Disqus - Friends of xian

Re: authors:maptest [Building Web Reputation Systems]

soldierant — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:09:32 -0000

So that third map is smaller tiles. 128x128. I tried to find a place in the code to specify tile size but was stymied. Any thoughts?

Re: I Killed This Dog

soldierant — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:59:42 -0000

Thanks Perry, for your kind words. :-) We too have our own 'special project' dog (Kirby, a 12+ year old German Shepherd) that we found on the street almost 4 years ago. He's enriched our lives in ways we never would've imagined. I'm still sorry that we couldn't help this poor pit, but I too hope her story might inspire some. Thanks again.

Re: chapter12 [Building Web 2.0 Reputation Systems]

soldierant — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:41:56 -0000

This is a great idea. I had a Lit. professor in my undergrad days at Bowling Green State University (Michael Mott, now retired) who had a great feedback mechanism for student papers. Down the right-side of the paper, he would trace an 'attention line' with a fat-edged marker, indicating how well the writing was holding his interest as a reader. The stronger the writing, the bolder and more sure the line. Rough patches would get shivery, broken lines. It was very effective and communicated a lot (of course, supplemented with his notes and observations.)

I've often thought, if there were some way to reproduce that online it would make a fantastic content quality input mechanism... ;-)

Re: First Mover Effects

soldierant — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:26:19 -0000

Hi Csaba -- that approach may help ameliorate some aspects of first-mover advantage, but my response is two-fold: first, question whether you truly need leaderboards or not (is the activity your community engaged in competitive by nature? If not, then why apply the trappings of competition to it?)

And, secondly, first-mover effects will still apply—to some degree—to monthly leaderboards. It depends on the inputs that feed into the system. Even though you're 'resetting' the board count each month, the factors that favor early winners in the community might still be in effect and--month after month--those folks will continue to enjoy an unfair advantage.

Let's assume, for example, that you weigh the number of "Favorites" for something as a component of some quality-based reputation for that item. (Favorites is good, because it indicates quality and not just simple activity.) HOWEVER... the number of people that might favorite an item is directly related to the number of people that might SEE an item. Posters who have been successful in building a following (the first-movers) will have a lot more eyeballs on their contributions, a lot more opportunity to have that content seen and favorited. Resetting the counts each month does very little to change the first-mover equation.

Re: chapter3 [Building Web 2.0 Reputation Systems]

soldierant — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:50:44 -0000

Welcome Csaba! Would love to hear more about your site as it launches. Please do come back and share..

Re: Tag, You're It!

soldierant — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:38:55 -0000

I think the tagline is intended to -help- sales, Randy. ;-) I'm not sure I'd know from either of those what to expect between the covers. More and more, I'm liking your 'Ratings, Reviews' riff that you did early on. How about:

"Ratings, Reviews, and Karma in the User-Contributed Web"
or
"Harnessing the power of community to improve content quality."

blech. those are awful, but... my two cents.

Re: Tag, You're It!

soldierant — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:49:57 -0000

This is an excellent point, Amanda. We'll compile a list of other O'Reilly taglines and add them here soon.

Re: Xbox Live Customer Support

soldierant — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:59:17 -0000

Best of luck Mike. Strangely enough, I had to contact support myself last night (first time since I posted this back in 2005.) It appears as though someone had been accessing my account, even though I've not signed on in ~8 months or so. I do have to say, the quality of support seems to have seriously declined since my last experience: really crummy phone line w/a ton of noise. And the support techs were nice but mostly clueless and reading from a script.

Re: open:animal [Building Web 2.0 Reputation Systems]

soldierant — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:04:03 -0000

That was a months-ago google-wander for 'animals and reputation' that landed me on an amazon search-inside-the-book page. Sheer luck, mostly.

Re: DISQUS for iPhone: Mobile comment moderation

soldierant — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:13:57 -0000

Heh -- I'm sorry. I was being just a teensy bit of a dick there. I'm actually tapping this out on a G1 and, yes, rather dissapointed that mbile Disqus doesn't support me yet (and actually kinda wondering what kinda iPhone-specific hoo-ha the devs did to keep me from it: i can SEE all comments. just not act on 'em! c'mon guys - make the actions little statis buttons... links even. and you're done!)

Re: DISQUS for iPhone: Mobile comment moderation

soldierant — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:01:24 -0000

Bitter much? :-p

Re: Reputation Systems are Everywhere!

soldierant — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:05:26 -0000

Thank you for the suggestion, Bridget. This is exactly the tension that we're trying to balance in this first introductory chapter (giving the subject a real-world "grounding" and giving readers a good vernacular understanding of the concepts while still showing the Web-geeks how this is going to be relevant to them.)

Sounds like we're erring too far on the hand-holding side right now... We'll definitely work on this in subsequent revisions for this chapter. (Our editor has warned us that most authors drastically rewrite first chapters later in the process, as they work out voice and scope of the book.) Thanks again!

Re: Metaware

soldierant — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:13:30 -0000

Wow. Best use of $50 EVAR!

Re: Metaware

soldierant — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:12:16 -0000

And when advance money starts coming in, I think I owe Dokuwiki a couple sheckels as well!

Re: Leaderboards Considered Harmful

soldierant — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:36:00 -0000

Thanks for the questions and comments, Hunter!

I'd have to think a little bit longer on examples of effective non-game leaderboards. Frankly, it'd be a fairly involved answer, with plenty of 'it depends' and meta-considerations. Probably worthy of expanding on in a blog-entry of its own. But I'll try to do it some justice...

So, by many measures, Amazon's "Top Reviewer" program has been a resounding success, and if you count along a certain set of metrics (# of reviews generated, ability to market books as 'Amazon favorites', etc) then you could cite them as a wildly effective use of the leaderboard pattern. IF, however, you're more inclined to measure things like "quality of the reviews" then some of the historical high-rankers come up quite lacking. See Josh Porter on longtime #1 reviewer Harriet Krausner (or Slate on Grady Harp.)

In fact, Amazon has recently reconfigured their Top Reviewers algorithm (note that the leaderboards still feature an 'Old Coke' tab for Classic Reviewer Rank) to more prominently weigh community response to reviews, a nod toward rewarding quality instead of sheer output.

A fun offline example? How about the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.. I've read that, very early in the programs history, there were those in the Bureau that lobbied against the List's creation and promotion. They were worried that the notoriety of the list would actually INCENTIVIZE worse-and-worse behavior from attention-seeking gangsters. Despite those fears, the long-running program has been very succesful at publicizing and ultimately capturing those who are listed.

And, yes, I've admired many of the reputation-related decisions that Yelp has made. Josh Porter (again!) and I discussed Yelp in an interview on his site - see Question 8 of Part 2. Like you, I find it particularly noteworthy that Yelp has an ABUNDANCE of inputs that they could use to tabulate comparative scores for their reviewers and rank them in a leaderboard.. but they choose not to. Simple oversight? I doubt it—more like smart community management.

Re: Coworking in Columbus. An Update.

soldierant — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:07:39 -0000

Hey Yury — sorry I couldn't make it over tonight. Ended up staying in and wrestling with the toddler to wear him out... Will catch up with you in January for sure!

Re: My Book Deal

soldierant — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 01:39:29 -0000

Why, actually—yes! I'll be doing a joint workshop with Christian Crumlish, Christina Wodtke and Josh Porter this year, and Reputation elements will be ~1/4 of the day. Look for it in pre-conference workshops...

Re: New Halo Maps! New Halo Maps! New Halo Maps!

soldierant — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:44:34 -0000

Ooh! Scary! 'Meat stool!' (You kiss your Daddy with that mouth, Junior?"

Re: Fuck you Adobe

soldierant — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:52:14 -0000

Hm. Sorry "Mac". I've used a Mac since 1989. Nope, I still blame Adobe.

Re: Erin Malone on KQED

soldierant — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:09:50 -0000

Wow, Ben. What a ghetto recruiting practice—drive-by public comments on a blog? Do your research, man. I'm on LinkedIn—try reaching me there.

And, no, I'm not interested in moving to NYC.

Re: Contractions

soldierant — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:45:54 -0000

Ha! Right you are '?' .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braxton_Hicks

Re: Xbox Live Customer Support

soldierant — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:28:46 -0000

Ha! Don't hate—life's too short. It is kinda funny, though. People are just looking for a text-box to type their anger into. Maybe Microsoft should just build a 'shout your displeasure into the wind' page on XBox Live.

Thanks for stopping by Xander…

Re: Skull Job

soldierant — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:35:01 -0000

More of a skimmer. I'm just trying to prep myself for Armageddon in 2012.

Re: Fun Hack: Retweet Your Favorites on Twitter

soldierant — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:43:50 -0000

Which part is failing for you Jesse? The Pipe? Or feeding it through Twitterfeed? Everything's still working okay for me.

Re: Mini-Review: "Crécy" by Warren Ellis

soldierant — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:36:10 -0000

Absolutely! You get dibs. (I got some other stuff waiting for you, too. http://hashtags.org/tag/LeesComics/ )