Forum post recommendations reset

Originally posted by Ragnorak
10 per month is way too few. Some people don't use them at all, so it seems like plenty. I use them and used up my quota fairly quickly, maybe within a week.

The recommended section is going to be even more rubbish now with pages of posts with 1 rec, which helps nobody.

Make the limit 7 per week.

D

The Recommended posts page still fairly reflects what is being discussed on the site, and it has been doing exactly that since the new system has been implemented.

The limit of ten per month is supposed to encourage you to rec less posts so that posts of a higher quality end up on the Recommended posts page, which is why I initially suggested that the limit be moderately low, at 10.

I think that we should see how it goes until the 30 days are finished before we start making decisions about new quotas.

For me, the rec system is ideally about that Recommended posts page, as long as that page is reflecting the best of our forums at the time (as objectively as you can get) then I think our rec system is doing well. If it isn't then, by all means, let's tweak the quotas.

Originally posted by hopscotch
The Recommended posts page still fairly reflects what is being discussed on the site, and it has been doing exactly that since the new system has been implemented.

Interesting.

Pre change in system:
1) There is a widely disliked troll. Anti-troll comments have gotten recs in the past week. 5 of the posts are in there due to cleverly putting the troll in his place.
2) There is widespread discontent with the state of the debates forum, and moderation (or lack thereof) of blatantly racist content. Admin's attitude to this is unhelpful, expecting paying customers to spend all our time modding it, instead of admin taking decisive action. 3 of the posts are in there due to this.
3) Two of the posts on page 1 are for witty clan goads.
4) 1 post is on there for telling us how much better than the rest of the world the u.s. is. There has always been the flag waving contingent reccing any and all of these types of posts.
5) 2 of the posts on there are to show appreciation for art created for RHP.
6) A couple of the posts are for well made points in debates.

Post "improvement"
1) There are a couple of widely disliked trolls. Anti-troll comments have gotten recs in the past week. 7 of the recced posts on page 1 are for anti-troll comments.
2) 1 good post in debates,
3) 1 good post in spirituality
4) 1 from Russ
5) 2 site ideas
6) 1 witty clan goad

Has a lot changed?

True, we'll have to see how it goes for 30 days, but worthy posts are already going unrecced due to the tiny limit on recs.

I think you do a disservice to the community by implying that out of all the posts posted here, that only 10 a month are worth reccing.

D

Ragnorak,

As you see it there hasn't been a dramatic change in the content on the recommended posts page, but that was due to the circumstances at the time you wrote your post. There was an argument regarding trolls on the general forum a few days before your post, therefore the recommended posts page accurately reflected what was being discussed on the site.

If you had looked at that page near the beginning of October the content was entirely different.

Looking at it as I write this, three days after your post here, the page contains posts of the following nature:

Spiritual - 2
Arrakis' chess story - 1
Witty posts - 5
A recommendation of an external site - 1
Regarding trolls - 2
Chess analysis - 1
Clan goad - 1
Debate points - 2

Regarding your comment "I think you do a disservice to the community by implying that out of all the posts posted here, that only 10 a month are worth reccing."

If you find that you are running out of your recs too quickly you can't project that onto the community at large. Not everyone has the time to read and rec so many posts in a month. The amount of content that is posted on these forums in 30 days must be staggering. I'd be interested see totals on that, i.e. number of posts, threads, etc in a thirty day period. You'd probably find the amount of posts you should've rec'd would be in the hundreds.

The point I'm trying to make is that we have to reach a balance between the average Joe Lurker who reads a thread here and there and the RHPaholic who participates and spends a lot of time on the forums. I still have recs left, and I'm not afraid to use them.

The limit was suggested because the system was being abused, i.e. recs were being given for no apparent reason. The more recs the abusive users of the site have to give, the more potential there is of seeing a lowbrow recommended posts page.

Originally posted by hopscotch
If you find that you are running out of your recs too quickly you can't project that onto the community at large. Not everyone has the time to read and rec so many posts in a month. The amount of content that is posted on these forums in 30 days must be staggering. I'd be interested see totals on that, i.e. number of posts, threads, etc in a thirty day per ite have to give, the more potential there is of seeing a lowbrow recommended posts page.

Where is the projection in my post which we are discussing, when I said that I felt 10 per month is too few?

Your original suggestion seemed at the time to be completely arbitrary. If this wasn't the case, and you have completed some research into how to arrive at the figure of 10 per month, then please share it with us.

As it is, my forecast of what would happen appears to be already happening.

4 of the posts on page 1 of the recommended posts section have 1 rec, so they are apparently equivalent in quality to the other 105 posts which aren't on page 1.

Personally, I only ever look at page 1 of the recommended posts section (I apologise for any perceived projection in me making this point), and at the moment it is very difficult to see the standout posts beyond the initial 11.

As we reach the end of the month, this will become more and more apparent. Also, as a monthly limit is near impossible to manage, people are sparing their recs for the 1 true great post in the month. People who do use their recs, may find that they have to spend a large proportion of the month without the ability to give recs.

If the limit really can't be lowered (even if it is hindering people who use them properly), then at least make the time period more manageable, like 3 a week. I take part in groups on a photo website where you can upload shots. Every single one which had a montly limit (like 8 uploads a month), have been changed to daily/weekly limits after customers complained of how difficult it is to manage.

D

Originally posted by Ragnorak
As it is, my forecast of what would happen appears to be already happening.

10 Days to go, out of 30 days... and I see now that 5 of the posts on page 1 of the Recommended Posts have only 1 rec.

This is, I think, partly due to teething problems, many users of this site would have difficulty adjusting to the limit.

But mostly it would appear that you have been proven correct in your prediction and I'll agree that the limit should be changed, I also agree with your suggestion of a weekly limit instead of a 30 day limit. While 30 days are tangible for some I guess it is not so for the populace at large.

However, I do fear that there will be another big fuss if another change to the rec system is implemented.

In response to your queries:

Where is the projection in my post which we are discussing, when I said that I felt 10 per month is too few?

I explained this in my post.

Your original suggestion seemed at the time to be completely arbitrary. If this wasn't the case, and you have completed some research into how to arrive at the figure of 10 per month, then please share it with us.

If it was completely arbitrary then I doubt our beloved admin would have accepted it. 10 seemed like a good place to start, and it had to start somewhere. I was checking the Recommended Posts page often, and it was going really well.

Will we have a rash of old posts being recced with the new months recs, because people have been unable to rec them in the previous 30 days, having used up their allocation of recs earlier in the month?

Will we then see the recommended posts page being full of older posts?

Originally posted by adramforall
Will we have a rash of old posts being recced with the new months recs, because people have been unable to rec them in the previous 30 days, having used up their allocation of recs earlier in the month?

Will we then see the recommended posts page being full of older posts?

Posts which are older than seven days will not be shown even if they are freshly wrecked, as far as I know.

Right now there is only 1 post with 1 rec on the Recommended posts page.

Perhaps over the last few days there was a lull in the quality of posts on rhp? A contibuting factor not yet considered?

I still agree on a weekly limit, I'm unsure of what that limit should be. Perhaps 3 or 4?

Edit: nice work Ragnorak, Thread 53108

My father owns a supermarket. Business is best the week after the first of the month, when
many people receive their monthly paychecks.

I work for a church. Collection is highest the first Sunday of a month, presumably for the same
reason (be it paycheck or social security).

Limiting the number of recs a month will likely result in the same pattern; good posts written
towards the end of the month will go un-recced because all the recs will have been spent.

In a system with a limited number of recs (which isn't my preference), I lean towards something
like 1/day with a bank of up to 15 or 20. This would alleviate what I expect will be a problem
towards the ends of months.

Nemesio

Originally posted by hopscotch
Right now there is only 1 post with 1 rec on the Recommended posts page.

Right now there are five.

I agree that a weekly limit would be better than a monthly one, although that has a disadvantage, too - good posts aren't always evenly distributed over a month, so there might be a week with lots of good posts and another week where I don't find anything wreck-worthy, in which case the current system would work better. So I find Nemesio's idea of a "rec-bank" interesting, although I think it complicates the system too much. Actually I think the best idea would be to simply go back to unlimited wrecks. I think it would work just fine now that the personal wreck count is dropped.

Today's wreck list:

1 post with 6 wrecks
1 post with 3 wrecks
7 posts with 2 wrecks
6 posts with 1 wreck

I think people are running out of wrecks.

Rec check:

1 post with 6 recs
1 post with 3 recs
10 posts with 2 recs
3 posts with 1 rec

I really like Nemesio's idea for the bank of recs, though I think that the bank is too large. How about:

Everyone is given 1 rec a day to give out. If they don't allot the rec to a post during the 24 hours then the rec will carry over to the next day, and so on, to form a maximum bank of 5 recs.

?

Originally posted by hopscotch
Everyone is given 1 rec a day to give out.

I like circles. 😉

D