Modern Vespa

FUD?

Just a couple thoughts on the, um, emerging Cultural Anthropology of the 'Net.

Psych 101 tells us that we have our acquaintances from the people in our proximity, and that from those, we select those we find particularly simpatico as "friends."

Formerly, in a wholly Meatspace world, we were faced with the traditonal tasks & burdens of friendship: of accepting some things in people that we didn't care for, of forebearing, of overlooking, all for the sake of getting those things we did like in them.

The longer we knew them - face-to-face - the more we understood about their motivations, the more willing we were to empathsize. As we also learned in Psych 101, the 'more you know someone, the more you love them,' which some theorists believe is programmed into us, as a survival-of-the-species thing.

So acquaintance and friendship came at a cost, the cost of making an effort, and sometimes of tongue-biting and moderating our own tastes, beliefs, attitudes for the sake of the friendship or even of simple civility alone. And constantly obliged to pay that cost, we realized the hidden benefit of it - personal growth. As a human.

Then came virtual culture and society, which require - for a lot of people - almost no effort at all, other than that needed to construct and advance the persona one wishes to display, and sometimes, to defend it. The furious pace and complexity of the rest of life leave many quite tired out, and virtual regular acquaintances and friends are just easier to deal with, albeit at a more superficial level.

That level, for better or worse, is, ah, 'lite'; has few calories, but fewer nutrients as well. No longer "required" to empathize, we do not "grow", and are - maybe - not quite as good a person as we would otherwise be, forced into empathy and acceptance because of physical association.

Allowing for a negative system of rating is a little chilling. Other forums (Scootdawg, for instance) allow for a systemn of reward for posts that are helpful or encouraging, but I have seen no other sites where one may actually vote down a projected personality. They're probably out there.

In my limited experience, "dicks" in Meatspace are always very apparent, and recognized as such by sentient adults, and a dick carries the weight of being a dick around in the common venue. One may wonder how and why someone became a dick, or why they insist on being a dick in the face of unspoken disapproval and shunning; a few may make an effort to understand and overlook dickery, but ya know what?:

We don't make dicks carry around a physical sign - a cumulative physical sign - of dickhood. We all recognize dickery, we ignore or avoid it, we don't play to it, but we don't visibly and indelibly tar it.

I am a guest here in someone else's house. A very hospitable, generous house, and I appreciate the common interest & fellowship, the advice, the humor, and all the other good things that go with human association. Like any other house, when someone gets obnoxiously drunk or loud or acts-out, I'm just gonna ignore it.

No sermon intended. It just seems a bit out of character - to me- for MV to enable members to tattoo one another with negative ratings. It is not a feature I will use.

I can be as obnoxious, insulting, intemperate, inappropriate, insensitive, and tasteless as anyone else, but I fight those tendencies and appreciate it when others overlook my lapses. As I did when we were in one another's living rooms and offices.

hey redhand you are welcome in my living room any day, bring your friends.

My brain hurts.

Good post, well-written.

You know, I don't disagree with you in the least on this. In fact, that was very well put (and I'll give you a thumbs-up for writing it as soon as I'm done posting this).

My goals for the karma system are twofold: First and foremost, I want to give people a reason to be helpful. Motivation. Incentive. This is the best way I can think of, short of handing out cash, to do so.

Second, I'd like to get out of the business of being the "bad guy". I don't especially enjoy banning people, or telling people to behave themselves, or generally policing the newer denizens (or, god forbid, the older ones) and trying to convince them to be civil. The moderatos don't enjoy it, either. If we didn't do those things, though, it's clear to me that MV would become steadily more bitter, less friendly, and less helpful. Its value as a technical and social resource would be measurably less as time went on.

In the same way that police are hated by a small but significant segment of the society, even though they are carrying out society's wishes, the moderators and I end up engendering ill-will in some segments of the MV audience just by doing our jobs. That takes a toll on us, both virtually and in meatspace.

So what does an open-source loving netizen like me do? Crowdsource the task of evaluating who is well liked, who is obnoxious, and who deserves to be shown the door. I'd very much like to lay out the rules, implement a system that automates those rules, and let the power of lots of people ranking posts do the rest.

And I can't really do that without giving you all the ability to vote up and down.

It may be harsh, but it's a good deal better for my psyche to stand aside and just maintain the machine. I wish everyone was as good at fighting those tendencies as you are. Sadly, they are not, and virtual space brings out the worst in some people.

RED i agree. A few years ago i took personal offense to someone's response to my post. I countered with a comment and went to bed. When i came online the next morning people had backed me up and i really appreciated that however i had never had a problem with this person and i had had a good nite's sleep, so it dawned on me to pm him and ask him what gives. He hadn't been on line,hadn't seen my comment or anybodies else s at this point. He immediately apologized and explained what he meant and i apologized for being snarky. We sorted it out by ourselves. I just see this karma thing being abused. If you can instantly press a button to give somebody good or bad karma i guess i just feel that, when we look back at what rating we gave, we might not think the same way later on. Instant gratification is not always a good thing. As a community i also think we know how people that post on here are and everybody might have a bad day now and then. I look at people who have given of their time and expertise over and over and they don't have targets. To me they don't need at target for me to know that they are great. Just my .01. Maybe i'm missing something since i'm really not into the web all that much. I will confess to a MV addiction when i'm home since how else would i get over 4400 posts But i hope you get what i mean.

redhandmoto said.. +1

Didn't know this target thing existed...my gut tells me it is not a good thing!

I get what you mean, Judy, and I appreciate your sharing your thoughts on the topic. You're right, we all have bad days. I'm just hoping that the number of people having good days will outweigh those who vote with malice or anger or misunderstanding. If not, then my grand experiment will have failed, and I'll be the wiser for having tried.

If it's any help at all, you can always un-vote (or even change your vote) on any post at any time. Just click the button again, and it will un-do itself. I haven't put any time limit on that yet, so people still have a chance to change their mind after they think about it.

Seems to me that the moderating is fairly straight forward what can and can't be said and if you are looking to encourage positive posts then as suggested by redhandsome that your positive karma will increase and should tell the story without needing the negative aspect...

another thing if a person has say 2000 posts and finds himself with 2 thumbs down is that the same target outcome as a person with 20 posts and 2 thumbs down, it really shouldn't be.

[quote="fiv"] fiv, FTR, you quoted me incorrectly. The suggestion to change his name came from PDXVespa, and I happen to feel different about that matter. I kinda like snakebite as a screen name.

As a side remark to snakebite, you are right, you can't change your screen name. But the mods can

it has changed from snakebite to snakebike

If I am not mistaken, you can go back to that post the next day and change your rating by clicking on the other thumb. That will neutralize your given karma. Then, if you still want, after an hour, you can click again on the second-thought thumb.

I got a felling that you needed a virtual hug from your initial post, so I gave you a thumbs up.

Actually this seems like a good idea, make the targets show up kinda as a "percentage" of overall posts, not just the raw number of ups or downs.

This will then make one "bad day" maybe not even show up (like Judy was saying) for someone who is is otherwise a very level or positive person. And it might even prevent the Main Man from getting overloaded with targets from recent up votes, since he has such a large denominator of number of posts to start with.

This would actually make getting a target something of note, since it would reflect an ongoing positive karma lasting over many postings. And likewise, a not so good target would mean the same thing, in the other direction, an ongoing high percentage of not so good karma being spread around (like that stinky stuff Genie was alluding to)

And maybe you'd need to make sure there is a denominator of a certain min number of posts to be able to be eligible at all, so a newbie with one great post doesn't get an instant target, or a newbie starting off on a bad day doesn't immediately get crucified. The machine can keep track of all the inputs, but the targets don't come still some min number of posts is achieved.

Or is this the way it's already done, deep down in the karmic calculator?

FUD?

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

I normally try to be civil and non-judgmental. Sometimes I fail, and when I do, if I get a "thumbs down", I earned it. If I get a "thumbs up", I hope I earned it as well. No system of human interaction is going to be failsafe.

I get the impression that Jess is trying to minimize asshattery and ugliness on MV. If so, more credit to him. I rarely return to the living room of a person who is an asshat, nor do I tend to invite one to mine a second time. If "karma" results in a similar manifestation here, I think that's a good thing. If it doesn't, at least Jess tried.

In the main, MV is a very enjoyable place. Yes, there may be some mindless twaddle. If it is not nasty, insulting twaddle, then who cares? In fact, some of it is quite entertaining. If it entertains at no one's personal expense, than enjoy!

The ride does not become more enjoyable for me if it involves personal attacks. Long ago I reached the point in my life where I wanted to enjoy what is as positive as possible. In terms of member interaction, MV tends toward the positive, and that's why I hang around here.

Now, get on your scoot and ride!

Al

Thanks QuipMC. I always learn something here

Agreed with jim, good post - in person we are all quite "robust" people, however, we appreciate that the gig here is to be polite to other posters.

So long as you can master the difference between expressing an opinion about something rather than someone, I think MV works.

If I want a brawl I can lean out of my garret window and throw a bucket of water on the drunks below.

Very well put Aviator47.

Good post, redhand. And Jess, I completely understand your motivation, not wanting to be the heavy when decisions have to be made. I remain skeptical that you can delegate the tough decisions to a machine, since every action has an unintended consequence. You may spend the rest of your MV life tweaking code to handle the consequences of the previous iteration, but I wish you well.

Sometimes making a tough call just goes with the territory. As you often say, you're condemned if you do, and condemned if you don't, so what's the difference? It seems like you're stressing too much over what a few people on the internet think of you.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how it works in the weeks and months to come.

On the c3rider.com they used to have a Karma system as well.

Each user could only put out karma once or maybe it was twice every six hours.

Thant should fix the problem

Answering the original question:

HELPFUL? Yes,
ABUSIVE? Maybe/not-important-it's-the-internet (saying that as a former beaten down administrator on an internet gaming/clan forum ages ago)

As a relative newcomer still on feeding mode here if I get what I perceive as an odd response, I can now react along the 1, 2 3 spectrum in the following range:

1. Responder has negative karma: 'Oh, that's just the way he/she is according to others so let it go.' :Shrugs:
2. Responder has no karma: 'Oh, I must not have phrased that correctly, let me clarify.'
3. Responder has positive karma: 'Oh, I must have screwed up, let me fix.'

Before that, I only had #2 as a reaction due to lack of experience.

Here are a couple of simple rules I am implementing for myself in regards to this Kharma business: (at least until interest wanes)

THUMBS UP: If you offer up some useful advice, interesting tidbits of info or make me laugh.

THUMBS DOWN: If you maliciously slander me or others, or display any intent to discredit another user, or display obviously deliberate meanness.

Everyone has their own way of experiencing life so differences in opinion will not be voted upon.

Is it OK if I "Thumbs-down" people who respond to questions they know nothing about? Is there any Karma etiquette?

"I don't have that scooter, nor do I have any experience on the subject, but here's my useless opinion."

Shane

I actually have a 'mod' scooter I should start out with a set, I mean a pair, I mean two targets

Its all very well having the mod targets for good Karma, but I only ever use the thumbs up for the funnies (luckily there is more than enough funny to go round)

For helpful advice I prefer the old fashioned 'Thank You' method.

Fexsake?

Sound it out...

I guess I'll jump into the fray. I'm a gleaner. If a post interests me, I read it, see if there is any useful tidbits of info and run with them. If not, I just move on to the next post that may catch my attention. I never really used the thumbs up/down feature until I saw this post with the Karma stuff. I can assure you with all of the great info I've gained from this site I owe quite a few people many thumbs up for their posts and now I will use that feature. If some one is all bent out of shape over something, I just move on. Jess, I read your post about how many view cops, and as a retired one I appreciate that. I used to be a BIG prick when I was a young buck, " I have a badge and gun you don't cop", with the philosophy of "cuff'em and stuff'em.: But I've mellowed with age and a bit of wisdom, plus one time I got my arse whipped by a bad guy and I deserved it because I egged him on. Anyway, for me, life is just a wee bit too short to get all bent out of shape over just about everything thing, and as an ordained minister I want to be a blessing to people, not a jerk. Plus in a week or so most junk won't matter anyways. Have a GREAT day all, and now back to gleaning.

Yes. Definitely.

Thanks yous are always appreciated. And while it's perfectly acceptable to thumb-up what you find funny, wouldn't thumb-upping helpful posts (in addition to thanking them) be okay? As originally conceived, I was hoping to be able to improve searching by filtering on highly-rated posts. Thumb-upping the helpful posts would improve that.

You might be the first person here to articulate an intended (but unstated) side-effect of this system: a visible indicator of someone's reputation, to be considered by anyone reading that person's response to a question.

Wish I could just get back to Negative, but I am at Bad and getting worse.

Thought I was pretty helpful around here.

Someone has it out for me.

Wayne B

Fair point, I shall try to be more Karma friendly.

What about a different icon for genuinely funny, laught out loud (not lol) comments? sort of comedy Karma?

Thank You.

Yep. One user has skewed a bunch of people negative. I'm working on a solution.

It's in the works. Well, not quite as comprehensive as that, but I've been working on adding a "funny" button. It would count for one karma point, just like a "thumbs up", but would distinguish between helpful and funny.

My Karma is on its way up but on some posts my Avatar is gone, a glitch maybe?

I'll have to rework my flawless rules system?