There was briefly karma system in place on djembefola.com

[djembefola.com admin]

We now have a karma points system in place.

This is on trial and if the verdict is we don't like it, it'll be removed again... I've added a poll here, so let us know what you think! You can change your vote any time, so don't worry about not being sure of your vote

"give a little, get a lot"

That's the idea behind this community and with this we hope to reward contributers and stop lurkers (leeches?) from benefitting too much without contributing.

In a nutshell:
So you'll get points for posting (contributing through questions / answers giving advice) and for sharing media with the community.

If you try to download media and you haven't yet contributed you will be dissallowed.

You'll find the details here. Exact allocations are subject to change and I'm sure some tweaking will be necessary.

If you contribute you will never need to check your total.

This system only cover attachments that are made in posts. If you add media via the downloads section anybody will be able to download them. I will look at bridging this gap depending on the outcome of this trial.

I have the unenviable task of trying to big up those of you who have contributed significantly to our community up until this point!

I'm undecided on how to proceed with this right now. Options might be:
1) Write a program to get total number of posts of each member and add points directly into database (I'd prefer to avoid this )
2) Only allocate points for attachements
3) Take today as year ZERO and just move forward.

What do you guys think???

[Beerfola]

It takes all kinds to make up a community. I think this has the potential for punishing people more than it rewards people. Some people write books, some people read them. Just because I can read them doesn't mean I should write them. Some people lurk, some people spout. Personally, I don't want to wade through a sea of dribble just because folks need to keep their karma points up to benefit from the site. But hey, this is my first post in a while. Perhaps I should be more active!?! A few more "quick replies" with substantive content like, "True That" or " Fo shizzle" and I can be rockin' 3 Ksing Ksings. Throw in some bad recordings of me playing the wrong tonality on the wrong accompaniments for a rhythm and my karma goes up. (BTW - not directed at anyone. Just some of the self conscious reasons I don't post. That and my pervasive negative attitude - I'm working on that too!) I much prefer leaving the advice to people who know what they are talking about. Listening to the recordings that help me improve. And hitting this site multiple times a day without feeling like I'm some sort of vagrant because I'm not "contributing" at a certain level. That's just me.
PS Would this be considered a rant? I'm new to this stuff.

[James]

Thanks for your perspective Beerfola Have 20 points

I know what you mean, I have been active in other communities where I felt like an outsider, not confident enough to give advice.

This system isn't aimed to exile people like you.

As an example to illustrate why I have acted on this:
The huge majority of people who frequent this site do not sign up. That's fine, but some people would think twice about sharing recordings with the community because these people can just pull the recording and dissapear into the sunset.

We have upgraded hosting on Djembefola twice over the last few months and as such I'm not too keen to explore possiblities as we continue to grow.

I also have my reservations and as I said if it doesn't work we will pull it.

We have acted on this because of continual signs that a system like this will improve the community for everyone.

It is a trial and I'm glad to hear your and everyone elses opinions on the matter

[bubudi]

i can relate to not having the confidence to give advice as well as the desire not to post rubbish 'just because'.

however, everyone has something to contribute. for example:

• asking the right questions - the topic becomes a resource for many others
• sharing an interesting website
• sharing a cool video, whether yours or someone else's
• mp3s of original material
• mp3s from lessons or workshops
• notation
• discussion on djembefolaw (djembe players)
• review of a cd or dvd you like
• review of instructional material
• good joke for the humour section
• info about an upcoming workshop
• info about an upcoming performance
• info about an open drumming group in your area
• sharing something cool your teacher said that struck a chord with you
• suggestions for this website

some people are still beginners with the djembe, but might know a thing or two about music in general, or about recording, or about some other thing that is useful to our community.

if you've just signed up and are wondering what to contribute, a great start would be introducing yourself in the introductions subforum.

think outside the box. you all have something to offer.

[bubudi]

by the way, i have rewarded some of the regulars. if you feel left out, pm me and i'll be happy to reward you based on your contributions.

also, now that some of us have karma points, we can donate points to other members when they post something extra cool. if you read a message while logged in, you will see the profile details of the person who posted the message on the right hand side. underneath where it says 'cash on hand' there is a 'donate' button.

cash on hand? james, i prefer 'karma points'. or gri-gri points

[Djembe-nerd]

I am in the same boat as Beerfola. Not much too contibute to the experts discussing things here, but checking for new posts whenever the computer is on, and that is quite stress releiving at office

This system is followed by another site i know of, photo.net, where the more you visit and logon the more photos you are allowed to post. From my experience, if anyone has the interest to learn the art, and the site is good, people come back to learn and share.

If this is implimented, I suggest each logon has points too, and all those karma's that are currently giving no points have points too, so when we visit to read your expert comments (sometime we beginners understand nothing of it though ) we are rewarded since we are contributing, every artist needs audience otherwise only you 7-10 people will be left here discussing advanced djembe things and how will we respect your knowledge if we can't download things that you take so much pain to record

From the points system now, I won't be able to download anything, that sucks I will make my own website now Whatever the outcome, till now this site has helped me a lot, thats for sure.

[bubudi]

I am in the same boat as Beerfola. Not much too contibute to the experts discussing things here, but checking for new posts whenever the computer is on, and that is quite stress releiving at office

i hear you, but read my post above. do you not have something else to contribute?

this idea is not designed to put people on the spot to give advice or upload files. it's supposed to encourage people to interact. if you read and download but never post anything, people won't even know you exist. that's not interacting. if it weren't for beginner djembe players asking questions, a lot of the good knowledge on these forums wouldn't exist, and we'd have only a handful of people ever posting anything. wouldn't that be boring?

From the points system now, I won't be able to download anything, that sucks.

actually, that's not true. attachments in certain forums would be affected, but not the majority of them. and apart from that there is a whole downloads section which is accessible to all members.

adam, you already have 60 points. all you'd need to do is maintain your point score. you could do that by sharing a cool youtube video (or video from vimeo, myspace, dailymotion, etc). or posting a joke in the humour section or asking beginner questions or any of the other things i listed above.

in reality you wouldn't have to do very much, because any contribution you make will give you more points than what it costs to download an attachment with karma attached to it. so you would only need an occasional contribution.

give a little, get a lot

[michi]

I have to admit that I'm feeling very ambivalent about this feature. The problem I see is that the intended effect may not be achieved.

If someone who hasn't contributed enough finds a clip they would like to download and is told that they can't do that unless they contribute first, what's the likely response of that person? I strongly suspect that the response won't be "Oh well, I'll contribute something then" but rather that these people will not bother coming back. In turn, that would diminish the value of the site.

I understand the motivation of wanting to encourage people to contribute more, but I'm not at all sure that any points system (short of paying them frequent flyer points or some such) can achieve that. Basically, those people who contribute will do so with or without a point system, and those people who don't contribute aren't likely to change their behaviour with this new system.

The more people use this site, the more they will spread the word, recommend the site others, and so on. That will automatically increase the number of postings too. Anything we do that discourages people from using the site, such as denying access to certain sections, is likely to reduce popularity. We need to be careful not to shoot ourselves in the foot.

And, as far as the clips and such are concerned that I post here, I don't mind who downloads them and whether those people post here or not. I see djembefola.com as a really valuable resource for djembe aficionados. To me, it's about sharing, and sharing freely. I don't expect anything in return for what I post here. The good karma will do its thing anyway: what goes around comes around...

Cheers,

Michi.

[e2c]

I have very mixed feelings about this setup myself. Am not certain it's going to make people want to register - in fact, it might just work the opposite way.

Wait and see, I guess.

Edited to add: is there a way to disable the message that pops up saying "You have earned X for this post"? (I'm finding it to be a nuisance; not sure how others will react, though...)

Another thought: are the bots that crawl this site going to get points?! They're "registered users," too...

[michi]

Another thought: are the bots that crawl this site going to get points?! They're "registered users," too...

Man, that Google bot is going to have a truck load of karma...

Cheers,

Michi.

[michi]

From the karma information page:

Costs per download of an attachment: 150.00 Karma

That's ridiculous. For one, do I incur this cost every time I return to a clip to listen to it again? And every time I want to look at an image in a new window? And even for my own clips?

It seems that I'm getting 10-20 karma points per post. I listen to one sound clip, and it costs me 150. So, for each clip I want to listen to, I have to make 7-15 posts. Folks, that is completely unworkable.

I would suggest to trash this whole karma thing. Looking at images and listening to clips here isn't like going to the supermarket. I have enough work already watching my credit card statements, frequent flyer balance, supermarket loyalty bonus, and what not. I really don't want to add yet another thing to the list...

I also find it ridiculous to have this kind of pressure put on me. I've contributed nearly 500 posts to this forum so far. Granted, some of those are just short remarks. But quite a few of the posts are substantial in content and (if I say so myself) have made a useful contribution. Now, suddenly, I'm in this pressure cooker situation where I have to continually re-establish my standing, or else...

Given the amount I have contributed here, I would have thought that I'd hopefully be entitled to download whatever I want to, and as many times as I want to, without having some mindless piece of software deciding whether I'm considered worthy. In other words, I feel I'm entitled to an exemption from this whole karma thing, preferably for life. (Just like I get lifetime silver membership from my frequent flyer thing after having flown enough to keep half the airline afloat for a few months...)

Really, this is a prime mechanism to not only piss off casual visitors, but major contributors. This karma thing has bad karma all over it...

Cheers,

Michi.

[michi]

think outside the box. you all have something to offer.

True. But whether I offer something or not should be my choice. Djembe culture is all about sharing. No-one owns this music, and it can be played only by sharing it.

With this point system, we split the contributors into an elite and the rest of the rabble. That's rather contrary to the whole idea of a forum that allows people to share. The karma system, when it is stripped of all the rhetoric, boils down to this: I have to work (post) to earn money, and to eat (download), I have to spend money. That's not sharing, that's a market economy.

So far, djembefola.com has been a very pleasurable experience for me. I've communicated with many people (both publicly and privately), I've learned a lot, and I've posted a lot. In other words, I've been sharing in the true sense of the word. Now I'm confronted with an economic system that is just like the real-life pressure of balancing my budget.

This sucks! I don't want a "bank account". I don't want pseudo-cash to earn and spend, not even if it is called "karma". I just want to keep sharing here. This software is turning my attempts at doing that into a rather miserable experience.

To me, the karma point system is coercion, pure and simple. The carrot and the stick: "If you don't eat your dinner, you won't get dessert." This doesn't work for kids, and I doubt that it'll work for this forum. Threatening people (however well disguised) isn't going to make them want to be cooperative, or put them into a sharing mood.

Cheers,

Michi.

[James]

In the immediate term, I have disabled the system until we discuss it more.

As I said, this is a trial.
I aspire to dabble as little in the community as possbile... It should expand and change organically.

Sometimes I can make changes that will greatly improve the experience for people and that involves some action and a certain amount of experimentation.

Another thought: are the bots that crawl this site going to get points?! They're "registered users," too...

They aren't users. The forum knows the difference.

Edited to add: is there a way to disable the message that pops up saying "You have earned X for this post"? (I'm finding it to be a nuisance; not sure how others will react, though...)

I can remove this in the code and will do so, if we keep the system. Might not be worth the effort if we're just going to bin the whole thing soon.

That's ridiculous. For one, do I incur this cost every time I return to a clip to listen to it again? And every time I want to look at an image in a new window? And even for my own clips?

I was working under the assumption that people only download a clip once and then listen to it locally... If someone listens from the server everytime they will soon run out of love.

Considering the above and in general 150 points is probably too much.

It seems that I'm getting 10-20 karma points per post. I listen to one sound clip, and it costs me 150. So, for each clip I want to listen to, I have to make 7-15 posts. Folks, that is completely unworkable.

If we all had all the points we were owed by getting the points from all our posts etc, then this whole idea would probably work better. See intentions below....

I also find it ridiculous to have this kind of pressure put on me. I've contributed nearly 500 posts to this forum so far. Granted, some of those are just short remarks. But quite a few of the posts are substantial in content and (if I say so myself) have made a useful contribution. Now, suddenly, I'm in this pressure cooker situation where I have to continually re-establish my standing, or else...

This is defnitely not the intention here... See intentions below...

True. But whether I offer something or not should be my choice. Djembe culture is all about sharing. No-one owns this music, and it can be played only by sharing it.

With this point system, we split the contributors into an elite and the rest of the rabble. That's rather contrary to the whole idea of a forum that allows people to share. The karma system, when it is stripped of all the rhetoric, boils down to this: I have to work (post) to earn money, and to eat (download), I have to spend money. That's not sharing, that's a market economy.
So far, djembefola.com has been a very pleasurable experience for me. I've communicated with many people (both publicly and privately), I've learned a lot, and I've posted a lot. In other words, I've been sharing in the true sense of the word. Now I'm confronted with an economic system that is just like the real-life pressure of balancing my budget.

This sucks! I don't want a "bank account". I don't want pseudo-cash to earn and spend, not even if it is called "karma". I just want to keep sharing here. This software is turning my attempts at doing that into a rather miserable experience.

To me, the karma point system is coercion, pure and simple. The carrot and the stick: "If you don't eat your dinner, you won't get dessert." This doesn't work for kids, and I doubt that it'll work for this forum. Threatening people (however well disguised) isn't going to make them want to be cooperative, or put them into a sharing mood.

Michi - if there was such a thing as member of the month, it would be you. So I take your concerns extremely seriously. I am glad that you are voicing your opinions and it's clear you have strong feelings on this.

I do think that you are making a few assumptions that I don't feel represent the intentions of this clearly. Perhaps it reads like that, but at the end of the day this system is to stop people from downloading attachments until they have contributed a little... that's all... see the intentions below...

INTENTIONS

The intention of this system is not to:
1) Dangle a carrot in front of users in order to get them to contribute.
2) To introduce any kind of awareness points or money into your daily browsing.
3) To restrict the access or functionality of any active member in any way.
4) Encourage noise from members trying to get enought dough to bake a download.
5) Put any pressure on members to post or do anything at all....

The intention of this system is:
1) Encourage people to register and introduce themselves and contribute to the community.
2) Encourage people to upload media by removing the hinderance of it being available to anyone.
3) Prevent people from downloading media unless they have at least contributed in some way.

This whole idea came from the rhythm of the month thing...

Some of you expressed a wish to be able to seperate the group to keep it focused and I was told that it may encourage people to share media if there was something like this in place.

The only thing that it costs money to do is download attachements. I didn't realise that this would include images, and I probably set the cost as too high considering some people may listen in the browser and that imags are included.

I set the values quite quickly and as I said in my original post, I expected a certain element of tweaking to be necessary.

Anyway, I want to call for calm and open discussion. We've had a taste of what a points world looks like, so let's discuss it.

I would encourage everyone to give their opinion on the matter.

[e2c]

James, i do appreciate your clarifications and assumed (prior to your post) that the system could be tweaked. (Also that it's an experiment, and that not all experiments start out smoothly. )

One thing: there's a post in a related thread by someone who's been a longtime member, but mainly a reader, not a poster. He makes a good point in that thread - that he personally is a bit reluctant to post (reads like a bit of shyness to me, and he mentions that he feels a bit lacking in self-confidence). I think that's true of many folks out there - potential and current members alike.

There are a few boards where I mainly read but post very rarely. There are a lot of reasons for that, but it boils down to my my not feeling comfortable posting in those places, the fact that the boards in question are highly specialized (and I'm just trying to pick up a bit of information and knowledge there - there's not much I can add to their convos). I'll back you and bubudi up 100% in terms of trying to draw more folks into discussion here, but I'm just not convinced that this kind of point system is going to be a motivator.

Personally, I'd rather not be messing around with points, as it seems (please forgive the pun!) beside the point. Drawing people into conversations can happen in different ways... but I do think this board, though friendly, more or less screams "specialist site" without you (or anyone else) intending it to do so. That can be intimidating in itself, no matter how friendly the regular posters are, you know?

Maybe there are just some inherent difficulties in internet communication that we have to work with, rather than against? I'm just throwing that on the table for consideration.... and don't have any suggestions or possible solutions at the moment. But I'll be thinking it over and will post further ideas (should I have any!) in relevant threads.

Cool?

[michi]

In the immediate term, I have disabled the system until we discuss it more.

Three cheers for James!

First up, I want to make it clear that I'm not angry and that there is no blame. If I came across a bit strong in my posts, it's my passion And I think it's perfectly cool to experiment, and experiments don't always go right. When they don't, we can stop the experiment, which is exactly what James just did, so that's just as it should be.

I was working under the assumption that people only download a clip once and then listen to it locally... If someone listens from the server everytime they will soon run out of love.

Personally, I don't download things and keep them, unless it's something special. It's easier to just click on a link in a post and listen there and then. That's especially true for short posts, such as the two-slap sample posted today.

I do think that you are making a few assumptions that I don't feel represent the intentions of this clearly. Perhaps it reads like that, but at the end of the day this system is to stop people from downloading attachments until they have contributed a little... that's all... see the intentions below...

INTENTIONS

The intention of this system is not to:
1) Dangle a carrot in front of users in order to get them to contribute.
2) To introduce any kind of awareness points or money into your daily browsing.
3) To restrict the access or functionality of any active member in any way.
4) Encourage noise from members trying to get enought dough to bake a download.
5) Put any pressure on members to post or do anything at all....[/quote]

Right. But I do think that the point system is creating that kind of experience for users. What they see is that there are privileged and less privileged forum members, and that it takes work to acquire the privilege. The likely outcome is that fewer people will use this forum, IMO.

The intention of this system is:
1) Encourage people to register and introduce themselves and contribute to the community.

I'm afraid that all we can do is ask nicely. I don't think there is any software mechanism in the world that will get people to do this with any degree of success. For example, you could add a latch to the code that disallows people to post unless they've posted to the introduction forum. But would that work? And would the introduction be genuine and heartfelt? Personally, I doubt it. People would just post a pro-forma introduction to get past the latch so they can get on with what they are really interested in. I'd rather wait until someone really feels like introducing themselves, than read an introduction that is forced and rushed.

(As an aside, if there were such a latch, I wouldn't be posting this because I never posted to the introduction forum. I'll eventually remedy this, but probably with a blog entry.)

2) Encourage people to upload media by removing the hinderance of it being available to anyone.

I think that is a legitimate concern that deserves to be addressed. Some people feel uncomfortable about sharing media without limit. If the forum addresses that concern, there will be more sharing (albeit to a limited audience), instead of no sharing. Limited sharing is better than no sharing at all, IMO.

The point system doesn't achieve this though. I think a better approach might be to have a separate media sharing section, where people can upload a clip and then control for that clip who is allowed to download it. To make this workable, you'd need customisable user groups, along the lines of the friend lists used for Facebook, for example.

I wonder though whether this is worth all the effort. There are tons of ways for people to selectively share media already. If we add yet another way to share media here, will that make the site more attractive? I suspect not.

3) Prevent people from downloading media unless they have at least contributed in some way.

As a forum policy, that strikes me as inappropriate. If anything, it should be up to the owner/poster to decide who gets to download a clip. To underscore this point, if you decide to permit downloading only for those people who have contributed something here, I'll be pissed off, because I am keen to share what I post with everyone, whether I know them or not. In other words, a forum-wide policy will be wrong for some of the members, no matter what that policy is.

Some of you expressed a wish to be able to seperate the group to keep it focused and I was told that it may encourage people to share media if there was something like this in place.

As I said, I think that's a legitimate concern. The question is whether the forum has to do something about this, or whether other sharing mechanism that exist already are adequate to address the concern.

Anyway, I want to call for calm and open discussion. We've had a taste of what a points world looks like, so let's discuss it.

Absolutely! Again, I want to emphasise that there is no blame here. Three decades of software development experience and two and a half decades worth of Internet experience (anyone remember bnews? ) tell me that no amount of coercion will work. What will work though is openness. There is tons of evidence for that. And what will also work is the quality of the forum itself and its visibility.

This whole thing is a popularity game more than anything else. The more high-quality posts appear here, the more people will read and, eventually, the more people will contribute. But that is possible only with free access to information.

Another way of looking at it: if some people do not want to share their media with the entire world, the answer is simple--don't post the media here then, because it's the wrong place. Share the media by email instead, or YouTube, or whatever.

Cheers,

Michi.