Make ranking and reviewing part of contributing content
As is the case with most forum-like services its far too easy for ideas to get lost in the long list of ideas. No one has found the magical formula for making sure people get to see the best ideas in a forum. Reddit and Stackexchange have probably come the closest by making sure that part of being a content-creator involves voting on other ideas as well as commenting on or answering other people's posts. The Mix would benefit by voting or reviewing becoming part of its culture. This can't just be administrators pushing what they think are the best ideas to the top either, it should be part of what it means to be a member of the Mix community. Karma systems or trust mechanisms might be a way to do that. Perhaps even a system where voting on other ideas raises the level of your post? There are likely many experiments that could be tried!
Thanks for this feedback David, I think it's very spot on. We've experimented with two separate rating systems: the 2-scale, 5-point ratings that we've got for Hacks and Stories on the MIX site, and the simpler Like system we have on entries on mixprize.org. It's our sense that the MIX rating system is too heavy weight and most users won't bother with it, and the Like system gets more traction with our users but is a much cruder rating. Beyond the suggestion of folding the rating into the contribution process, do you have any feelings about the different kind of rating systems out there, which ones seem to work the best? Thanks!
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Reddit's system is very simple on the surface as its just an upvote or a downvote, however they tie that in to a person's "karma". Karma is only a points-based measure of how much that person participates and whether other people like or dislike their contributions but its interesting how invested people are to growing their karma. The first site I remember doing something like this was advogato.org. It was built for the open source development community and was based on research into "trust systems" by its creator. It allowed people to apply leadership categories to others in the community (Bruce was marked as a Jouneyman by Brad: Bruce was marked as a Master by Dave: etc). These would rack up until the person had enough to be considered Master (top level). It was simple validation that the person's contributions to open source projects were useful. Again, people just wanted to see that validation rise but had to be a part of the community to see it happen.
Altogether different is the Stackexchange system (http://www.stackoverflow.com being the original) where people ask questions and then can very visibly mark the best answer. It might be interesting to build a q&a section that did the same thing for management!
There are many, many more examples!
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I think a karma/reputation system is really a good idea. It's amazing how much motivation people get from something as simple as building up "status" on a site. Responding to content contributed to others has to be a part of that system and simultaneously helps surface good content while also motivating more participation.
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Thanks David, that's very helpful. And you aren't the first person to suggest a stackoverflow type of MIX Q&A section. I think that would be a good addition to the site.
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Definitely agree that this is worth experimenting with. I like the idea that reading the content that others create becomes as important a part of the MIX culture as creating your own content. We should do as much as possible to ensure that this interchange--both creating content and reviewing the content of others--becomes a key part of the MIX culture. As others have pointed out, the *exchange of ideas* where a lot of the power of the MIX comes from.
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