Post Hall of Fame / Hall of Shame

[Moo]

Loe! In the name of the minimoo, the cow and the holy

, I hereby commandeth that thou favorite forum's most excellent posts shall hereby resideth in thy Hall of Fame, forever to be looked up to and smiled upon. They shall serve as beacons of light to be admired and emulated. They shalt be examples to all who would enter our holy kingdom.

I also commandeth that thy worst posts shall suffer eternally in the Hall of Shame forever to be pointed at and scored, so that nobody may make the same, terrible woe-causing mistakes that they did.

Thou shalt also have a combined Hall, with briefer listings.

Here endeth mine announcement.
May there be much rejoicing and stroking of kittens.

• Hall of Fame
• Hall of Shame
• Combined Halls

 

[EmeraldsAndLime]

Ooo... *rubs the shiny new feature*

 

[Charlie]

Awesome!

 

[Point]

Yeap, yeeeeeeeeap, they work just fine!

 

[Dawes]

If I may offer my two cents:

For one, Moo, thank you for your constant attention in trying to improve the features of the site itself. We're all very lucky to have someone as attentive and as patient as you trying out new things.

That being said, I must admit that I think there are a few questions I want to raise about the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Shame, because -- for as good an idea as it is -- I believe it falls short on a lot of levels.

1) Judging posts to be included in the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame specifically based on their reputation count leaves room for potentially faulty demonstrations of what makes a good post and what makes a bad post. Reputation has been highly disputed and questioned lately for many reasons, foremost for the belief that it's many-times personally biased, whether or not we like to think it is or isn't. Just because a post receives positive reputation does not necessarily make it a shining, golden egg of posting brilliance, i.e., if someone comes on the board saying, "F*** you all," and I respond with something simple, clever, and short ... though it might merit rep, does it necessarily merit being a Hall of Fame post? In the same vein, I see several of those negative-reputation posts in the Hall of Shame ... and only about half of them really seem to be bad enough to belong where they are. May I point out the friendly greeting post by Mandi that received negative reputation because it was a similar greeting to others she had posted? I think that's a fine example of a normal post, and not a shameful one -- at least, not one that deserves being on a Hall of Shame!

Let's face it -- some people just give out negative or positive rep for stupid reasons. I'm not saying I don't, but making that the only basis for a Hall of Fame or Shame seems pretty unreliable.

2) The Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame takes these posts out-of-context. Without the rest of their thread there to buffer them, most of us really can't tell why one of these posts belongs there or why it garnered its high (or low) count of rep.

3) The Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame make it even easier, from now on, for people to negative rep or positive rep without reason. Some posts deserve to fall into obscurity; pointing these posts out perpetually with the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame allows people to continue passing negative or positive judgment on them long after the topic has died or the arguments have ended. Is that necessarily fair?

My suggestion would be to cease automation of the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame and allow it to be just another part of the Wiki where particularly good posts (or bad ones) can be displayed anonymously. Especially with the inborn bias of the reputation system (which I'm not knocking at all, mind you), the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Shame might very well run the risk of displaying not only the posts, but the names of people who made posts that don't deserve negative (or positive?) placement. Look at the highest post in the Hall of Shame -- for as much as people might dislike Yawgmoth, does he necessarily deserve being displayed as an example of what not to do in posts?

My personal suggestions, in short:
- Judge H.O.F. or H.O.S based on vote or submission (to be later chosen by web-master), as opposed to reputation, which can be biased.

- Somehow keep posts within context.

- Explanations behind why a post belongs in the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame might really help us understand why it is where it is and why it's so bad or so good. If it will continue being judged off of reputation, is it possible to show the reputation comments that gave it such a high or low mark? That would allow viewers to more easily see whether or not its position is merited.

- Make posts anonymous. Let their badness or goodness speak for themselves, and make sure that some people don't stay infamous because of one bad post.

Just my two cents, take them or leave them! Thank you!

 

[Martin]

Can you maybe make it so that it updates it twice a day and that every time you click on the link it just loads the results that were made last. voila, no server demand. (well almost)

That is if you want to keep it this way.

Rance made some very good points.

 

[Moo]

If I may offer my two cents:

For one, Moo, thank you for your constant attention in trying to improve the features of the site itself. We're all very lucky to have someone as attentive and as patient as you trying out new things.

Thanks Good social skills you have there, praising someone before offering constructive suggestions

1) Judging posts to be included in the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame specifically based on their reputation count leaves room for potentially faulty demonstrations of what makes a good post and what makes a bad post. Reputation has been highly disputed and questioned lately for many reasons, foremost for the belief that it's many-times personally biased, whether or not we like to think it is or isn't. Just because a post receives positive reputation does not necessarily make it a shining, golden egg of posting brilliance, i.e., if someone comes on the board saying, "F*** you all," and I respond with something simple, clever, and short ... though it might merit rep, does it necessarily merit being a Hall of Fame post? In the same vein, I see several of those negative-reputation posts in the Hall of Shame ... and only about half of them really seem to be bad enough to belong where they are. May I point out the friendly greeting post by Mandi that received negative reputation because it was a similar greeting to others she had posted? I think that's a fine example of a normal post, and not a shameful one -- at least, not one that deserves being on a Hall of Shame!

There are several counters built into the hall of fame to prevent people getting in there for posts which are not truly deserving.
One is that, to get in there, the post has to have got at least 2 rep. So a single person voting for the post won't do it. Another is that it has to be amongst the most +repped posts on the forum. Over time, this list will evolve to better reflect what people truly think.

The case of Mandi, for example, happened because, back in the day, the second person who gave her a -1 on that post diddn't know someone had already given her a -1 for the exact same reason. That won't happen anymore, now that we can see how much rep a post has already got.

Let's face it -- some people just give out negative or positive rep for stupid reasons. I'm not saying I don't, but making that the only basis for a Hall of Fame or Shame seems pretty unreliable.

They do... but I'm taking steps to combat this. One is that I no longer take the the "each rep by itself" approach to reviewing rep. If someone repeatedly gives really stupid reasons in their rep comments, I will bar them from using the rep system. So there's less stupid rep going around.

2) The Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame takes these posts out-of-context. Without the rest of their thread there to buffer them, most of us really can't tell why one of these posts belongs there or why it garnered its high (or low) count of rep.

I know this is a problem. I am going to try to include either the rep reasons, or more of the history, with each listing, so people can understand why it got the listing it got.

3) The Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame make it even easier, from now on, for people to negative rep or positive rep without reason. Some posts deserve to fall into obscurity; pointing these posts out perpetually with the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame allows people to continue passing negative or positive judgment on them long after the topic has died or the arguments have ended. Is that necessarily fair?

No... that's why I'm developing a system to stop people giving or removing rep for posts made over a certain time ago. That will prevent this problem.

My suggestion would be to cease automation of the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame and allow it to be just another part of the Wiki where particularly good posts (or bad ones) can be displayed anonymously. Especially with the inborn bias of the reputation system (which I'm not knocking at all, mind you), the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Shame might very well run the risk of displaying not only the posts, but the names of people who made posts that don't deserve negative (or positive?) placement. Look at the highest post in the Hall of Shame -- for as much as people might dislike Yawgmoth, does he necessarily deserve being displayed as an example of what not to do in posts?

Good idea, I will consider this.
As to Yawgmoth... one of the benefits of the automated system was that it lets us pick up on cases where someone got too much rep for a single post. I noticed Yawgmoth's situation and reduced the -4 he got on that post to a -1. So the system can help correct problems, too.

My personal suggestions, in short:
- Judge H.O.F. or H.O.S based on vote or submission (to be later chosen by web-master), as opposed to reputation, which can be biased.

Programming a system to do that would be a LONG task. I don't have the time to do that right now. But if you want to start a wiki page on discussing what makes a good/bad post, go ahead!

- Somehow keep posts within context.

Yes, this is one of the problems with the system that I want to work on in future.

- Explanations behind why a post belongs in the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame might really help us understand why it is where it is and why it's so bad or so good. If it will continue being judged off of reputation, is it possible to show the reputation comments that gave it such a high or low mark? That would allow viewers to more easily see whether or not its position is merited.

In future, I plan to let people view the reasons why posts in the HOF got the rep they got. That should help.

- Make posts anonymous. Let their badness or goodness speak for themselves, and make sure that some people don't stay infamous because of one bad post.

I've been considering this, too.

Can you maybe make it so that it updates it twice a day and that every time you click on the link it just loads the results that were made last. voila, no server demand. (well almost)

Yes, that would be better, and when time allows, I will expand the system to include that caching feature.

 

[starshine]

The case of Mandi, for example, happened because, back in the day, the second person who gave her a -1 on that post diddn't know someone had already given her a -1 for the exact same reason. That won't happen anymore, now that we can see how much rep a post has already got.

I -think- what Rance was pointing out was the fact that it was taken out of context. My post, for example, is one that doesn't deserve neg rep when you just see that post, it's a friendly welcome. HOWEVER, I got the neg. rep because I posted the same thing 3 or 4 times... so I -did- deserve it, but you'd never know that just looking at the one post in the HOS.

 

[Vladimir]

Haha, funny.

I'm in both walls. Makes me glad that I can post in the AB forum now. :3

 

[FullMetal]

Sorry for deleting this post before, my computer was doing something or another (don't want to go into it in this thread...)

Anyway, what I said was:

(which I'm not knocking at all, mind you)

If no one will, then I shall do it myself. I love this site with all of its measures, but, somehow, I do believe that we missed something that has been right in front of us for a- well, forever.

"Reputation is just a side note..."

Moo said that here and on TBDL, why are we not treating it in that very way? Not only has it not been 'just a side note' but it has turned into what we CENTER ourself around. I wouldn't care if that was our main objective, if in our rules it said "Reputation trumps all" but we, well used to, try to keep that as a "You have reputation? Cool, you HELPED the site in someway or another" not "You have reputation? Wow, you rule this place!" I am sorry to say this but: we have to open our eyes and see what is really important.

Reputation is fun, and I won't sit here and lie, I like the idea, but that should only be a very, very, very, very small part of this site. Soon enough everyone will be scared to type a witty post because they could get negative reputation or they could be in 'The Hall of Shame'

Not to be a downer, but I actually do not like this idea. It will just cause problems that, in ll honesty, we do not need. I do not visit this site because of the reputation, I come to have fun, to talk to people like me, and to help others. All of this other sh!t is just a distraction.

Take it the way you want, but I believe this will just hold us back.

FullMetal

 

[IncompleteDude]

The hall of shame is just the hall of fame in reverse order. That doesn't seem right.

 

[starshine]

The hall of shame is just the hall of fame in reverse order. That doesn't seem right.

Whaddaya mean? The HoF and HoS both have different posts. >.<

 

[Dawes]

Thank you for pointing all of that stuff out, Moo! That helps clear up some of the concerns and make more visible what your intentions are. I do definitely understand that it's still a work-in-progress.

Thank you again!

 

[Notsorandom]

Er, its a nice idea, but I think the Hall of Shame and Hall of Fame posts should be individually picked by mods, not by rep. Rance and Fullmetal pretty much said most of it, but I'd like to support what they said. As it stands now, the Halls currently function by doing a search by reputation, and then displaying all posts with either positive or negative rep, high to low. Several problems with this. One is that the Shame hall shows posts with -1 rep. Another is they're completely out of context, if they don't show the rep comment. I can also see several posts that are pretty much harmless...hardly deserving to be Shamed. Really, as this stands now, this should be a moderator only feature, not a public one. As the rep system stands now, with both posts that get rep publicly showing that and how much, and this search feature, this puts far too much emphasis on receiving rep of any kind. I'm not sure being so public about rep is a good idea. The point is to make *better community posts*, not to get the highest on a ranking ladder or to laugh at posts with lots of negative rep. I think this is a nice idea, but it puts the emphasis on the rep, and not the post content.

So here's what I propose, and I think it's reasonable. Rather than having this work by a search feature, have it work by having two administrative subforums, one for Hall of Fame, one for Shame. You already have a wiki discussion subforum, these would just go along with it. If a mod sees a really good post, he can copy it over to that forum. You could even do this to whole topics. This also makes it easy to edit the post/topic if needed. After all, some of the better advice posts might be worthy of being put in the wiki with a little editing. Bad posts/topics that could serve as examples (as in not so bad that they get deleted) can be copied or moved outright to the shame forum. Discussion on the Fame posts might be allowed to continue, shame posts would be locked by default. Again, by treating them as posts, not search results, they could be edited for names and content if needed. I think this would work much better, and by having it be separate from the rep and search systems, it actually means something. Okay, so maybe someone has +3 rep for a really nice post they made. But if someone agrees and reps it again to +4, now its supposedly even better than all the rest of the +3's. Where as if Peachy moved the post over to the Fame forum, and left a small comment like "Famed for showing patience and kindness," that is much more meaningful, is much more pleasing to the person to see, and doesn't have any competition to it with the rest of the Famed posts. Praise or comments along the lines of "this is a good example of ______" is much more encouraging than a number, and is a much better system to base this on than rep. Also, its much more clear with shamed posts exactly why its shamed if the mod leaves a comment.

Again Moo, I think this is a good idea. Just needs some tweaking in how it works. Change it from being rep based, which should be largely private except for the number under people's names, to being content based. It's more work than a search script but people will feel more rewarded by it. Final thought: What you have right now is a moderator tool. That is very useful for quickly finding when someone has been repped too much either positively or negatively. I'd keep it around, but just as something only mods with rep editing powers could use.

 

[Tsendo]

I like the hall of fame idea - even based on rep it seems like a good way to quickly find good posts and guides that have long been buried.

On the other hand the hall of shame seems like it has the potential to do two negative things.

1) Embarrass posters who have changed their posting habits or asked stupid questions when they were noobs.

2) Dredge up old and long forgotten drama that prolly shouldn't see the light of day.

 

[Martin]

The second probably belongs to the catagory "To Be Deleted..." So that's no problem.

 

[Raccoon]

Loe! In the name of the minimoo, the cow and the holy

, I hereby commandeth that thou favorite forum's most excellent posts shall hereby resideth in thy Hall of Fame, forever to be looked up to and smiled upon. They shall serve as beacons of light to be admired and emulated. They shalt be examples to all who would enter our holy kingdom.

I also commandeth that thy worst posts shall suffer eternally in the Hall of Shame forever to be pointed at and scored, so that nobody may make the same, terrible woe-causing mistakes that they did.

Here endeth mine announcement.
May there be much rejoicing and stroking of kittens.

*Raccoon rejoices with with much stroking of kittens and snuggling of foxes*

As I said to Rance, "Well reasoned. I agree that the halls have possible downfalls, and the system needs tweaking; but I think the fundamental idea is sound and the halls are worth having."

Well done, Rance, Moo, Koko, Tsendo, and everyone else who posted to this thread. I had thought simply ranking and exposing posts by repcount was enough; one tends to fall in love with a working prototype, and it isn't until it gets road-tested (and reviewed by critics) that one sees where there is room for improvement.

How the halls are built should reflect what they are supposed to do. They should not be there to shower brickbats or accolades on members; personal repcount already does that. While I think a search function to find posts by repcount would still be a nice utility, in light of the discussion above, I would like to echo some of the proposals already made.

Many posts' rep is not for the post all by itself. Some are like this: essays or instructions. But many make no sense without a context; this context may be simply the previous 1 or 2 posts, like Rance's http://www.adisc.org/forum/oldskool-historical-pics-t1462.html?p=25138&highlight=Geeeeez,+well,#post25138
Others require seeing the whole thread to understand why they were so good or bad, like the punch-line to a joke with a long build-up.

I fully understand why it would be great to have Hall-posts anonymous: and this could (and maybe should) apply to the posts that stand alone: really good FAQ's, essays, and (especially) greeting posts. Of course, without too much research, it is pretty easy to discover who the original poster was, so it is fruitless to try to make them absolutely anonymous. But it would be nice to have the kind of posts mentioned anonymous-at-first-glance.

As to the posts that require a context, I would list the post, along with whatever length of preceding thread needed to understand what the post is saying, along with why it was so good/bad.

There is no need to have every +/-2 (say) post listed in the halls. I had envisioned posts with at least +/- 3: the posts that were very loved/hated. +/- low repcount doesn't have much significance as representing common attitudes.

All this having been said, and assuming the role of the halls is to show off what, according to our community standards, is a typically great/awful post, I have to agree that the halls consist of, say, 10 or 20 posts each, (along with their contexts,) and should be picked by the mods from a list of the highest-repped posts. The forum as a whole has already voted on what constitutes great or awful posts via rep. I also agree that the accompanying rep comments should be listed with the post to explain (further) why the post was so heavily repped. The comments' writers should absolutely be kept anonymous (even if they were signed.) Another reason for mod-based selection is this: I & others sometimes rep Moo or mods for executing their powers particularly well (and quite rightly too.) However, such posts (which really are just places to attach the rep, which was actually given for work behind the scenes) are not good examples for people to emulate, since they don't have sysadmin/mod powers. Moo may get +lots for adding a great feature, but this doesn't particularly help a newbie (or anyone else) learn how to write a good post.

Having the halls be administrative sub-forums or sticky threads in Administrative stuff makes sense.

I like that the halls will be a useful sampling tool to keep an eye on the rep system, how it is being used and whether it is working as it should, not to mention revealing if any persons are misusing the rep system. I disagree with removing any rep given to a post, however; whether the post was one of those mutant exceptional posts that got too much rep (+ or -) or was a regular post that was really deserving of its rep, this is the voice of the people.

I suggest this approach instead: if a post gets a certain amount of rep (3?) WITHIN A CERTAIN PERIOD (24 hours?) the post (not the poster) is automatically moderated - and temporarily rep-locked until a mod can get to it and decide whether to cap the rep it is allowed to get, or leave it open to further repping. Some posts cause very strong feelings but only in a few people. Others may raise moderately high feelings, but in many people, and these moderately good/bad posts may be over-repped compared to the much worse/better posts may be less-repped. This would also be a useful alert-tool for mods to spot drama, infighting, and other badnesses, as well as the occurrence of sudden and wonderful phenomena.

Many people think there is too much emphasis on rep. (I do not; I like the rep system.) But what I think many of them are driving at is that rep should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. As to this, I agree. I admire those who have had to carry a burden of -1 or -2 and choose to stay around, contributing on a regular basis and being part of the community. They are among the ones who obviously don't take their repcount overly seriously. I am almost inclined to wonder about amnesty: maybe after "x" period of time or "y" postcount negrep should to disappear, 1 by 1 back to neutral. But that would be fodder for a different thread.

As to "rep-chasing" let me point out that there are a few members with enormous rep/post, eg. Moo, Koko, but many such persons have a low overall repcount or postcount. I think these persons are to be admired and their posts looked to as worthy of emulation. I do not think they should be seen as not contributing (Moo not contributing???) and looked down on as going after rep for rep's sake. If there are any such people, they are indistinguishable from the Cows and Kitties. I have said it before and I will say it again: I think so-called rep-chasing is good, since it, by definition, means people are putting effort into making better posts. A post thought to be great by a few people is just as great as a post considered great by a majority, as measured using the rep system. This rankles with many; but please consider that there is no objective way to sort out which "great" posts are "greater than" posts of the same rep. Not all jokes are funny to all people. It is not humanly possible to read all posts - or even all forums; I don't read some forums but do not object to the rep given to their posts. So invariably a few people, not most people, and certainly not everybody together are relied on to rate any given post.

That all having been said, I don't think, on the whole, that very many people centre their activities or their identity around their rep. There are some high posters with relatively low rep. There are low posters with relatively high rep. And most of us chitchat, comment & converse below the rep-radar. I would love to see ADISC's overall rep/post count. I am guessing it is pretty low, but that does not mean the quality of posts is bad overall.

 

[Moo]

Based on the above comments, I'm probably going to :
* Stop linking to the rep-based hall of fame.
* Make the rep-based hall of shame mods-only.
* Encourage the creation of a wiki article, or thread, discussing good posts made on the forum with examples of what makes them good posts.

 

[EmeraldsAndLime]

* Encourage the creation of a wiki article, or thread, discussing good posts made on the forum with examples of what makes them good posts.

That I can get started on :thumbsup:

 

[DannyTheNinja]

After reading this thread I have to side with the group that says that this really isn't a good idea. I'm going to step in and defend (use as an example) our arboreal friend, who downplayed* the attitude from the person that started first real dramatic episode that took place on our new forum, which I suppose I only saw for the first time when I hit VIP status a couple of days ago, which was the "Ban Yawgmoth Club." Moo, what you're doing is certainly just out of desire to give us some interesting statistics to look at and I'm not downplaying you for that, but I think that Rance and the other folks that have replied make a very good point.

If you read Avery's post in its original context, you can see that all he is doing is defending Monkey. It makes sense and I'm glad that he did it because it was a stab at Yawgmoth's attempt to garner unnecessary attention.</dont

meforthis> Furthermore, I personally think it was a perfectly valid point and said what needed to be said in order to cool the "drama party."

Again, sorry for the highly opinionated post but I guess it just serves as one example of why the HOF and HOS shouldn't exist or should at least have posts manually promoted/demoted. And to the reader, please, don't go and reply to that thread because it's a good 4 weeks old and rotting like old drama should be.

Let the flames begin.

--Danny :ninja:

* I've since +repped this out of the HOS, it was in there a minute or so ago.