I think experience in general is a good thing. People like to be recognized for all of the work/time they put into the site in some (semi) tangible way. However, experience has a bad side. People get too tied up accumulating points. The following thought may have been discussed before, but I couldn't find it.
The role playing game Amber is completely diceless and has an interesting experience and attributes system. Basically players do not know exacly what their attributes are or when they gain experience, only the GM knows. All the players know is where they rank with regard to the other players and to the well known NPCs.
How does this apply to PM? Well if we hide the exact experience that a given monk has and simply state their rank it might alleviate some of the excessive weight that people put on gaining experience. We would not see indication of when exactly we gained experience (perhaps there should be some general indication of what has gone on over the last day so that people are not completely lost, just a general indication of good or bad).
It might also be interesting to remove the explicit point total from posts and only show rough textual descriptions depending on how many points they have on the back end.
Thoughts, comments?
-ben
(dws)Re: Hide Experience Numbers?
by dws (Chancellor) on May 16, 2001 at 00:53 UTC
|
People get too tied up accumulating points.
Some people do. What's the harm in letting them? Perlmonks isn't exactly a zero-sum game. And if some people use point competition as a motivation, where's the harm? They still have to produce posts worthy of votes (and avoid posts that the community will net downvote). Good posts keeps Perlmonks vibrant.
Until there's concensus that XP is causing a significant problem, I feel that we should just allow that different people are motivated by different things, and move on.
| [reply] |
Re: Hide Experience Numbers?
by tadman (Prior) on May 16, 2001 at 02:24 UTC
|
After having used Everything
and Perl Monks, I'm a firm
believer in the XP system. It's a simple solution to a problem
which has ruined a lot of similar message boards.
USENET, the Internet news system,
was historically a wild and crazy place, but somehow
it was self-organizing, with most newsgroups able to
keep unwanted behaviour in check. It wasn't until Prodigy,
AOL, CompuServe, and many, many other commercial services
started unloading users by the millions that USENET collapsed
under its own mass, and SPAM, of course. The "village"
community couldn't scale to mega-city size because it had no
real way of policing. You simply could not prevent someone
from posting.
So many Web-based bulletin boards are filled with drivel,
"I'm first" posts, and remarks so remarkably stupid that
they would have you wondering if you needed to have a
brain to operate a computer.
The XP system is effective at "punishing" people who get
out of line by contributing things that the community does
not want (--) and "rewarding" those who contribute things
that the community wants. You will notice that the "ruffians"
are short-lived, that even those who make a deliberate effort
to distrupt the community find it difficult to make a lasting
impression. Nodereaper, for example, is merely an extension
of the XP system.
XP may not be a perfect solution, but at least it is
democratic, allowing the community members to define the
community.
| [reply] |
|
| [reply] |
|
In some ways, I agree with you, knobunc. In others, I don't.
I think some people do get a little too tied up with the XP system. Take a look at this node by deprecated that just recently came up. (Specfically, view the page source of that node...way at the bottom...) I don't want to point fingers at deprecated, I just recalled the recent post. And I really doubt that the XP frenzy is really contained to just a few monks. I admit that I recently passed a level and the day before I did, I was more active on Perlmonks than I had been in a while, simply to get to that level just a little bit faster. Even when I'm not specifically working on Perl, I often log on (once a day, if possible) to see what's going on and shell out my votes for the day.
So, now that we've seen what an XP freak I am - why do I think XP is a good thing? Well, frankly, I remain highly active in Perlmonks because I'm after XP points. Granted, I like to help people, too, but it's nice to have something to show for your efforts. If it wasn't for the XP system, I think Perlmonks would suffer from a type of "Bystander Effect" where everyone stands around when someone needs help simply because everyone figured someone else will help. Just think of all the newbie questions that would go unanswered... ;) With the XP system in place, people are jumping up and down to help others - and I think that's what we need.
Obviously, the XP system isn't perfect (if you look up "Personality Voting," you can probably find a knock or two on it by merlyn), but I think it gives Perlmonks a net gain. I agree with your point and I like your concept, but I think getting rid of the XP system would hurt Perlmonks in the long run.
There's my two cents. ;)
- Sherlock
Skepticism is the source of knowledge as much as knowledge is the source of skepticism.
| [reply] |
|
Displaying a users XP to the user is of particular importance
because it describes the relationship they have achieved with
the community, albeit in a simple one-dimensional numeric.
If you had -50 XP, you are receiving a pretty strong signal.
Likewise, if you had 5000 XP, you must be doing something
right.
With respect to showing your XP for all to see, it is not strictly
necessary, but since most would likely want to see
how they are progressing with respect to other community
members, had it not been visible historically, there would
certainly be a movement to make these numbers visible to all.
Competition for higher XP is, in this regard, healthy.
XP is not specifically a goal, unless you make it one. Perhaps
someone could somehow "engineer" their posts to garner a lot
of XP. This would likely involve helping out the community
a lot. Is answering more questions to gain more XP a bad
thing?
Don't forget, though, that you can't make votes appear
out of thin air. Real people actually have to vote, so there
is a moderating mechanism there. If people feel like they
are being cheated somehow, or that that user is trying a
little too hard, they can always use their votes in the
negative capacity to discourage it.
| [reply] |
|
Re: Hide Experience Numbers?
by royalanjr (Chaplain) on May 16, 2001 at 01:27 UTC
|
A lot of people need to have some kind of way to measure their progress towards a goal. For those whose goal is to make saint the xp is a very quick measure of progress towards that goal.
It would be kind of like wanting to lose (or gain) weight but you were not allowed to use a scale. Over some period of time you would notice the change (loosing/gaining a significant amount of weight = reaching a new level) but day by day you would not have the instant feedback (seeing you gained/lost a pound today = seeing your xp gain/loss today).
This instant viewing of even a small amount of progress could be very important for keeping one focused on the goal.
Roy Alan
| [reply] |
|
|