Pip, Pip, Hurray!

[NonAnon]

I find it kind of amazing that people believe up-voting or other audience feedback doesn't distort contributor behavior, ...

Has anyone said that?

Someone wrote "So as far as I'm concerned both recs and BoB should definitely be introduced here. There's really no downside at all".

I'd say distorting contributor behavior was a definite downside.

Recommendation engines are a god awful way for investors to filter the opinions they read, you really want to be reading views that challenge you not ones you agree with. Investing in't like booking a room on Airbnb.

This isn't news by the way and reading the topic I see a few people agree with me but many don't. Is there something different about the people who agree? Probably. his site is confusing to me as I don't know who it's aimed at, is it serious investors or for general discussions and chat and jokes? Maybe the ones who agree with me are more interested in investing and have learnt the heard way that populism doesn't make for investing success, the opposite, and the other contributors are more interested in general discussions and other chat where a recommendation engine voting system can help surface whats popular. The forum controllers can't satisfy both unless they confine a voting system to general discussions and jokes and keep it away from the serious investing.

Seems there are strong or entrenched views on this subject and no ones changing anyones mind. Fortunately the web is a very big place so theres always lots of options for anyone who doesn't like what they find, its not the end of anyone's world.

[Itsallaguess]

Recommendation engines are a god awful way for investors to filter the opinions they read, you really want to be reading views that challenge you not ones you agree with. Investing isn't like booking a room on Airbnb.

I actually agree with the second section of that statement, pointing out that we should always look to challenge views where we think they are wrong, and have our views challenged if people can raise valid points to do so. That way everyone helps others improve the information we believe and that we disseminate.

The problem I have is one where we move from that position to one where we think 'banning' the rec-system is a way to move towards that point.

I actually think that, whilst the rec-system has it's clear downsides, I think one of the really big plus-points is that in a way it helps to march towards the first part of the above statement that I agree with.

How it does that is that it helps to provide a focus-point to actually help to 'attract' alternative points of view, and by doing so on threads that might be attracting recs, it helps others to possibly see those alternative views and points on those threads containing potentially highly-recced posts.

So in a way, I think removing the rec-system with a view to getting to your second set of statements is a backwards step. All it would do would be to create a massively wide pool of posts and threads, where people would have to read almost every post or thread to 'get to' the 'challenging posts' that you're keen to help provide to people.

Far better to help to create smaller pools of widely-approved-of information, where those challenges can then be much better accessed by people, who will tend to congregate around those more widely-approved posts and threads.

As I've said before, there's an acceptance that there's a small price to pay for such a system, but the up-sides, including the above one, are much greater in my opinion, and it would be shame to have no way of knowing what people see as useful or 'good' posts or threads just to remove that much smaller set of downsides that are well known and manageable by a good moderation-system.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[stooz]

I'm hoping a system will be flexible to be hidden by reach persons preference, but also only effective board by board.
So if the more social rooms prefer it then they can have it.

[melonfool]

Seems there are strong or entrenched views on this subject and no ones changing anyones mind. Fortunately the web is a very big place so theres always lots of options for anyone who doesn't like what they find, its not the end of anyone's world.

I never thought about it much until this discussion. I liked them on TMF, I miss them on Mumsnet and find them a bit odd on Facebook.

Having read the discussion I agree now that they should be for the post and not the person, and time limited. I think confining them to the 'social' boards makes sense and Stooz has confirmed below that this is possible.

So, the reasoned debate has certainly helped me form a view.

But I don't think trying to shoe-horn the views into "those who agree with me = serious investors; those who do not = more interested in general discussion and chat" is at all helpful, because the two are not mutually exclusive.

Mel

[Clitheroekid]

Catching up on this thread I rather cynically started wondering if there might be a correlation between the rec/gong fans, and those who used to have a lot of them on TMF. If so maybe they're experiencing a 'Who moved my gongs?' withdrawal phase...

I was wondering the same thing in reverse ...

[Clitheroekid]

One place a recs system really would be useful is the Laughing Lemons board. At present all I see is a list of jokes, without any means of knowing which are the funny ones.

When I used to visit Jokers' Corner the recs system was invaluable in picking out the 1 in 10 jokes that were actually funny! There is no way that I would have read through all the awful ones just to reach the good ones.

[kiloran]

One place a recs system really would be useful is the Laughing Lemons board. At present all I see is a list of jokes, without any means of knowing which are the funny ones.

Simple.... just read the ones from squiffs

--kiloran

[swill453]

When I used to visit Jokers' Corner the recs system was invaluable in picking out the 1 in 10 jokes that were actually funny! There is no way that I would have read through all the awful ones just to reach the good ones.

+1

Scott.

[Lootman]

Catching up on this thread I rather cynically started wondering if there might be a correlation between the rec/gong fans, and those who used to have a lot of them on TMF. If so maybe they're experiencing a 'Who moved my gongs?' withdrawal phase...

I was wondering the same thing in reverse ...

Well, I was one of those who opposed recs. Looking at my TMF profile I see that I accumulated almost 11,000 recs (for nearly 9,000 posts since 1998). I'm sure there are Fools with many more but it's hardly a small number, and I do recall that blue crown thingy attaching itself to my handle when I was there actively.

So there's at least one exception to your putative theory.

I think these are the different layers and possibilities, and could form a poll along the lines that Gengulphus was suggesting:

1. No recs at al
2. Recs as a mechanism for one Lemon to thank another, and seen by only those two parties. Could also provide a means of bookmarking those posts but, again, only by the two parties
3. Includes (2) above and used to populate a temporary "best of" list
4. Includes (3) above but also get tallied and displayed by user, in a low profile way, like the stats shown on the right
5. Includes (3) above but comes complete with special avatars, gongs, colours, and displayed in league tables. A full blown class hierarchy.

I'd probably vote for (3). Try that for a while and see if there is demand for more.

[Gengulphus]

Recommendation engines are a god awful way for investors to filter the opinions they read, you really want to be reading views that challenge you not ones you agree with. Investing in't like booking a room on Airbnb.

How do you know what I want??? ;-)

I want to be challenged, yes - but I don't want to be challenged the same old way over and over and over again... That's just plain boring!

And if I wanted to know before reading a post whether I was likely to agree with it, to be interestingly challenged by it, or to be boringly challenged by it, looking at who had posted it was a far better indicator than looking at how many recs it had obtained. Recs for me were mostly not an input into the decision what to read, but an output I gave after a post had made me think. The exception was that occasionally, after reading (or at least skimming) my usual boards and not finding enough interesting material, I would take a look at the BoB to see what else there might be around. It was a bit of a hit-and-miss way of finding them, but it scored more hits and fewer misses than just reading boards at random!

Gengulphus

[torata]

One place a recs system really would be useful is the Laughing Lemons board. At present all I see is a list of jokes, without any means of knowing which are the funny ones.

When I used to visit Jokers' Corner the recs system was invaluable in picking out the 1 in 10 jokes that were actually funny! There is no way that I would have read through all the awful ones just to reach the good ones.

Agreed! Have a rec... er...

torata