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Posts: 3,096 | Thanked: 1,525 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ Michigan, USA
#1
A message was recently sent out on the Community Mailing list. This is the type of topic that can be highly volatile if things get decided in a bubble. Please read through the proposal, view my comments and follow the links to view what others are saying. I would like to see some talk folks get their opinions heard also.

Originally Posted by VDVsx
Hey,

My second task for this month is about the karma system[1], as discussed 'doers' should earn more karma than 'talkers'[2], the current system is very broken IMO.

Here is a proposal based in previous discussion and proposed improvements:

Karma source: proposed_formula(current_formula) - notes

* Blog Posts:

score = 1 + (number of favorites for post) - (number of buries for post)
if (score < 1) then score = 1;
if (score > 10) then score = 10;

(score = 1 + (number of favorites for post) - (number of buries for post) - Currently some blog posts generate 30+ karma, where a app generate a max of 42 karma.

* Discussion: 2 * sqrt(# posts) - (One point per post)

* Comments: 2 * sqrt(# comments) - (Two points per comment) - Don't know who decide to give such relevance to comments

* Favorites: 0.25 per favorite and 0.25 per bury - Seems fair, but can change

* Testing (new, need to be implemented): 0.5 for each thumb up/thumb down

*TMO 'gold posts'(new, need to be implemented): Posts with +40/+50 thanks receive additional karma (10 ? 20 ?)

* Apps: each new app in Maemo5 extras earn 50p
if (votes > 300) then (300*stars)/6 + 50
if(stars>=3 && votes =<300) then (votes*stars)/6 + 50
if(stars <3) then 50

E.g:

1 Star app: 50p
2 Stars app: 50p
3 Stars app: Max. 200p
4 Stars app: Max. 250p
5 Stars app: Max. 300p

One idea is apply this rates only for Maemo5 software or implement karma dropping when a new OS comes out, in order to give more relevance to active developers.
If we realize that this changes aren't enough, we can later implement other of the complementary solutions (download count, updates,...).

The current weights in TMO and Wiki seem fair, but if you don't think so, please raise your opinion .

All suggestions/improvements are welcome, but please keep in mind that the karma should be simple to calculate.

[1] - http://wiki.maemo.org/Karma
[2] - http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...heir_software/


Best regards,
--
Valério Valério
Maemo Community Council Chair

http://www.valeriovalerio.org



This was the message I sent to the Community Council mailing, it did not go out to the community mailing list.

Originally Posted by penguinbait
While I understand the idea behind this it concerns me greatly. Someone may make a post is far more useful than an application. I would request a similar equation for calculating thanks/karma. If a posts knocks it out the park, it should be able to be rewarded. Why should doers be more important than talkers?, a lot of talkers are doers! Someone has to tell you how to reflash and reload, clone, fix, disable, connect. I would argue these posts are far more important than any single application. A post should be able to deliver as much karma as an application in my opinion. Not every post, but some. If 50 people think a post is worthwhile, and 50 people think a application is worthwhile, why should the dev get more karma than the poster. I come from internettablettalk, I started out making useful howto posts, then putting up hacks that will not be in extra's ever. Many useful hacks or howtos that I or others create deserve to receive karma as much as any developer.

73 thanks
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=175792&postcount=1

64 thanks
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=251238&postcount=1

These are a couple examples I had off the top of my head, which are mine. I am sure there are more, but I am unable to find them with my limited search abilities on TMO.

Again I don't think that single posts with 10 thanks should get some elevated karma, but if someone gets 25 thanks or 50 thanks on a post, it should mean something more.

This also encourages people to post in the forums, instead of the million blogs out there. I understand the need to change the system, but there must be a way balance, not just say all posts get x. Is "thanks" not currently used to calculate karma, and can it be?

That is my two cents, please let me know if there is anything I can do.

Matt Lewis

This prompted VDVsx to include the following addition to the proposal when sent out on the mailing list.

*TMO 'gold posts'(new, need to be implemented): Posts with +40/+50 thanks receive additional karma (10 ? 20 ?)




While I am not sure about any of these numbers in any part of this proposal, this gives a good starting point for discussions. Well community what do YOU think?



Link to the posts on the mailing list

Maemo Mailing list Archives
http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...read.html#3705

This is a easier way to read them in my opinion...
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list..._view_threaded


Another interesting thread you may want to check out....
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list...ommunity/57207
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benny1967's Avatar
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#2
May I add the following:

As far as I remember, Karma was introduced to measure how deeply somebody is involved. Writing 100 posts a month sure is involvement.

The reason why one can gather Karma for pretty much everything that can be counted here is that Karma doesn't judge. It doesn't (in theory) know about "useful" and "useless" activity. It only knows "activity". Because "activity" is what it should measure. It's a very generic thing. It doesn't measure somebody's skills as a developer. It doesn't tell anything about the quality of your contributions. High Karma values only say: This person comes to sites that somehow belong to the maemo.org empire and do something there. Whatever that may be.

The reason why this isn't really problematic is that Karma only counts when we try to draw a line at elections: We want people to vote who probably know something about this community and invest some of their time. Karma is a good way to tell just that. For this purpose, again, it doesn't matter at all what these people do at maemo.org. They are here, they maybe vote for applications or participate in mailing lists, whatever... No reason to know if their votes are reasonable or their posts on the mailing lists are useful.

This is what Karma is.

Trying to introduce an iron curtain between the "good doers" and the "bad talkers" doesn't do any good. First time I read about this doers/talkers thing I felt personally insulted. (Actually, I still am.) I mean, come on, the great doers write lousy apps that drain people's batteries and us dirty talkers then need to support noobs at t.m.o. who fell into that trap... No, I don't really mean what I wrote in bold before, it's just a provocation... and a vision of what could happen. Do we want to start this kind of "us vs. them" discussion in our community? Really? Doers vs. talkers? Is that what we want? For a number on your maemo.org profile, FCS?!?!

Let's be honest, the thing that started the Karma discussion was the community device program for the N900. Developers thought they should have received a device and couldn't understand why bloggers got one. Got "theirs".

If this is the reason why we're discussing this, stop discussing Karma and start discussing criteria for the next device program. You can count anything. You can count the number of apps in Extras somebody uploaded if you want to cancel the community device program and make it a developer only program. Go ahead, that's a reasonable thing to discuss. (I would advise against it, but at least I see a point here and can understand why this is an issue.)

Tuning Karma as such: maybe, if there's obvious problems. (Such as: How does Karma collected 3 years ago reflect current community involvement?)

Tuning Karma to make it prefer "good" activities over "bad" activities: no. Especially when the good/bad line runs between the doers and the talkers. We found out during the device program discussion that there actually are developers who have little karma because they just don't come here. They develop and release, but aren't, you know, "part of the community". I wouldn't want to change Karma calculations so that people can get high Karma without really being here.
 

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qgil's Avatar
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#3
He said talkers and *doers*, not *coders*. Filing a bug, editing a wiki page, writing a Talk post getting plenty of thanks, a Brainstorm proposal geting plenty of votes, a blog post getting plenty of thumbs up... fall clearly in the category of *doing* even if you do it with words and not code. and this is why the karma system tries to praise that.

Actually I think it was me who started confronting the talkers/doers positions (that in reality are intermixed, of course) putting myself as an example: it could not be possible that I was heading the karma list when in the meantima John Costigan (at the time developer of the most popular Maemo app) was not to be seen in the charts).

I also believe the karma thing goes far beyond device programs. But the discussion here is not wether this system is appropriate or not for the Maemo community but whether it counts karma in the way the community wants.
 

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Texrat's Avatar
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#4
"good" and "bad" are so judgmental. Old moral scenarios that wrestle with things like "when was it appropriate to kill Adolph Hitler" are a good (heh) example (although extreme).

I am for a karma system that is "good enough". It doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to quantify some form of contribution. And once the metrics are gathered, they create a smaller set of the population that is then easier to judge if need be.

So I'm once again with benny1967 on the subject. Let's hash out a system that is good enough, expand/refine it as need be, and exercise judgment against the metrics. I think it's safe to say there will always be context that lets us immediately say "oh yes, Member A with her 1000 posts did indeed contribute positively, while Member A with his 500 posts was an obvious troll."

Some worry about a spammed karma system, but spammers and gamers become self-obvious and easy to weed.

Originally Posted by qgil View Post
But the discussion here is not wether this system is appropriate or not for the Maemo community but whether it counts karma in the way the community wants.
Some in the discussion keep trying to make it about that very thing.
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Last edited by Texrat; 2010-01-13 at 17:55.
 
debernardis's Avatar
Posts: 2,142 | Thanked: 2,054 times | Joined on Dec 2006 @ Sicily
#5
I'm at all with Benny. Nokia plans device programs the way they need and like, according to the targets they intend to reach (more developers coding programs, more buzz in blogs and social networks, maybe testimonials, who knows?). Karma has been the chosen independent variable this time, but wasn't so for the previous device and things went quite well nonetheless: there has been plenty of good work from people blessed by a Nokia subsidized N8x0, which made up a large base of knowledge, expertise and code for the N900.

If at all differentiating between coders (I don't appreciate doers either, like people not coding in C were unuseful and lazy) and users (why talkers?) is absolutely necessary, I propose two different karma variables, one earned for releasing software and getting plauds for it, and the other for community involvement. At least, if Nokia decides to use again karma points for device programs, they can include a mix of top coders and top users, at the ratio they decide to choose.

Also the elegibility to the council or other community positions could be bases on a function of these two karmas, possibly with a greater weight for involvement.
 
Texrat's Avatar
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#6
I don't think differentiating should be the goal. Rather, to abstract different types of contributions onto a level playing field where commonality can be found. It can't be made perfect, but I think it can be made practical for the uses discussed.
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RevdKathy's Avatar
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#7
I just checked my karma: Holy Sh*t! How did I get that much? the system is distorted, IMHO, if someone like me can get that sort of score.
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#8
Originally Posted by RevdKathy View Post
I just checked my karma: Holy Sh*t! How did I get that much? the system is distorted, IMHO, if someone like me can get that sort of score.
Wrong! If anything it validates the system and process. You=helpful.
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#9
The problem introduced by VDVsx is that commenters on maemo.org are getting ridiculously high karma for posting a handful of comments, while app devs are getting next to nothing for popular apps.

I also think the mailing lists are out of line with the forums. A post on the mailing lists shouldn't be worth so much compared to a post on the forums.

Look at my maemo.org profile for example.

Comments: 70 karma
(I've made a few comments here and there. Not very many)
Products: 35 karma
(That's for Easy Debian, a 3.5+ star* app with more than 9500 downloads)
Discussion: 92 karma
(Again, I've made a handful of posts to the mailing lists. Not very many)
Forum posts: 75 karma
(That's for 5660 posts! )
Forum thanks: 550
(That seems OK to me, but I have a lot of thanks)

You see how disproportionately high "comments" and "discussion" are rated? And how low "products" and "Forum posts" are rated?

* As for the rating of apps, I don't like that any random person who has installation difficulties can rate my app with one star and hurt my app's rating... but that's another thread...
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penguinbait's Avatar
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#10
Originally Posted by qole View Post
The problem introduced by VDVsx is that commenters on maemo.org are getting ridiculously high karma for posting a handful of comments, while app devs are getting next to nothing for popular apps.

I also think the mailing lists are out of line with the forums. A post on the mailing lists shouldn't be worth so much compared to a post on the forums.

Look at my maemo.org profile for example.

Comments: 70 karma
(I've made a few comments here and there. Not very many)
Products: 35 karma
(That's for Easy Debian, a 3.5+ star* app with more than 9500 downloads)
Discussion: 92 karma
(Again, I've made a handful of posts to the mailing lists. Not very many)
Forum posts: 75 karma
(That's for 5660 posts! )
Forum thanks: 550
(That seems OK to me, but I have a lot of thanks)

You see how disproportionately high "comments" and "discussion" are rated? And how low "products" and "Forum posts" are rated?

* As for the rating of apps, I don't like that any random person who has installation difficulties can rate my app with one star and hurt my app's rating... but that's another thread...
So you received 35 karma for 1 app, and 75 karma for 5600 posts. And you think thats the app didnt receive enough karma compared to the posts? I guarantee people would agree your 5600 comments are worth far more than easy debian. Well at least half of the 5600 anyway

Then comes the thanks, you have 550 karma for thanks which you well earned in this forum.

I personally don't see a huge issue, but maybe its just me.

Activity
Favourites 4.25
Blogs 64
Groups 15
Bugzilla reported 8
Mediawiki edits 3
Discussion 5
Itt thanks 282
Itt posts 54
Bugzilla comments 2

I have 2965 posts, which gave me 54 karma, and 1251 thanks for a total 282 karma. This is based on 2.04 posts per day average since January 2006.

The question becomes how many karma should one app be able to generate, and are all apps equal? Should one app be able to give more karma than 2900 TMO posts? I would say no way. You got 35 for the easy debian, how many do you think you should have received?

Perhaps a way to earn additional karma when updates are published for a app, or additional for porting to new maemo version.
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To all my Maemo friends. I will no longer be monitoring any of my threads here on a regular basis. I am no longer supporting anything I did under maemo at maemo.org. If you need some help with something you can reach me at tablethacker.com or www.facebook.com/penguinbait. I have disabled my PM's here, and removed myself from Council email and Community mailing list. There has been some fun times, see you around.

Last edited by penguinbait; 2010-01-13 at 19:03.
 

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