Building Web Reputation Systems- P16

Building Web Reputation Systems- P16:Today’s Web is the product of over a billion hands and minds. Around the clock andaround the globe, people are pumping out contributions small and large: full-lengthfeatures on Vimeo, video shorts on YouTube, comments on Blogger, discussions onYahoo! Groups, and tagged-and-titled Del.icio.us bookmarks. User-generated contentand robust crowd participation have become the hallmarks of Web 2.0.
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Building Web Reputation Systems- P16Figure 7-16. Content example: YouTube’s most viewed videos.Figure 7-17. Karma example: Yahoo! Answers leaderboard. Reputation Display Patterns | 191Top-X rankingThis is a specialized type of leaderboard where top-ranking entities are grouped intonumerical categories of performance. Achieving top-10 status (or even top-100) shouldbe a rare and celebrated feat.When using Top-X ranking: • Use top-X leaderboards for content to highlight only the best of the best contribu- tions in your community. Figure 7-18 shows a Top-X display for content: Billboard’s Hot 100’s list of top recordings. The artists themselves have very little, if any, direct influence over their song’s rank on this list. • Use top-X designations for people sparingly, and only in contexts that are compet- itive by nature. Because available categories in a top-X system are bounded, they will have greater perceived value in the community. Figure 7-19 displays the new index of Top-X karma for Amazon.com review writ- ers. The very high number of reviews written by each of these leaders creates value both for Amazon and the reviewers themselves. Authors and publishers seek them out to review/endorse their book—sometimes for a nominal fee. The original ver- sion of this reputation system, now known as “Classic Reviewer Rank,” suffered deeply from first-mover effects (see “First-mover effects” on page 63) and other problems detailed in this book. This eventually lead to the creation of the new model, as pictured. Pros Cons • Highly motivating for top perform- • May incite unhealthy competition to reach (or stay at) the top of the ranks. ers. The prestige of earning a top-10 • For top-X karma based on accumulators, if a user’s reputation falls just or top-100 designation may make below a category dividing line and the user knows his score, these cate- contributors work twice as hard to gories often lead to minimum/maximum gaming, in which the user en- keep it. gages in a flurry of low-quality activity just to advance his top-X category. • Yields a small, bounded set of en- • Top-X karma badges are unfamiliar to users who don’t contribute content. tities to promote as high quality. Don’t expect passive users to understand or even notice a top-X badge displayed alongside content reputation. Top-X badges are for content producers, not consumers.192 | Chapter 7: Displaying ReputationFigure 7-19. Karma example: Amazon’s top reviewer rankings.Figure 7-18. Content example: Billboard’s Hot 100. Reputation Display Patterns | 193Practitioner’s TipsLeaderboards Considered HarmfulIt’s still too early to speak in absolutes about the design of social-media sites, but onefact is becoming abundantly clear: ranking the members of your community—andpitting them against one another in a competitive fashion—is typically a bad idea. Likethe fabled djinni of yore, leaderboards on your site promise riches (comparisons! in-centives! user engagement!!) but often lead to undesired consequences.The thought process involved in creating leaderboards typically goes something likethis: there’s an activity on your site that you’d like to promote; a number of people areengaged in that activity who should be recognized; and a whole bunch of other peoplewon’t jump in without a kick in the pants. Leaderboards seem like the perfect solution.Active contributors will get their recognition: placement at the top of the ranks. Thealso-rans will find incentive: to emulate leaders and climb the boards.And that activity you’re trying to promote? Site usage should swell with all those ear-nest, motivated users plugging away, right? It’s the classic win-win-win scenario. Inpractice, employing this pattern has rarely been this straightforward. Here are just afew reasons why leaderboards are hard to get right.What do you measure?Many leaderboards make the mistake of basing standings only on what is easy to meas-ure. Unfortunately, what’s easy to measure often tells you nothing at all about what isgood. Leaderboards tend to fare well in very competitive contexts, because there’s aconvenient correlation between measurability and quality. (It’s called“performance”—number of wins versus losses within overall attempts.)But how do you measure quality in a user-generated video community? Or a site forratings and reviews? It should have very little to do with the quantities of simple activitythat a person g ...