Re: [UG-ADMINS] Karma System

I'm no longer a UG Admin but I do still lurk on this list. :) *waves hi to
everyone*

Beth types faster than I do, but I'd like to echo her sentiment.

>the meber who spent a little while without make any contributions to the
communitie will also loose some points.

This line, in particular, is worrying to me. As a busy parent who works
full time (or someone who works multiple jobs, is working and going to
school, etc.) I would hate to be penalized for not being blessed with as
much free time as someone else. As Beth said, this might hurt the group and
be pretty demotivating for those who simply can't help their current life
situation. If you give all the decision making power to the loudest voices,
I fear that you will lose some valuable ideas and loyal members. People
should be given the choice to be able to participate in whatever way they
are able to.

This argument has been discussed a lot, particularly with regard to
employers using open source participation in hiring decisions. Lack of open
source participation doesn't equate to being a poor coder, just like lack
of user group participation doesn't equate to being uninterested in, or a
valuable part of the community.

If you want to encourage more participation, I'd recommend making it more
of an organic thing. People should write on the blog because they want to:
because they have something interesting to say, and because they feel like
it's a safe place to post something they've written. They should feel like
their contributions make a meaningful difference or that they help a fellow
member. They should feel like it's good exposure for them as a
professional. I've seen gamification systems reward the wrong behaviors; if
people are only in it for the leaderboard, then they may not care so much
about the quality of the content. They'll just crank things out to move
higher on the list.

If you're looking for a better definition of "active" then I'd be wary of
choosing quantity over quality. Does the member who comments on every issue
always have something meaningful to add? What about the members who are
quiet, until it's something they care about and have insightful things to
say. Don't they get a voice?

I think if you do go ahead with a system like this, I'd do as Beth
recommends and keep it private. If you have a public leaderboard, you'll
have the people who jump to the top at the beginning and the rest won't
bother trying to catch up. I would also highly recommend not taking points
away from people who have earned them.


Cheers,
Elizabeth




On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Elizabeth Tucker Long <
[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Paulo,
>     I can see how this information may be beneficial to organizers, but
> from a member's point of view, it seems like it is making UG membership
> into a scoreboard where your worth to the group is publicly displayed. I
> can only see this as something that would hurt the group. People who have
> lots of free time are more able to rack up the points, and now someone who
> is more busy or is a newer programmer (so they are not ready to contribute
> by speaking, programming, etc.) is now discounted as someone who is
> not-as-important. Also, how would new members ever be able to catch up to
> people who had been in the group longer?
>     I'm all for letting UGs work on projects that they find useful for
> their specific use cases, but I feel that this project would only be
> divisive and does not foster a welcoming environment for many types of
> attendees.
> Beth
>
>
>
>
> On 4/27/15 2:12 PM, Paulo Eduardo wrote:
>
>> Hello all, how are you?
>>
>> A few months ago, someone here on the mailing list ask about a badge
>> system
>> to gamefy experience of the communities members, last saturday i talked
>> with Cal Evans at PHP Experience (a PHP Conference at São Paulo) about a
>> Karma system that we at PHPSP are thinking about, so he asked me to send
>> an
>> e-mail here explaining the idea.
>>
>> But first let me tell a bit more about the motivations of the idea, a few
>> of you may already know that PHPSP is the São Paulo User Group, and here
>> we
>> try to take decisions all together, something close to a democracy where
>> every active member have a voice on the community and can vote on
>> importante topics
>>
>> The problem is that is a little difficult to define "active member", só we
>> thought about a karma system where the member can earn points of
>> participation in differente types of activities on the User Group, things
>> like:
>>
>>     - Attende at an event
>>     - Talk at an event
>>     - Contribute on open source projects of the group
>>     - Create content for the UG blog
>>     - and so on....
>>
>> So by doing any of those activities, the member will earn a predefined
>> number of points, and the total ammount of points the member has could
>> lead
>> to some benefits such as:
>>
>>     - Discounts in events
>>     - Badges
>>     - Vote right
>>     - Freebies like T-shirst and stickers
>>     - Admim privileges at social networks
>>     - and so on....
>>
>> But the opposite is also true, the meber who spent a little while without
>> make any contributions to the communitie will also loose some points. This
>> way we think we can put in numbers what is in fact being an "active
>> member".
>>
>> So the point of all this is that we was willing to make this system by
>> ourselfs at PHPSP, but this could became much better if the communities
>> all
>> over the world want to make a big one. So what do you think folks? Is it a
>> good idea? are you willing to make it happen?
>>
>> Thanks a lot and sorry for the huge post.
>> Paulo Eduardo
>> www.pauloeduardo.com
>> www.psyco.com.br
>>
>>
>
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