Meta: Points expiring?

Submitted by Purkinje on

Is anyone else experiencing their points expiring for being over a year old? I searched this out before posting, and the last mention of it was from Brian, saying it shouldn't happen again in the future.

Maybe it's just the Internet taking out its Monday on us.

Impaler 19

May 2nd, 2011 at 8:54 AM ^

If I remember correctly he said that the script would now run daily. For some reason it had not run in quite some time. I think he meant that there would not be another massive purge of points in the future.

Magnus

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:10 AM ^

From what I remember, points will continue to expire after one year.  However, they hadn't expired in a while, which is why you probably lost a big chunk at once.  Either that...or you posted a TON in one day a little over a year ago.

eury

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:50 AM ^

Points are used to keep the boards somewhat self policing and introduces the ability to have "trusted users.

The trust is mainly two fold, one so trolls and other wastes of time have to at least pretend to be real posters until they can create board posts and rate others' posts.

The other use is that when people try to break "omg Denard is transferring to Miami to be with Tate!" rumors, before everyone flies into a panic they can check the poster's points total and if they are very high one migh think that poster is actually trustworthy.

The second is where I see the biggest flaw in the system because some users with high point totals are consistent non-value add posters and really have just integrated their life into MgoBlog as if it were Facebook. Also, some folks never post until they actually have something "insider" and then they get lampooned for being untrustworthy.

Overall, i think points are useful-ish but I could probably live without all the posts that simply say "you getting poz banged bra" or things of that like. They have probably filled a void in some people's lives though.

ND Sux

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:39 AM ^

Also, the points system, specifically the negs, serve to discourage doucheyness and trolling on the board.  I think points are a handy barometer. 

I can't wait to watch my point total drop like a rock in August / Sept / Oct. 

Don

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:42 AM ^

but a big chunk of mine disappeared a little over a week ago, and they continue to dribble away on a daily basis, I guess through negs and my inactivity. Eventually I'll be back to zero. Birth, growth, maturity, decline, death.

aenima0311

May 2nd, 2011 at 11:49 AM ^

Same here. Been busier with school and gettting married in the last year. Still read religiously, but very little time or reason to post. In the last year I went from around 3000 points to where I am now.

I can assure you all that it hasn't affected my life one bit. 

Salinger

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:47 AM ^

to be unable to pos/neg any posts.  I was able to do this on the first day the new system was rolled out, but since then no dice.  Perhaps this is Brian's way of telling me I'm useless?

StephenRKass

May 2nd, 2011 at 10:01 AM ^

I figured either it was because I was a computer blogging idiot, or because Brian doesn't like Google Chrome, which I have been using. Regardless, right now it just means I have no pos or neg bangs to give.

StephenRKass

May 2nd, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^

So I'm on Chrome looking at a post, and I see:

  1. an arrow next to "normal" and a half dozen or so other choices when you press the arrow.
  2. I see a button saying "moderate,"
  3. A button in the lower right saying "reply,"
  4. A small diagonal iconish thing in the upper right.

Is there something I'm missing? What do each of these do? How do I pos & neg bang? It isn't something I care to do much, but I'm happy to "reward" particularly insightful posts, and to punish trolls as needed.

wolfman81

May 2nd, 2011 at 11:02 AM ^

Something positive (like insightful) would be a +1.  Something negative (like trolling) would be a -1.  So not only do you get to pos bang or neg bang someone, you get to tell them why they are getting pos'd or neg'd.  Think of it as an enhancement of your ability to tell people why they are awesome (or how hard they suck).  :)

 

StephenRKass

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^

I don't post as much anymore, although I still compulsively love this site. I am at peace with points declining, and refuse to post just for the sake of posting. I think that there are too many posts that are put there to gain points, or to irritate and goad others, or just to chime in with everyone else. For instance, I'm thrilled that Ross has given a verbal commitment. It is wonderful to have the demise of Osama bin Laden. I'm happy that another graduating class has matriculated. It's great that Tom VH has another year of life. The trials and false steps down in Ohio are delicious, and a gift that I hope keeps on giving.  But to put up a post saying "I'm thrilled/excited/happy" or "Happy BD" or whatever doesn't add much to the conversation.

I suppose the one tweak that would be nice would be for long term trusted posters to be given a threshold of say 100 or 200 or whatever that they don't go below. However, I don't think that could work, because every now and then, someone goes to the dark side and through malicious posting, demonstrates their desire to travel to Bolivia. Whatever.

The important thing is for this to continue as the premier site for all things Michigan sports. As long as I can gain information about my favorite team, I don't care that much whether or not I have points, and even, ultimately, whether or not I can post new content.

Magnus

May 2nd, 2011 at 10:15 AM ^

At the risk of making one of those posts you're talking about...

...I agree wholeheartedly.  There are too many posts in each thread, many of which simply say "agree."  I'm guilty once in awhile, but usually it's in response to a comment directed at me that I feel requires a response.

The board seems to be much more cluttered in the past three or four weeks, for some reason.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe the site is becoming more popular.  Maybe more and more people are taking advantage of the lack of negbangs.  I'm not sure what caused it, but it has made me a little more hesitant to post because sifting through all the meaningless posts has become more and more cumbersome.

I'm sure a lot of people woule enjoy it if I posted less, but maybe fewer posts from all of us would be a step in a positive direction.

BlueDragon

May 2nd, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^

I find that life's gotten a lot easier since negged posts collapse at a certain point so you don't have to read them.  I think they start collapsing with a Score of 0 or below.  That might help reduce some of the clutter you're experiencing.  The controls for this new formatting are next to the "Comments per Page" controls at the top of each thread.

Magnus

May 2nd, 2011 at 11:48 AM ^

Some of my posts - that contain actual information - are being "negged" for no reason at all, other than it's me who's posting.  But then they're collapsed, people think they're of no worth, and the info presumably gets passed up.

I don't really care about getting negged, but it's just kind of an ineffective tool on the message board, in my opinion.  These collapsing comments are kind of silly.  Bring back straight-up negbangs and that will eliminate most of the bad posts in the first place.

justingoblue

May 2nd, 2011 at 3:51 PM ^

I'm with you on that. The really bad comments need to stay up and hit -30 or whatever, and the ones who don't deserve to get negged are lost pretty easily in this new system.

Also, I now find myself not moderating on anything with +/- 5, since it can't go anywhere from there.

Don

May 2nd, 2011 at 9:27 PM ^

I agree.

The senseless negging of purely informational or entirely innocuous comments that's going on is something I've carped about on numerous occasions, and I think it's the anonymity that enables it to occur. It reminds me of the psychological experiments that have been conducted in which participants are told (falsely) that they can anonymously deliver electric shocks to human subjects whenever they like, for no reason at all. Depressingly, there's a certain percentage of people who will enthusiastically do just that.

jaggs

May 2nd, 2011 at 5:26 PM ^

The threads I hate the most are the ones where someone posts a link with no comments or anything. ex. "NFL lockout lifted" www.si.com/xxxxx/xxx

Do we really need this as its own thread? If we do, it should be because you have something insightful or at least a question about the topic.

In short, I don't need OT news as its own thread. Give me some insight as to why this is relevant/I should care.

ForestCityBlue

May 4th, 2011 at 7:05 PM ^

I could not agree more.  The whole points and neg bang thing has largely ruined my posting experience.  I find people post stuff simply to get up votes, basically kissing up to the board.  There are too many "clever" and redundant posters.  Restraint is not a virtue among many.  Gaining points for simply posting encourages lost of meaningless comments. 

At one time I had another account [I suppose I technically still have it] that I had from day one of the "account" era and when points came on board I thought they were a bad idea that would change how people post.  It did.  But I did manage to accumulate a rather large amount of points fairly quickly, a number in the thousands.  Then I had a bad day and someone on the board annoyed me so I ended up spouting off and getting justifiably neg-banged.  I am a big boy and can take my medicine, but then I got an automated message that because my one message had recieved a threshold number of negs [I am still not sure what that number is], that I would be reduced in points below the point where I was a "trusted user."

That pissed me off enough that I walked away from the blog for a while, and stopped posting.  I have a busy life and it was fairly easy after the first few days not to read the blog, but then during the jihad, came back after a several month hiatus, did not post anything, and because of that discovered that the rest of my points were being taken away because I did not post.

If points = reputation, then the automatic systems of the blog had completely obliterated my reputation over one hissy post.  I walked away again.  Then after a while I thought I might start fresh and just read the news and dip into the diaries and the board only if something compelling came up worth commenting on.  After pretty much a full season with my new identity, I have managed just a 150 or so points, have no reputation on the board and do not care anymore. 

I used to enjoy posting in this community and as I am self employed, I enjoyed the regular banter and dialogue that the board used to provide me.  But points and negging has really made me shrug when it comes to the diaries and board and in some ways to the blog as a whole.  I read each main page story and sometime have a look at the comments, but for the most part, if it were not that this is the still the best place for Michigan Football news I would have said good riddance a while ago. 

I can understand the need to self police the board, but there needs to be helpful categories such as:

troll, flame bate, idiotic, poorly written, repetative, makes no sense, insightful, smart, funny, interesting, well written, informative, well reasearched, sublime, elegant, nails it

Also, it should take a number of negative grades to make something disapear, something like -5 or -10.  That way it encourages people to both rate content and write stuff that people want to read [or just not write].  

There should be no points simply for posting.  Reputation should be based entirely on the evaluation of the community.

Now for my cynical side: there is not real incentive to clean up the board as Brian's income is based on page views.  More content is better.  More posts is better.  The more he can do to encourage people to post anything and everything, the more he puts in his pocket.  A tightly controlled and disciplined board would negatively impact the bottom line.

Like I said, the whole points thing has soured me on the this blog and this board, perhaps irreparably.  The exceptions as posters are Misopigon, Magnus and Ctitown...all of whom I find actually add something when they post... 

[Edit: for some reason this post disapeared the moment it appeared...affirming everything I have been saying...this new system is presently even stupider than the last one]

Raoul

May 4th, 2011 at 7:27 PM ^

As if the new points system wasn't complicated enough, there's also this new karma thing, which I believe is why your post disappeared. Your karma had been 0, so your post appeared with a score of 0. Unless you change your "threshold" (found in a drop-down menu near the top of a thread) to -1, then any post of 0 or below is automatically hidden.

To see your karma level, click on "My account." At least for now, it's now 1, so your posts shouldn't be disappearing anymore because they will now start out at 1.

Your karma level goes up or down based on the votes your posts have been getting.

thisisme08

May 2nd, 2011 at 10:26 AM ^

I think the board has/is becoming the main focus of the site for many.  I constantly refresh for more on topic material from Brian/Tim/TomVH but with the amount of OT: stuff that gets posted your definately going to see a general rise in posting and trolling as people can relate to What are you drinking or Osama is dead (yay!!!)rather than recruit X commited and I dont really know where OLSM is at. 

This is why I use Chrome and with the new moderation tools Brian has implemented I have seen some collapsed replies from troll posters that are 5-6 messages long that I dont have to read anymore. 

Raoul

May 2nd, 2011 at 12:40 PM ^

Can someone explain why there are so many posts with "Score:2" without any "Normal" or other moderating "reason"? If a post has been upvoted, shouldn't the reason always appear?

J.Swift

May 2nd, 2011 at 1:16 PM ^

Brian's point system offers a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences.   Blog readers have to post comments because unless they earn points, they can't post.  Isn't this the epitome of busywork?  I post, therefore I am, even if I have nothing worthwhile to say.

Best fix for MGoblog:  get rid of the point system. 

jmblue

May 2nd, 2011 at 7:44 PM ^

But you can also gain points by being upvoted.  It's like the community giving you the secret password.

The point system is helpful as a troll deterrent.  That's it's main value.  Downvoting a trolling post is far more effective than futily trying to argue back.