primitives trying to re-invent the wheel

[franksolich]

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7713704

Oh my.

The fund-raiser for Skins's island is still dragging this afternoon.

Go2Peace (1000+ posts)     Sun Feb-14-10 04:24 PM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND!
Original message

Is the "rec" feature contibuting to polarization? An honest discussion

I don't know how others think, but having been around a while, it seems like greatest page has become a touch of a "rec-war" lately. I don't know if the purpose is to try and dominate the discussion, or if some see it as kind of a "competition". But it has gotten to the point that one has to sift through a lot of posts that essentially say many of the same things again and again. I think most of us know how this works. Send out constant posts that tend to follow a "narrative", people who agree with that meme rec up, people that don't unrec. The objective sometimes becoming to change the narrative instead of to inform and discuss.

I suppose it should not be surprising that on a democratic board there should be an ongoing "competition amongst ideas", but it seems to me that it is greatly "amplified" by the rec feature, and it is part of what tends to increase the polarization of expression. I wonder if we can't turn that phenomenon down a touch?

I have a suggestion to add to the current algorithm. Rec seems to have it's place, but should it be the sole factor? I will post a potential algorithm; I don't expect this to be perfect, and hopefully others might contribute something even better?

Here is a possible algorithm where participation also weighs in. In this algorithm recs would still weigh pretty heavily, but also a lot of discussion by many different people would also gather some steam :

(number of recs)*4 + (number of replies) + (number of unique repliers)*3 = Score

Here are some scenarios and how they would score:

150 recs, 50 replies, 30 unique repliers = score of 690

35 recs, 90 replies, 40 unique repliers = score of 350

50 recs, 5 replies, 4 unique repliers = score of 217

12 recs, 60 replies, 40 unique repliers = score of 228

12 recs, 60 replies, 8 unique repliers = 136

4 recs, 40 replies, 8 unique repliers = 80

4 recs, 60 replies, 8 unique repliers = 100

I only spent a little time on it, so maybe someone else could think of a better algorithm. Something like this would not be difficult to implement. And maybe we could then submit the best ideas to the mods and see if they might not be interested in one of the suggestions?

Go2Peace (1000+ posts)     Sun Feb-14-10 04:28 PM
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Response to Original message

1. and it starts with an unrec. How about discussion instead? I don't care if it makes the "greatest

I am honestly looking to see if others percieve the same issue and we can't find another algorithm that might help.

That's part of the problem, rec has too much power, in this case a discussion is being desired, not popularity, but it is treated like a popularity/personality thing, which was not the intention.

aikoaiko  (1000+ posts)      Sun Feb-14-10 04:31 PM
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Response to Original message

2. Looks like something you should just email the Admins about.

Go2Peace (1000+ posts)     Sun Feb-14-10 04:35 PM
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Response to Reply #2

4. My thought was to come up with some potential algorithms then email them

They hear "we don't like rec" all the time. I thought it would be good to offer some possible solutions. I figured there is enough "brainpower" here to offer some interesting insights.

If we can rise above the need to fight each other on it that is

Bobbie Jo  (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-14-10 04:34 PM
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Response to Original message

3. Question?

How long have you been around? Your profile is disabled.

Go2Peace (1000+ posts)     Sun Feb-14-10 04:38 PM
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Response to Reply #3

6. I protect my privacy on the web, others should do the same. What about the merits?

rather than being suspicious? I don't think there is anything political about this discussion is there?

truedelphi  (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-14-10 04:36 PM
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Response to Original message

5. One of the things that occurs,now that we have the "unrec" feature to contend with, is that if a post has a lot of "unrecs," then it "sinks" to the bottom of the listings.

And in some cases disappears!

So if a topic sinks, or is disappeared, by an initial amount of unrecs, then no one can look at it later. (Unless they are an exceptionally devoted scrolling of topics, which most people are not.)

I also simply cannot fathom how any topic can receive unrecs in less time than it would take to read the OP.