Usability Improvements Locked In
So this year I implemented a new policy: all donations not ticketed for site contributors or Phil Brabbs get tallied at the end of the year and then I go spend that money on improvements to the site. This year we've made some adjustments to the comment system:
- Comments have been re-themed to take up less space and hopefully cut down on the phenomenon where a series of replies ends up with comically thin content areas.
- Comments have been ajaxified: no need to reload the page to post a comment.
- The voting system has had a major hole closed: votes on items older than a week do not affect userpoints.
- Another system hole closed: it now costs a point to vote, whether it's up or down. This will prevent people from getting slightly over 20 points with a series of sock puppets and vote-spamming other people. Also, the ratio for posting new threads and diaries has been altered: it's now +1 for up, –1 for down. Comments remain +2 up, –1 down.
There are a couple bugs with the sidebar and placement of some of the new features that should get worked out in the next couple days.
UPDATE: The AJAX was not quite ready for prime time and has been temporarily pulled.
UPDATE II: A lot of users are issuing complaints, which I will address over the next few days. Bear with us.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:02 PM ^
August 12th, 2010 at 6:20 PM ^
Maybe try playing with your comment viewing options? The way I have it set up, the comment reply structure seems pretty clear. Here's how I have it set up and what it looks like for reference: http://imgur.com/lV25c.png
August 12th, 2010 at 6:24 PM ^
wow 10 comments per page? you must love loading pages. I'm more of a 300 comments per page type of guy.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:07 PM ^
wait, so posters can act like two year olds and not get negbanged into oblivion? and yet i thought bluesmash would reach -2000 easily.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:17 PM ^
I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to drop a few points on his dumb ass.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:30 PM ^
Though does it matter? Should anyone get to -2000 points? Shouldn't they be banned before that point? We're not talking a bad day that gets you to a few hundred down...we're talking TWO THOUSAND POINTS (or -1300 or whatever he's at). I though the idea was for that to stand out, and be seen, and dealt with.
August 12th, 2010 at 6:41 PM ^
Don't count on it. With the new rules, -100 should be a ban. Also we now have M-Go-attrition eating up the points after 12 months so getting to such a big negative total will likely not be possible. And if the douche posts prolifically, you would have to give up all of your points just to keep him from increasing again.
August 13th, 2010 at 8:21 AM ^
Also we now have M-Go-attrition eating up the points after 12 months
This is like a 1 year scholarship.
August 15th, 2010 at 11:50 AM ^
Nick Saban strikes MgoBlog....
August 12th, 2010 at 5:07 PM ^
Rather than losing points to vote, gains are based on how many points the person up/down voting the user has. For example, if Block M negs someone, it's negative 1.8 points, if I neg someone it's negative .2 points. I realize this introduces decimals into the equation, but I would assume you could just round to the nearest whole number. I really have nothing else, but I don't like that I won't get posbang'd as much and my MGoSelfEsteem will suffer.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:16 PM ^
I used to post on another board that hard a system like this. It really hurt when someone with a huge point count neg bombed you. You could go from positive to negative really quick. The board also had a limit to the number of votes per day.
August 12th, 2010 at 7:56 PM ^
While this seems like a good idea in theory, there are some users that have a large amount of MGoPoints that I don't think should have the authority to hold so much power. Many users on this site have rapid gains in points by posting opinions they know will get up-voted, but these posts never have value other than affirming a previously stated opinion (which should have been recognized with a +1). Contrarians are few and far between on this site. I'm hoping this is why Brian is implementing this system.
August 12th, 2010 at 8:27 PM ^
...and you will get one of my now more-rare upvotes for it.
August 15th, 2010 at 11:51 AM ^
I'm probably late to the party, but your avatar is awesome. and I will spend the points to plus 1 it.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:12 PM ^
First: Your new look doesn't allow for linking to specific posts. That just made the board less useful.
I'm weary of the pay-to-vote thing. I like to up-vote people who write thoughtful responses to things, as that's a much more elegant way to show appreciation than posting a "I agree! +1 to you!" reply. Under your system, I now lose a point for that response, and gain a point if I go with the more annoying "way to go guy! reply!"
And since folks need to also pay to vote, they probably won't waste a point on negging away at folks who post such things.
Let the market stay free, unless there's a way you can apportion this (20 votes a week each or something). You closed the loophole of people going back and undoing a guy for every post he ever entered already. The only problem left, I see, is when the denizens neg-away a rival fan who comes on to post something thoughtful.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:35 PM ^
I would imagine instead of the +1 to agree system, we might see a reply with an "I agree type" post instead. For example by replying to you I get a +1, which I can then spend to +1 your post. So I retain equilibrium, while contributing a somewhat meaningless post to the board. At least until the negbang begins. But hey now I'm taking you guys down with me! *evil laughter*
I'm still not sure on the lack of boxes, but I kind of agree with you on making it look more cluttered. That could just be because I'm so used to lines they've become a crutch (and I fear change or something like that).
August 12th, 2010 at 5:52 PM ^
First: Your new look doesn't allow for linking to specific posts. That just made the board less useful.
Well, if you want a workaround until Brian fixes this here you go: if you click on the reply button for the particular comment it takes you to mgoblog.com/comment/reply/xxx/yyy. You can convert this into a link by appending #comment-yyy to the URL for the page.
For example, your comment is located at http://mgoblog.com/content/usability-improvements-locked#comment-582651
August 12th, 2010 at 10:48 PM ^
...on the pay to vote system UFN, but I definitely agree with Misopogon on this:
Your new look doesn't allow for linking to specific posts. That just made the board less useful.
That seems like a step backward.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:12 PM ^
I don't know what the actual cost is to update this stuff, but I think one thing that could possibly help is color-coding the blue bars where the post title and name is displayed so it's easier to visually follow which posts are replies to the OP and which are replies to replies. As it is it is really overwhelming. While I agree that the absurdly short boxes were ridiculous, they were a lot cleaner and less cluttered-looking. I think it's worth putting a bit more work into it.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:13 PM ^
now I am getting bug when I click on the board sidebar to go to the next page of posts. When I try to change pages, I get a list of recent mgopoint changes.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:13 PM ^
I think the site is headed in the right direction, but some tweaks are in order.
- The comments need boxes. It might look a little more sleek without boxes, but it's harder to follow -- much like children, the comments need boundaries.
- Having the name and avatar on the right is a little jarring right now, but I suspect I'll get used to it. I'd keep that.
- I don't see the reason to require payment for positive votes. I fully support paying for negative votes -- since enough negative votes can have real consequences for the one receiving them, there should be a consequence for the ones giving them -- but unless you have some motivation for cutting down on the number of positive votes, I don't see any real reason for making positive votes equally expensive.
- Ajax -- the foaming cleanser!
August 12th, 2010 at 5:14 PM ^
You mean now I actually have to create content in order to vote? The main reason I read the comments is for the fun of voting, which was mostly of the positive variety. Superpowers are now secondary to mgocurrency. More of an oligarchy than a democracy. Before I had superpowers I would usually ignore the comments. The capability of voting made things interactive, which made me feel like part of the mgocommunity, even though I rarely commented.
OTOH, there did seem to be a rash of neg banging lately, often for no good reason. But was posbanging really a problem? What if negs cost a point, but pos were free? Or what if you had a daily allotment of votes in proportion to your point total?
Anyhow, the aesthetic changes look good, though I liked the avatars on the left.
August 12th, 2010 at 7:41 PM ^
The capability of voting made things interactive, which made me feel like part of the mgocommunity, even though I rarely commented.
Interesting perspective; I bet there are others who prefer not to actively post but nevertheless appreciate the interactive feel of the board. The new cost-to-vote format could jeopardize that experience. Hopefully Brian can find a work-around.
August 13th, 2010 at 3:58 AM ^
Well said. This is exactly my feeling. I'm not sure that I would come here nearly as often without the interaction of voting. I would likely read the main stories but doubt I would read every comment like I do now. What would be the point?
August 13th, 2010 at 11:54 AM ^
I come here because the content is incredible . . . I'm a Spartan fan, for crying out loud. You can vote anywhere.
Peace
Ty
August 12th, 2010 at 5:19 PM ^
This new stuff is confusing.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:20 PM ^
So if i decide to vote on comments enough, be them up or down votes, will I eventually reach enough negative points to be banned for voting?
From now on, I seriously see people just making worthless replies of "+1 to you but I don't want to spend a point to vote." And even though that post would be worthless, no one will down vote them because they don't want to lose a point either.
So really we are just going to have a bunch of 1839 post board topics with a bunch of +1 -1 -1 +1 +1 replies.
Otherwise, I will adapt to my new environment. Evolve or die.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:32 PM ^
I did just that earlier in this thread. I was struck by the novelty of spending my first point so I whimsically added that fact to the end of my affirmation.
Now I can see that fifty posts in a row like that would be a terrible thing. I shall refrain from telling a person +1 unless I also add something to the conversation.
August 12th, 2010 at 11:04 PM ^
I have no qualms about the layout though. I remember everyone freaking out when facebook changed things around. 1,000,000 people joined a group to "boycott" everything facebook related. In 4 days no one cared anymore.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:22 PM ^
Also, the ratio for posting new threads and diaries has been altered: it's now +1 for up, –1 for down. Comments remain +2 up, –1 down.Even though many have tried to explain it. But a move like this tells me we'd be better off with having points at all. Because I'm not sure how it's going to prevent trolling. In fact, I think it increases it. It may prevent some random negging, but really, if all you have to do is upvote yourself, and have multiple identities, I think it becomes easier for the troll to vote than the member. What it will do is decrease voting to almost nothing, eventually, when the feel of it settles in. It's carpet bombing for a surgery. Because there are a number of people who are really positive, and almost completely upvote, and rarely neg anyone (look at the mgopoints list). And what motivation is there for them to do that now? They'll have just about the lowest point total for their kindness (and yes, while the points are "worthless", who doesn't feel a bit better to see something they posted was appreciated, and got a healthy upvote?) It's not the total, but the individual post that shows the value of the post. Now, I'm thinking, that's mostly done. And, without the negging...well, HELLO Trolls! Because anyone can now post the dickiest things, without any worry of repercussion, because who's going to neg a streak of 20 some posts one each? It's punishing yourself for someone else's act. So, the mods better get a lot busier, looking less for offensive words or phrases or whatever, and start watching out for the trolls. Because the whole idea was someone who got a massive point hit was supposed to flag the site of "hey, there might be a troll here". But when we have posters dropping to -1300 and not getting banned, I'm guessing it's not going to get a lot better or easier to find when there's no point change notice for mods and such to see. I'm guessing you'll be getting a lot more "hey, why isn't this troll banned" emails. So I think you've increased the headaches, rather than saved any. But I'm not really expecting anything to change. I'm sure we'll all get used to it. But the site just changed drastically; not tweeked.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:32 PM ^
I kind of wonder if this is come weird economic experiment that's getting tried out on us. If we give people virtual currency and weird rules how they will react.
Anyways the political science major in me feels compelled to out the easy solution to this new system are voting blocs. We can all recruit active posters in and form alliances where we always posbang each other. We can start OT discussion threads, babble about thing and posbang each other. As other voting blocs evolve we will negbang them, thus denying them the precious MGoPoints they need to posbang the members of their blocs. In this new world order Magnus will be the MGo version of a ballistic missile submarine. A massive strategic reserve capable of destroying his enemies in a matter of launches.
Once we have eliminated all the hostile voting blocs, the MGoPoint elites shall rule the message board as a MGoOligarchy. You shall before them grovel before your Points masters in the hope they shall lavish you with a mere +1.
i guess I'll start recruitment for the RichRod bloc. Someone else can get the Jim Harbaugh bloc going and we can engage in total MGoPoint war. Total war!
August 12th, 2010 at 5:40 PM ^
But your voting block thing is very astute. Ha, I'm going to regret pissing off so many people.... Can I be on your team? (And here we've always avoided taking sides...what are you secret threads going to be now that we can't get together in Korean in-law threads?)
It kinda has a feel of Conference Expansion...wooing people to join you. I guess Magnus is Texas. Unfortunately, I'm more of a Pitt.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:40 PM ^
Sure, we can form the "Greater East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere". (Let's see who paid enough attention in their history electives to be properly outraged)
"Honey, I'm going to need some more drama, i need more MGoPoints". *angry swearing in Korean, sound of flying rice steamer conking a ginger in the head*
August 12th, 2010 at 5:44 PM ^
I had a post edited because the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State U. had a not nice word in their link to their article DECRYING racism in media.
But our group will have the best images URL'd into it.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:49 PM ^
Ironic choice, given your girlfriend's nationality, no? What with oppression and invasions and all.
Then at the end, somebody drops a nuke on you.
August 12th, 2010 at 6:20 PM ^
August 12th, 2010 at 10:50 PM ^
In this new world order Magnus will be the MGo version of a ballistic missile submarine. A massive strategic reserve capable of destroying his enemies in a matter of launches.
Magnus is closer to Germany in WWII, minus the evil. He, and a couple other posters are able to destroy many small enemies and several large enemies, but unable to stand up to the sleeping giant that is Brian (USA), should Brian stoop to our level.
August 13th, 2010 at 1:02 PM ^
Some econ major has hoodwinked Brian into using us as a thesis subject!
How cute is she Brian?
August 12th, 2010 at 5:54 PM ^
Let me get this straight, you are afraid to spend 20 of your 13,000 Mgopoints negging trolls? You are aware that Mgopoints:
- expire and
- Are not actually redeemable for money
I think people got too used to negbanging trolls and/or people they disliked whenever they posted. This actually restores value to the negbang system. If 150 people are willing to give up a point (which remains... worthless) to negbang somebody, they must actually be a troll rather than the current "I guess I'll neg him because I don't like the way he spells"
August 13th, 2010 at 1:01 AM ^
I have a lot of points and I'll still vote, positive or negative. But I can't negbang the trolls away by myself. The whole board community has to do that. Most posters don't have huge point totals. The average poster here has probably only a couple hundred points, and will have to cut back on voting. Yes, that might cut down on some needless negbangs, but there are a lot of trolls out there and it will be harder to keep them under control now.
Another possible negative effect: because it will become much more difficult to accumulate points, you may see fewer new people join the regular posting community. A lot of people like to upvote new (non-troll) posters to encourage them to keep going, but since we're now penalized for upvoting, that will probably happen less often.
August 13th, 2010 at 2:58 AM ^
I view this differently. I didn't usually upvote too many posts unless they were extremely funny. I also didn't usually negbang people 15 times in the same thread. I'm a very apathetic voter, with 404 total votes and an absolute value of 202 (apparently I'm accidentally symetric) for a perfect +3:-1 ratio. OTOH, you are statistically the most frequent voter on the board, with over 24k votes, ABS 7k.
Anyways I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm pretty sure that the points system used to give a -1 for both sides in a negbang. You lost a point and the person you negged lost a point. At some point this system was changed. Nobody complained because points were only subtracted from the "bad" users. So half of the change in points was just a revision back to what it originally was.
With this new system, you should be rewarded for making a particularly insightful or funny post, still be hammered for making a trollish post, but the 80% in the middle will get nothing. I think this is good. It's an easier callout for better and worse posts. Next I'd look for something youtube-ish that auto hid the comment if it reached a certain negative threshold.
New posters: I dunno. If somebody is afraid to post because they have 15 points, I don't see what you can do about it. My feeling is that if somebody wants to say something, they will. If they're worried about points and if people like them, maybe they shouldn't post so much. I feel those are also the people who if they get negged a couple of times, they just keep posting about it until they meltdown.
And as for trolls, we all know the easiest way to get rid of them is to ignore them. On that line, I think if nobody responded to the troll AND didn't vote on them they'd tire of the game and move on. Even voting on an obvious troll's post lets them know they got to you somehow. This is why I'd like to see posts hidden after awhile. If you still care to read it, you can expand the comment and vote. The troll doesn't get the exposure he wants, and the community self polices.
And at the end of the day, we're still talking about points. 20 to post a thread, 500 to not post RAGE after a tough loss, and 1000 to be "trusted" and get a sweet form email from Brian informing you that you're a trusted user... whatever that means.
And of course, when you reach 1,000,000 you learn what was in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.
August 13th, 2010 at 3:20 PM ^
If I just HAVE to know...?
August 12th, 2010 at 5:38 PM ^
but I hope the current state of the visual design is not final. It's several steps backward from the previous version, which was not broken.
August 13th, 2010 at 1:23 AM ^
August 12th, 2010 at 5:40 PM ^
we needed an Iphone app more than these changes
Which makes me feel like a Luddite and a progressive at the same time...
August 12th, 2010 at 5:41 PM ^
Which I didn't comment on originally...but anyone else not having the post they're replying to appear when you go to the reply screen? Might be tricky when you're going over a multi-point debate...
August 12th, 2010 at 5:45 PM ^
Not a big fan of the new MGoCurrencyExchange. One of the best parts of negbangs was seeing many negs can be accumulated. Alas, I fear the days of a comment being negged 100 times are behind us.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:47 PM ^
I'm pretty sure it used to cost a point to neg somebody. At some point it changed, this is just changing it back.
August 12th, 2010 at 6:40 PM ^
Well currency has always been based on scarcity (gold, silver, gems) or in more modern times as a measure of productivity (America's currency is mostly unbacked by a specific metal, but people buy our debt because they believe we can produce goods of sufficient value to pay them back). This new system just introduces a small amount of scarcity. It also means people are more likely to only vote on really good posts, not just the somewhat amusing one liners.
My only fear with the MGoPoints change is we'll lose a level of silent moderation. A lot of us more active posters are sitting on thousands of points. So I have no fear of a negbomband I don't mind up voting people. The problem is now you have to generate points to vote. I feel like we have a large number of people who just have a couple of hundred points, they don't post a lot, but they do vote based on their feelings. So they join the general hive mind/mob democracy as part of a posbang or negbang. These people now face the problem of needing to produce something, namely posts, to get points so they can vote. I worry that the limited means of these people (their lack of points) will prevent them from voting and serving as part of the hive mind. It will also likely encourage most posting by people who want to voice so they can get the points needed to vote. Thus decreasing signal/noise ratios. Basically those people have no MGoPoints "income" right now, meaning that they can't continue to "spend" MGoPoints without starting to post. Some might post so they can vote, others will just cease voting and we'll lose part of the hive mind.
Edit:
To clarify, I've always viewed MGoPoints on kind of a macro level scale. I figured anyone over 1,000 points was a fairly active and good poster. Anyone over 100 didn't post a lot, but did try to post content and people in the negatives were trolls (with some leeway for join dates). So someone who has 3k points isn't different from someone 4k points.
The reason this system is of value, to me at least, is that if someone with say -2 MGoPoints is really militantly against something I say, I just assume "Oh troll" and move on. Whereas if someone with 2,000 points disagrees with me, I assume they are actually a serious poster and will debate them. So for me points were useful to figure out if you were a net contributor to the board or someone I should just roll my eyes at.
August 12th, 2010 at 7:59 PM ^
It also means people are more likely to only vote on really good posts, not just the somewhat amusing one liners.
If you're correct (and I think you are), this will provide less incentive for somewhat amusing one liners, which will in turn reduce the overall number of somewhat amusing one liners, which will in turn reduce the amusement I get from the board. (Somewhat.)
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