback" as other types of posts, where perhaps a brilliant idea is presented or an argument is "unpicked" and represented. Perhaps you could append "useful links" to threads, where people would get a "link credit" and the thread readers would be able to print out/review the links easily because they were in one place.
4. Ideas should never be suppressed and therefore there should be some places on the site, where you can post a new thread, with no impact to your points. Suggest that "news" comments go here and "ideas requiring feedback"
5. Points should be used to create new issues and topics, which will stand the test of time. I agree that these should need to have independent supporters (as we have now) and I would also suggest that they are moderated to avoid duplication or to broaden them into a clearer category (e.g. Second Life ---> Virtual Worlds). Also, at the moment, some quite specialist threads have been drawn up, which would fit better in the "News" category.
6. Some issues are simply not covered by the site at the moment. The Village ICT thread we had on Omidyar needs porting across, as this is perhaps the single most important sustainable project type (ok, I might be biased)to create change. Doubtless there are others which could be generating useful discussion here, but aren't because there is no space to frame your comments.

At the end of the day, the "rating" system is dubious at best in terms of "rating" as tom whether a person's posts are worth reading. The star rating system would be far better, if indeed we need anything at all, as then people would between 1 and 5, or 1 and 10 if more differentiation was required. I think you would need to be dealing with very high level strategy to actually require this type of differentiation. I like to make my own decision on comments anyway, not rely on those from "the market", however distinguished it might be.

Lastly, there are some things which would be useful to know about posters:

1. How frequently they post i.e. are they going to respond to my email or response posting quickly?
2. What type of person are they? - e.g. academic, project manager, strategist, social entrepreneur (if all, then people can label themselves) i.e. am I talking to the right person about this?

Ok, I know I can read about people individually, but for speed this type of quick info is useful.

I think most of us would agree that a system that exacerbates and encourages gross inequality creates suffering. Much of the misery we see in the world today is a result of unhealthy situations created by inequality and uneven development. Are we replicating such a system here?

But the point system incentivizes people to act, and some act more "pointfully" than others, just like capitalism. They create wealth in ideas and actions, they deserve points. What irony that efforts to create value in the real world may create pain for so many. I hope we do not create such suffering (or unhealthy patterns of interaction) here.

Perhaps now that all points are entirely 100% transparent, and there will be caps one member can give another, and there will be a "code of conduct" that will all help alleviate some of the problems we've experienced in the past at o/net. Like Rory said, if points (and tags) are used more effectively on threads, posts, and workspaces towards collaborative ideas, actions, and results...we'll all be better off for it.

Something I've noticed about reputation on o/net (and also in other places).

If you tell me I have food on my face I am grateful to you, so long as you don't do it in front of 500 people, in the middle of a debate about the Iraq war or something.

It's tricky to be diplomatic when we passionately disagree, but it is essential in a public forum. I would suggest a "respectful dissent" flag, where we reward people who are able to express disagreement without deprecating their ideological opponents.

Even insulting someone not present (e.g. a politician) reflects badly on everyone related to him, and those who support him, some of whom might be present. Such behavior causes much more harm than good, imo.

Regarding the most fascinating question of all, what we want to promote, cause, reward, encourage...

I can think of five things that really light me up when I see others do them.

1. Courage. Seeing someone do something healthy but terrifying, whether it's terrifying only to them, or to me, or both.
2. Honesty. Hearing someone tell their truth, especially when it reflects badly on them (which requires courage), and opens up new possibilities for them.
3. Caring. Seeing someone put their own energy toward making life better for someone else.
4. Beauty. Making something look better than it did before.
5. Novelty. Anything good that breaks previous records or that spices up its category. I don't have to like the thing, e.g. Punk Rock would qualify for this award (provided you think it's at least marginally "good"). McDonalds was novel at one point, and more recently they added an apple walnut salad, which was novel, for them anyway. This might be a controversial award, but I do think novelty is an important thing to encourage/incentivise.

I like your list David - those light me up too. How about success, impact? You know, when we set out to do something, and get it done? Maybe that's the 'beauty' bit...?

Yeah, I think success is interesting too, especially hearing about someone who just succeeded at something I want to do.

I'm wondering however if our society already incentivises that too much, though. What would the world look like if everyone knew that the only way to "win", that is, to be Bill Gates, is to be really honest and tell the truth?

Or what if the way to become famous and politically powerful was to make lots of things look better than they did before, and put your energy towards making other people's lives more fun.

This is a very good discussion. I dont have much to add. I have the oxymoron's view that neggies did not destroy o.net but the noise they created and the even greater noise about how to fix everything was a primary contributor to its demise.

In my view it was lack of active moderation that was the problem. There needed to be a team of people that had the ability to just plain kill the noise so that we all could focus on the more productive discussion.

Thats the only thing I want to add to this thread, the idea that there is no feedback system that will change human nature, and noisy idiots will be noisy idiots unless they are pruned out or disciplined.

I agree 100% John.

As much as I like the stones, tumble, gems analogy, I think it's important to keep things very simple. If one person thought something was a gem, and another thought it was still tumbling, then something would seem wrong to someone no matter how it was classified. Simple + points never seem wrong, so I prefer them. I could imagine limiting things to just a single + per person too (or just a few, which is the direction we're going now.) Then, in that context, giving something a gem would be a pretty way of giving something a single plus... only it would look nicer, and people might only give it for things that they really thought were truly 'gems of content.'

Maybe out of the analogy, something truly simple and easy to embrace and use could emerge...?

The great thing about +|- is their simplicity...and no images to slow things in countries with poor connectivity. The more complex way for rating/organizing here I guess could be viewed as the use of the tags.

It still could be neat to figure out a way to have some kind of simple UI think that showed when users had met one another FTF...something each would have to opt into on both sides before it showed up on their profiles.

And it could also be neat if a person/group set out a task, something with real world implications and actions, they (the group owner or person) could give special something simple UI to those that helped out and took the action (which could be related to volunteering, donating funds, running an event, or whatnot).

It still could be neat to figure out a way to have some kind of simple UI think that showed when users had met one another FTF...something each would have to opt into on both sides before it showed up on their profiles.

how about a xigi.net map link - there might be other benefits to ned to linking to that community as well

The face to face meeting thing could be done with tags (assuming tags can be applied to users).

All that's needed is for someone to say, ok, here's what this tag means. When you meet someone face to face, please do this...

You're right David, any member could simply mark all other members profiles with a simple ftf tag, indicating they've meet them face-to-face. Then you could click that tag under a users profile and see who they've met.

pretty simple, people I quickly marked face-to-face

Jim Carroll,

Now... a year later... the original article link is broken, (here is the updated one) but I'm clear you couldn't have read it if you think that a person can choose to give stones or tumbles or gems, or if you think there is any decision about whether some thing is still tumbling or whether it's a gem.

Stones, tumbles and gems are purely derived from participation metrics: posting, rating, tagging, being tagged, relationships built, projects posted, milestones achieved, tasks accomplished. They are NEVER given as a direct act, but are derived from the kind of activities you want people do in the community.

---

David Frayne,

I love your list! That's exactly the kind of thinking that I'd like to see shape the way that metrics in a community are tracked, translated and represented.

And regarding the concern about incentivizing too much -- there is ALWAYS a shape the incentive landscape...

I view incentives like the shape of a landscape. When rain falls on a hillside, the path each drop will take is non-deterministic. You can't know for sure where each drop will go. Some will soak into the soil. Some will evaporate. Some will run downhill. Some will stop in puddles to be drunk by a raccoon, carried uphill and urinated into a neighboring valley.

However, the shape of the landscape TELLS YOU A LOT about the likely general patterns of movement of the rain. It will generally run downhill into that stream and out toward the ocean.

Humans are like this with incentives. Incentives are not deterministic. People will do many different things. Some will ignore the incentives. Some will purposely defy them. However, much will run downhill (the path of least resistance, greatest ease and reward).

There is ALWAYS a downhill. The question is will it be chosen, or unchosen. Will we have the landscape encourage things that we as a community value and experience as constructive, or do we have to constantly fight against the current to accomplish what we want to accomplish.

---

Lastly, about incentives not being able to change human nature... What do we really know about the nature of humans outside of the poor set of incentives that we have unconsciously inherited?

I certainly agree that water will keep tending to run downhill no matter the shape of the landscape. Many of the things we call "human nature" are just people running downhill inside a bad incentive landscape. Change that landscape and we might think differently about human nature.

I don't expect this tardy post to revive this thread... but it was hard to revisit the thread and not respond.