Can we improve the Thanks buttton ?

by 74 replies
96
This is the problem I have been grappling with and I have
a solution which is currently in operation here at the
forum in Beta mode.

In the real world the way you thank someone will
obviously differ according to what you have received

e.g
- Thanks for that biscuit.
- THANKS a million, million times for buying me a new PC !!!


But in the Warrior forum your 'thanks' only counts as one
extra item in the thanks list.

So here is my idea.

We have different levels/grades of thanks.

For example

1 = useful post
10 = fantastic post which will rocket me to number one in Google

I have a provisional list of the full gradings from 1 to
10 which will be available later.


Now for 2 great ideas

(1) We can now incorporate a much requested feature

Suppose you DON'T like a post

Well you can give it a negative grade e.g

-1 = not useful
-10 = I used your idea and got banned from Google


(2) When you give thanks (+ve or -ve) you will be asked
to supply a reason (it's mandatory).

Now others can come along and look at your reason and
SIMILARLY give a thanks grading and reason to that !

And others can come along and comment on THAT reason and
so on ad infinitum.

All these gradings will be held in the Warrior database
and a complex algorithm will apply a weighting which will
result in your Profile showing your (PTR) Personal Thanks
Rating.

This PTR will become an important figure used in allowing
special privileges and access at the forum


So do you like the idea ?

Well whether you do or don't I'd like to know.

Please hit the Thanks button and, as I am obviously one
of the Beta testers, it will pop up with a request for a
grade and a reason so you can see it in operation and
give me feedback.


Harvey
#main internet marketing discussion forum #buttton #improve
  • Some nice ideas Harvey.

    I just wished some people would use the Thanks button more often, including some of the big shots and large posters on this forum.

    I see many lengthy, useful answers for people going unrewarded by the recipients.

    For some people it seems saying Thanks is a sign of weakness or inferiority.

    Perhaps that's how they live their selfish lives anyway.

    Sam
    • [ 4 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • I 100% agree! Please accept my thanks for saying exaclty what I would have said
  • Banned
    Ooops - didn't see any pop-up, Harvey?

    But - yes - good idea,and as Sam says - it's a pity more people didn't make use of the current one.

    This new version may help ?

    Cheers
    • [1] reply
    • Just a technical problem with the Beta version

      Will be fixed soon

      Harvey
  • Harvey.
    I fully agree.
    You see i really only read a post BECAUSE it interests me, and hence if the post generates some good comments then those that gave good input should be rewarded. free wso's or something.
    or maybe header advertising - sort of like a ranking. and then once you have had your turn on top you must make way for a period of time.
    i will keep an eye on the idea.
    Rob
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks: why? just because(+1 to you)

    But what if there is a dispute over a comment on my thanks on the first, second, or even third level of thank you comments?

    Will there be a system in place to allow us to dispute negative thanks? Maybe a "thank you" category right here on the forum, and all of our thank you's and comments can go there.

    And what if the algorithm changes? Won't it totally like, screw up my PTR? I would hate to work super duper hard at building up my PTR only to get Warrior slapped?

    And can I get a review of the system?

    keith
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Quite frequently you see people thank others in a reply to a post but do not hit the thanks button as well. Sometimes the replies contain only the thanks and add nothing else. But then that counts towards their post count and the thanks button does not.
    • [1] reply
    • Well there will be guidelines on how to improve your PTR
      (Personal Thanks Rating) and I can see opportunities for
      WSO's here.

      For example Allen has the maximum PTR: 999

      Now if you get thanked by him it's like having a backlink
      from an authority site. It increases your own PTR.

      So a WSO might show ways of getting thanked by Allen -
      such as suggesting improvements to the forum.

      Allen has already thanked this very post (he has the
      option of using a Mute button which does not show) and
      that has rocketed up my own PTR.

      Harvey
      • [1] reply
  • Thank you, sir, for your Modest Proposal. Now, if you would be so kind, please pass the Advil.

    John
    • [1] reply
    • Sorry Harvey - I can't thank you because you left out two major reasons people hit the thanks button.

      1. Thanks for responding in any way, shape or form to my silly post

      2. Thanks for being on the side of "right" by thanking me for my illustrious position which of course you agree with

      If we are going to give thanks so seriously, don't we need turkeys? Oh, wait....never mind...

      kay
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
    • Will there be any kind of "Warrior Sandbox" effect?

      Can we also have one small change to the buttons, I would like a purple sparkly one, no wait, purple encrusted with diamantes, not too much to ask because none of this has got complicated yet..

      I feel the need to run away now..
      • [1] reply
  • Just a few simple questions...

    Would being thanked by someone with a PTR of -999 decrease one's current PTR? Or could it be set up to consider the preponderance of Thanks AND Responses down to the 6th level, unless the person is obviously giving the same Thanks to everyone to manipulate their own PTR?

    Once the Beta version goes live, will my Thanks button work just as well as yours does now? Or are there still a few bugs to work out?

    If someone has given lots of +10 Thanks, thereby increasing someone else's PTR (assuming they're weighted appropriately) and the Thanker later gets banned temporarily, will the affected PTRs go down, and then return to the pre-banning level once the bannee returns, or should it only go back up slightly because banning would have an impact on the weight of the Thanks being given?

    Would the Thanks levels of comments be limited, and would responses carry as much weight as Thanks in the algorithm, unless it could be shown that someone has left responses only in an attempt to alter their personal PTR for the purpose of negating positive comments with the underlying goal to make their personal PTR higher than it should be?

    Like I said, just a few simple questions.

    All the best,
    Michael
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
  • I like the way it is now: simple and easy. Personally, I think just saying "thank you", for whatever reason, using the thank you link is enough in most cases. I'd rather see the buy a beverage icon come back as I miss buying my fellow Warriors and Warrioresses some suds...........

    RoD
    • [1] reply
    • To familiarize yourselves with the new system
      here's a working example of grades I have awarded

      Grade: 8/10

      Grade: -3/10


      Harvey
  • Due to my incredibly insightful questions, I am now a Beta tester, too.

    However...it seems as though the feature will only be activated after receiving a random number of Thanks first.

    Looking forward to the results!

    All the best,
    Michael
    • [2] replies
    • I've got it.
      Harvey can rate all posts on the forum using a measure of what he thinks is the post's QUALITY.
      We can call it a "Harvey Score".

      This post has a Harvey Score of 1/10 and I may be subject to a lifetime ban. It depends on Harvey's secret Quality Alogorithm.

      Try the veal!
    • Michael

      I've passed them on to my Development team who will
      review them for inclusion in Release 2.


      Not quite correct. If you look in your PTR Control Panel
      you will see that your Beta Tester status is awaiting approval.


      Harvey
      • [1] reply
  • Harvey and Michael, thank you so much for answering my PMs regarding becoming a PTR beta tester. You've been very helpful.

    John
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Great idea
  • I think the idea is generally sound, but a range from -10 to +10 is waaaay overkill.

    How do you determine whether something is a 6 or a 7? And does it make sense to spend any time pondering this?

    I imagine that a large amount of negative ratings will be -10, because people are bound to be emotional when they feel the need to rate negatively.
    And I can also imagine that problems with "unwritten rules" could emerge. Maybe it would amount to almost an insult to only give a +1 or +2, depending on how things develop.

    With something like this, it's better to keep things simple.

    Long story short: I would suggest a range of -2 to +2 or, at most, -3 to +3.

    -2 = Ban candidate
    -1 = Inapropriate/rude comment
    0 = nothing
    +1 = Thanks!
    +2 = Give this man/woman a medal for extraordinary effort!
    • [1] reply
    • I'd like to take this opportunity to reiterate my request for a sarcastic thanks button.
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Is this for real? Why change anything? The more complicated this becomes, the easier it will be for some to game the system. I also don't like the "negative thanks" part. If a member thinks a post is poor, then a post explaining why is enough.

    What we have now works. Maybe not perfectly (as was pointed out above, not everyone gives a "thank you"), but it's sufficient.

    - Nightowl
  • Just wanted everyone to know that I'm a beta tester for the new "thanks for thanking" button - give it a try:

    • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • Nice idea! I wish people would start using the "Thanks" button more often tho instead of just saying "Thanks" etc..
  • Then I could create High PTR User names and sell them on DP. That way scammers can buy them and reak havoc on WF.

    Or, I could start a PTR Wheel of high PTR screen names linked together to create a super network of authority PTR's. Then, charge people for a "Thanks."

    I am liking the monetization that this brings to the WF.
  • I think the +10 -10 thing is far too complicated. I would like to see
    something like on youtube. I.e if you like the post then give it a thumbs
    up and a thanks and if you don't like the post then give it a thumbs down.

    It works for the almighty You Tube and I think it would be great here!

    Will
  • Harvey, I think most of what you want could be done with adaptations from the Slashdot moderation system. As they explain it at http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml :

    Each post on Slashdot gets a score that go up to 5. Readers can choose what level of posts they see. If you read at 5, you see only what the community has voted as the cream of the crop. If you read at 3, you'll see a few tangents. If you read at 0, you'll run away from the computer screaming. But I'm not sure if that would serve the WF, because here, sometimes the tangents turn out to take the topic in a positive new direction.

    Slashdot's source code is openly available with GPL licensing.

    Chris
  • I didn't get a pop-up because it said that I wasn't upgraded to full member status.

    Then redirected me a the war room sales letter even though I am already a member.

    And if that wasn't strange enough the Thanks showed up.

    Any suggestions?
    • [1] reply
    • And how do you know that YouTube and Slashdot are not watching
      developments here very, very closely ?

      Harvey
      • [1] reply
  • We can improve how we spell "button", that's a start at least...

    (Sorry Harvey, I tried to stop myself but I couldn't)

    I've thought about the fact that the Thanks button really doesn't cover all the bases, but after reading everyone's feedback in the thread it seems like it may be too complicated an issue to tackle.

    Maybe peace in the Middle East, THEN the perfect WF Thanks Button?

    Edit add: How about for starters having forum users with "War Room Member" under their name have their Thanks submissions count for more? Because frankly, in general... it does.

    Maybe 20 Newbies clicking "Thanks" after someone posts a wild-eyed scheme that probably never worked for them in the first place shouldn't count as much as 2 or 3 War Room Members clicking "Thanks" on an actually useful post (Heck, maybe it'd even make more War Room sales as a side effect...)
    • [3] replies
    • Although I like the basic idea of improving the thanks/rating system, it seems to me that the original proposal is too complicated and needs to be simplified.

      I would prefer something that resembles the five star system which Amazon uses for its product reviews. Everyone could be encouraged to give a ratings based on a 5 star system. 1 star would naturally mean "not so hot"or "not very helpful". 5 stars would be a "great" or "top rating". The software could then just average the number of stars given as for a product review and an overall average rating would be shown for that post.

      Ivan
      • [1] reply
    • I don't mean to sound like I'm opposed to the idea, but I do have some concerns. Just off the top of my head, some potential problems you may want to consider (if you haven't already, of course):

      1. This first concern is minor, but people may thank everybody for everything to influence others into thanking them for their own posts...reciprocal thanking is highly probable and would skew the ratings. There's a term for this, but I can't recall what it is at the moment (social reciprocity, maybe). I read about it in Robert Cialdini's book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. That's an excellent read for marketers, by the way.

      2. Of more concern is the negative voting. One of the nice things about the forum is that most of us get along reasonably well most of the time. By adding negative voting, which will effectively be the same as encouraging negative voting and comments to some, the possibility for "in-fighting" could well increase. Even if the criticism is constructive, not everyone takes criticism well. We all know that. Isn't an absence of thanks evidence enough that a post wasn't anything special?

      Another possible negative consequence is the probability that some people will carry a grudge, consciously or subconciously, over votes against them that they think are unfair or unjustified, and it will influence their votes and comments toward those whom they hold the grudge against, unfairly skewing the persons score.

      3. If a person has been thanked several times but makes one dumb post, he/she could receive an inordinate amount of critical ratings that would skew his or her score. Is this fair? Are several positive ratings less valuable because of one "oops" post? I just see the the negative voting based more on emotions than reason, and that is asking for trouble.

      As I see it, incorporating negative voting and comments is handing people a dividing line to place between themselves and others. Is that what we ultimately want here? Aren't there enough dividing lines already? If the intent is to increase the quality of the posts, has anyone considered that, instead, it may intimidate people not to post at all for fear of being voted against? There are plenty of lurkers here now, you could easily have more lurkers and fewer contributors.

      At this point I'd have to say the positive scale is fine, but I think the negative ratings is just asking for trouble, perhaps big trouble. I've seen a smaller forum torn apart and ruined by a feud that started between two very small groups that eventually sucked enough people into taking sides that the forum never recovered. Two years later that forum was still nothing but a place to go to quarrel with people.

      Sorry for the long post, but if this isn't well-thought out and implemented even better, I'm afraid it may create false motivations for certain actions that would be detrimental to the forum. If you include the negative scale, perhaps a better name for it would be Pandora's button, because you never know what will come from opening that box up.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • Banned
      [DELETED]
      • [1] reply
    • Oh dear - I'm always careful to spell check my postings
      but somehow missed out this time on the title.

      However that is not an excuse and as correct spelling
      is going to be an important requirement in future
      I have decided to penalize myself and have deducted
      10 marks from my PTR score.

      Harvey
      • [1] reply
  • Here's a neat google trick I have discovered how to search by number of thanks...

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following 101..10000 Users Say Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following 76..100 Users Say Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following 51..75 Users Say Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following 26..50 Users Say Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following 11..25 Users Say Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following 2..10 Users Say Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22

    site:warriorforum.com "The Following User Says Thank You to *"
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...nk+You+to+*%22
  • I tried reading the whole thread. I promise I did, but after the second string if Michael Oksa´s technicalities of the matter two things happened:

    1.- I got lost.
    2.- I got thinking this whole thing might actually be bad for the forum, as in a lot of people will now be motivated mostly by increasing that ranking and kicking out the wrong doers.

    You might think I´ve gone off my trolley with that last statement but I can´t help thinking about a Digg story in which somebody in the states ( the brother of a baseball or football team, i really can´t remember now) got banned for manipulating the system.

    I seem to recall his apology letter explaining how he just wanted to keep up with the big hitters (posters) and started using software as he could not handle it on his own and some other breach of Digg´s ToS. It worries me that the dynamics of the whole forum might change and not necessarily for the best.

    Then again I could be totally wrong and this could be the spark that sets this forum on fire (even more if that´s possible).

    I guess what i really fear here is human nature. Hope I´m wrong.
  • I can't decide if I want to join this thread from the tongue-in-cheek side or the serious side.
    • [1] reply
    • LOL! I love it! Humor is a very good quality as well!

      MissTerraK
  • surely, it will make the forum more lively
  • I know I'm relatively new here and all, but I have wanted to thank a number of people but couldn't find a Thank button. Is it me or am I not allowed to thank someone until I have x number of posts? What's a guy have to do to thank someone around here? Write it down in a post?
    • [1] reply
    • Your ability to thank people has nothing to do with the number of posts you have amassed. When you join the Warrior Forum (paid version) a link will be made to your PayPal account.

      Only when the owner of the Warrior Forum can see that you are making at least $1000 per week will the ability to thank people be opened up to you.

      There will be other priviledges too, but I'm sworn to secrecy about them for now.

      Martin
      • [2] replies
  • I can't tell if Harvey's suggestion is legitimate or not. Sorry.

    Here are a few of my own observations:

    * a lot of people will put up a post that says "Thanks!" and not click the (Thanks) button. The software should be set so if there are under 10 words in a reply and "thanks" is found, it should put up a dialog box that says, "Are you trying to thank this person? If so, please click the (Thanks) button!"

    * the average ratio between "Thanked" and "Posts" is under 10%, usually around 3-5%. That would seem to be a meaningful metric, no? I mean, if someone has <5% "Thankedosts ratio", then what are they posting so much about that nobody seems to find useful?

    * people who give "stuff" away tend to get a TON of "thanks". I don't see any correlation between that kind of "thanks" and what you get for taking the time to help someone solve a particularly vexing or confusing problem.

    * people tend to get value from replies to other people's questions, but they don't bother to click the (Thanks) button because it makes them look like they're "evesdropping", which may be common on forums but generally considered socially unacceptable, so they don't want it known they were actually doing it.

    Experts Exchange has an interesting way of scoring answers to questions. So does Yahoo Answers.

    People who give stuff away in these contexts wouldn't get any points simply for being generous. But people who end up accumulating lots of points for being helpful get some benefits and added visibility.


    Opening up the discussion a little bit, suppose everybody were given 100 points when they join.

    Each post and PM costs a point.

    You can earn points by posting stuff where people click the (Thanks) button. It doesn't cost anything to click the (Thanks) button, so folks would think twice about making a POST that says "Thanks" rather than hitting that button. People who get the most "Thanks" for a reply in a given thread, or are ranked as "the best answer", could get extra points.

    Infractions cost points (5 or 10).

    Eliminate the fee for posting WSOs and charge a certain number of points. Here's an idea: give away something to get a bunch of points so you can then post a WSO!

    (The constant churn in the WSO section annoys the heck out of me! It's like going to the grocery store and finding they've re-arranged everything every time you go based on some random criteria. One thing is clear: the Cherrios keep showing up right in front of the door every Tuesday morning. Why IS that? People won't bother using the search function to find answers to questions, but they'll sure spend a lot of time digging through the WSO section looking for deals! If it cost "points" that cannot be bought, I think the churn would stop and sanity would return to the WSO section. Used to be a time things would stay on the front page for days. Now it's more like 4 hours. In 2 days you're on Page 3 or 4.)

    Just my own random thoughts.
  • Banned
    Harvey

    I reckon you should incorporate a "You're Welcome" button too, closely followed by "It's a Pleasure" etc etc

    By the way I'm almost finished that "Warrior Forum Auto Thanks posting bot program" that Keith mentioned earlier - spent the last 24 hours working solidly on it - after expenses, I will share my massive earnings (and PRT) with Keith in a new JV program.

    Keep up the good work, Harvey!
    • [1] reply
    • Completely OT, but just spotted your sig and had to comment... AWESOME!!!

      What's "thanks for a great sig" on the thankometer?
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply








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