[Exploration] Linkedin Contributor Meter

Sir ArmaMalum·Dec 2, 2014·4 votes·1,490 views

I'm a gamer. And as a gamer I play many more games than just League, as well as many more forums than just League's. So I'm going to highlight some features of other gaming forums, websites and other places that I thought were brilliant. I'm not saying "Put this in, Rito Plz!", but exploring how different developers handled the problems presented in a forum platform can not only be a good exercise, but can be excellent springboards to other ideas.

http://i.imgur.com/l1VespA.png

I'm baaaaaaack.

Here's the Linkedin Contributor mechanic for their site. What this does is track your 'momentum' of sorts when it comes to being active within a group. While I don't know the exact algorithm, I know you can generate momentum by posting discussions, posting comments and having your discussions commented on (with diminishing returns on the last one).

This bar has 3 simple tiers 'No contribution', 'Building influence', and 'top contributor'. When you hit 'top contributor' you get a nice little title below your name on any comments in that group, as well as being included on a list of top contributors avaliable through a small link off to the side. Of course this value will decay after about two days or so of no contribution (possibly varying on total group activity) and you'll quickly lose that 'top contributor' title if you're not consistently getting activity in.

I thought this was a cool bit to look at because I know there's always been talk about how to highlight more active and helpful people within the Boards without producing an easily abusable system that means little to nothing. Now, this system exactly still isn't perfect as it doesn't (I am 90% sure) take into account word count or discussion quality, just the easier to track metrics. I think it works in Linkedin because the groups are usually much tighter in their discssion posting than, say, a public forum. So the main problem, incite/flame posts, can be dealt with through that method.

Honestly, it works a lot like the current in-game honor system, where it's actually not too difficult to get up to the top (i.e. get a ribbon) but it's much more difficult to maintain that level once you're there. It's a clever system for a site like Linkedin, as it uses the visibility increase to you as a person as an incentive to produce more discussion within a group, which in turn creates more opportunities for another person to also build influence.

Thoughts?

3 Comments

DaenDec 2, 20142 votes

I have had a lot of experience with the Top Contributor functionality in LinkedIn, as I used to post a lot in Inside Riot Games. I'll touch on some things I've noticed and talked about with other Top Contributors in that group.

You have covered the basic mechanics well, so I won't get into that. The things that're important to me are how the system feels and what it realistically accomplishes, and that's where things get interesting.

How does it feel?

Depending on the group, Top Contributor can feel a bit like pushing a boulder up an endless hill. The progression from building influence to finally reaching Top Contributor feels good, but a few days of inactivity (or even a slight dip thereof) can remove that title. It's generally pretty easy to re-attain, but there is still that constant feel of needing to post often just to stay relevant.

What does it actually accomplish?

From my experience, Top Contributor encourages post volume rather than post quality. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it really doesn't feel like it rewards the right people sometimes. I've had times where I have felt that I need to write a comment like "I agree with x" or something equally fluffy just to not lose the title, which to me isn't necessarily ideal.

Basically, I think the general concept of the idea is good. I would love to see some recognition for those that post constructively and contribute heavily to the well-being of the platform, but I'm just not sure that TC functionality is what we're looking for.

What do you think?

Sir ArmaMalumDec 2, 20141 votes

Completely agree on your points. Although I will say that the need for maintenance is a intended discomfort, like dying in a video game. A necessary mechanic with an associated negative feeling, or in this case removal of a positive one.

Specifically I very much agree on the lack of post quality encouragement. For Linked in I don't think it's that high of a priority 2bh, but if such a system (like........an extension of the Honor system, hehe) were to make it to the Boards a mechanic for post quality would definitely be needed.

DaenDec 2, 20141 votes

Although I will say that the need for maintenance is a intended discomfort, like dying in a video game.

Dying in a video game serves a specific purpose; it is a guidance tool that uses negative reinforcement to drill the fact that you should probably play more carefully/more strategically/less poorly. There is really no way to use positive feedback to reinforce that sort of concept (unless your game is specifically designed around death), because dying would essentially function as a reward.

This just seems like a strange example to me, because death is a mechanic where the discomfort is directly related to mistakes made by the player. Drawing the same relationship to a contribution system equates it to the concept that losing Top Contributor is intended to be related to mistakes made by the poster, which is not ideal in my opinion.

a mechanic for post quality would definitely be needed

How would you propose setting up a metric for post quality? More importantly, does it feel particularly meaningful to be labeled as a Top Contributor if it's widely known that all you have to do is post a lot then receive it automatically?

I'm super biased (obviously) here, but my opinion is that posting quality isn't really something that can be measured or rewarded without human intervention. If someone posts once a week but their posts are extremely insightful and create a lot of interesting debate, that's infinitely more valuable than someone who posts fluff constantly.

If one person writes really short but perfectly to-the-point responses and another writes really long and verbose responses to cover the same thing, how do we determine which poster is generally more constructive? How do we distinguish this from the reverse (short fluff vs long value), from a metric standpoint?

As a semi-unrelated point, what is your opinion on the decay from being a Top Contributor for a forum setting like the Boards? Would you want it to be more along the lines of encouraging posters to keep themselves relevant, or have the decay function purely as a way to rotate people through Top Contributor?