Member points

[19loveless91]

I like the general idea of gaining member points and achieving different levels by being active around the site, helping with moderation, etc.
But unfortunately, in actuality I don't think it works as good as it could, or as we maybe expected it to.

I'm finding a lot of borderline spamming in the comment sections (comments like "good", "great", "I like it", etc.), people with suspicious amount of ratings, who seem to have listened to *everything*, even the data moderation is not an exception to this, with people editing the already existing (and correct!) data to change some nuances like capitalization (often wrongly as we saw) or album artwork that was already there (example:http://www.besteveralbums.com/latest_mo...amp;page=1).

I'm not really sure what my main problem is here. Maybe it is the fact that people can so easily bypass the "system" to get to higher levels, but mostly I feel that the whole thing has become counter productive. Instead of getting active members of BEA, that are also helping with the data moderation, etc., we got a bunch of people that will spam for a while until they get to the level they like, and then they'll pretty much quit the site anyway.

Again I'm not sure what can be done here. But I want to open this for debate, just see what others think about the situation.

[Romanelli]

Since I'm sure much of this, as far as data moderation, is affected by me, I'll address this.

1) Most of the data moderation points I have gained is from completing new albums added to the site. I've been doing it for a long time. It's very time consuming, but I do it because it needs to be done, it's not fair to albummaster to have to do the bulk of it himself, and I like doing it.

2) As far as corrections go, I'm a freak who goes a little crazy when I see a song title like "First we Take Manhattan", "Were Not Gonna take It", or Stairway to Heaven". I fix it because I feel it needs to be fixed, not because it gains points. If it's determined that the capitalization doesn't matter, I won't do it...or you can remove those points from me if I do it. Whatever. I'm concerned more with how things look, consistency, and doing things the right way. I don't care if I get points for it or not. But I do hate to see things like "Walk the Dog" with a track on the same album titled "Wake The Dead". If, for whatever weird reason (to me), people don't capitalize every word, then at least be consistent about it. There are some of us who are driven crazy by it.

3) I have not achieved a certain level and left the site. I'm pretty much here to stay.

4) As far as comments that say "I like it", is this any different from forum posts that say "This." ? Or something wordless with just a cartoon or a smilie?

5) Maybe of bigger concern would be the VERY large number of album ratings that then branch out into rating every song on the album exactly the same as the album is rated? How hard is it to rate an album a four, then give all 15 tracks a four as well? Not seeing this once in a while...but all the time. I stopped rating albums and tracks because...what's the point?


I do know that a lot of the data moderation questions that you have involve me. As I said above, I don't do it for points...I do it because I like doing it. It's my way of being involved. I don't participate much in other ways...I don't really fit in with the forum crowd, I don't know what to say a lot of the time, and commenting on albums, charts and songs is hard for me as well. And I don't think the rating is done honestly enough, which makes it hard for me to do that. I really like this site a lot, though. And my way of helping and doing my part has been doing a lot of data moderation.

If I'm wrong with what I'm doing, albumaster, tell me and I will stop. If it's thought that I'm just trying to accumulate points, don't give me points for fixing things. I'll keep doing it if it's okay, because I love this site, and I want to contribute to it. I don't care what my score is...if I did, I'd be doing things that take much less time and research to get there than data moderation (RATINGS, for example). I'd also be posting on the boards like a madman.

Thanks!
_________________
May we all get to heaven
'Fore the devil knows we're dead...

[19loveless91]

I don't want to make this another discussion about capitalization of album and song titles. There's another thread dedicated to that. I'm sorry to lump you in with those people that I have in mind (who I feel do it for the points). You are right in saying that a lot of the forum posts aren't really contributing much to the conversation, although I will say that most people who use emoticons/one word replies/cartoons in their posts don't do that all the time, and once again don't fit with what I have in mind here.

Basically, to ask again, as I may have made my first post a bit too confusing: Do you feel that the member points system we have in place, does its job as it was intended, or does it only "encourage" more people to spam as they want to get to the higher level?

[albummaster]

19loveless91's post is definitely a discussion worth having, and I know it wasn't just about moderation, but as far as data moderation is concerned (and from my own point of view), it is working better than I had hoped. I'm extremely thankful that people help out with this. There are some people here who work very hard behind the scenes to help with that aspect of the site, and without them BEA wouldn't work at all, and would be in a mess (quite frankly). There are still lots of other things for me to do outside of the moderation area (e.g. responding on the forums, answering PMs/emails etc), but people helping moderate the data does help free up a bit of my time to concentrate on developing new features (which, even now, is happening in a separate browser tab!).

So, for those people that help with the data, please continue. It is a great way of helping, and the points are the 'reward' for doing that. Not every single edit will ever be correct, but on the whole, incorrect information does get picked up, and even a minor edit (if it is correct) is contributing to the site. One of the underlying issues is having clear policies about what the correct data should be, and that's a failing on my part if things are not clear enough.

From my own observations, I'd say most of the time people are moderating correctly, but when people don't, it usually gets picked up at some point (maybe not straight away, but certainly somewhere down the line). For people that do abuse the system, points get deducted for incorrect edits and features can be removed from those people (if they are causing problems).

As far as people abusing the system, ratings are weighted less than comments or forum posts. They also have less of an impact on the site because the main focus with the charts is on the aggregated lists rather than the top-rated items. I'm not sure how ratings could be better monitored, but I'd welcome any suggestions (I appreciate it is far from perfect).

Short posts (and comments) bother me also, but if people are doing this a lot, again it will get picked up. Comments on the rest of the site can be thumbed down, and those posts won't then count towards people's totals. The site was designed to be self-policing, but it probably isn't performing this role actively enough at the moment.

Personally, as well, I'm finding myself posting less on the forums, but I'm more active in other areas of the site (I'm in Romanelli's camp here). I find it a lot easier to contribute in that way, and also I think my time is better spent making new features or looking after the data. Pretty much seven days a week, if I'm not on the forums, I'm doing data moderation, or making new features for BEA (or hanging on by my fingernails to my day job!) There isn't much time left for anything else.

I've not even mentioned why the membership ladder was added in the first place which is really the only way we can judge whether it is 'working' or not. Personally, I think it is working in the sense that the objective of doing this was to reward people that contribute, but also open up the option (at some point) to put in place a premium membership option which would allow people to bypass the membership ladder. Yes, some people will try and game the site a bit, but until the ladder is completed, it's difficult to gauge the full picture.

Sorry, this has turned into a longer post that I first thought, so I'll leave things here, but I'd be interested as well in how people think this is going. Obviously, there are different perspectives on this. Myself as an admin, my views are coming from a different angle to most other people.

[purple]

I don't deal much with data moderation, so I can't contribute to that portion of the conversation.

However, low-content posts on album and artist pages do bother me. As classic as 'best track' posts are, they are very empty; and, comments like this count for double points. I think the easiest solution to this is to emplace a word or character minimum on album and artist comments to count for points. This won't completely deter empty comments, as they would still be able to post comments less than the minimum (or they could completely plagiarize Scaruffi), but it would at least require a more considerable effort from spam-ish commenters. Ultimately, the minimum values for words or characters would be up to you, but I might suggest at least 30 words and/or 140 characters.

Low-content forum posts (which also count for double points, and which I am frequently posting, I admit) could be dealt with in the same way. This would eliminate points for users that post bast track, ^this, simply quote another post, etc. Of course, they'll still be able to post those comments, they just won't collect points for them.This might be an incentive to provide more discussion, e.g. in the current year tourny, instead of a user posting "1944," they'll state why they voted for 1944 in a more coherent manner. Of course, users will still be able to post whatever they want (within BEA rules for appropriate content).

As a final note, I was unaware of point-whoring on the site... I've been on here for years and still working for my damn title! Also, premium membership would be grand, even if I don't feel I need it. If you enable it, I'll do it just to support you, AM, so long as a hefty portion of the membership actually goes towards your efforts.

[Guest]

[Guest]

BTW

I'm not bothered by spam ratings because it doesn't do much against my enjoyment of the site, UNLESS the spam rating is against my chart, then that makes me feel disappointed.

Short, robotic comments are easy for me to pass by. I suppose a character amount requirement (to be counted for points) could work to reduce those, if they bother other people.

IMO

[Happymeal]

[Norman Bates]

I don't care a bit about short posts or spam ratings and/or short album comments; even if they're meant to pervert the member points system. If some want their sacred member points, let 'em, what's the big deal to you? Plus, concerning short forum posts, I'm sure that members who write them (e.g. me, sometimes) don't write short posts for the points, but just to let know that they participated or had an opinion even though they probably didn't have much to say (which happens to me sometimes, for instance).

The only thing that I'm concerned about is the inaccuracy of some of the album corrections made (I'm not coming back on that capitalization problem which concerns me to, because I can take a hint). albummaster made it clear that irrelevant corrections will cost the moderator member points, if this works, I'm fine with this.

[Jasonconfused]

I may be a bit guilty of writing short comments on albums. However, they are only albums that I own and have listened to in their entirety. In some ways I guess I do do it for the points, but not just because I want points to look cool or even to just leave once I get to a level I want or w/e. I do it because I want to unlock the features like decade charts and so on.