Saidit's voting system: Why it's awesome and how to use it

submitted by magnora7 from self.SaidIt

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[–]ColdRoland 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

Just vote with what feels right.

I feel that you've added to the discussion but didn't see my point so I'll award you 1/2 point for your effort.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Was it funny? then why vote it funny? They're sorted differently...

[–]ColdRoland 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes, and hence my surreal reply as an attempt at being ridiculous as well (which in turn got its own funny vote).

Perhaps my kind of humour allows me to see the potential hilarity in trusting the behaviour of anonymous internet users and yours don't?

Perhaps your kind of humour doesn't include chuckling at half a point in a 1 and/or 2 point system?

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

There is no better system though. The votes have to come from somewhere... at some point we have to trust the user or there would be no voting at all. People can still be removed if they're bringing the quality of saidit down as per the pyramid of debate. What is your proposed solution?

[–]ColdRoland 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What is your proposed solution?

Make it so users can only give one vote.

I think this post is, as an artistic piece fun, playful and entertaining, while the concept is very thought provoking to me. Funny and insightful.

Does the dual qualities justify the 50% higher visibility compared to this post, which I'd argue is of equal or higher quality?

In my opinion, no. With a single vote, both would get the insightful one and equal visibility while a post like this would get a funny vote. And one can block the sub if one doesn't want jokes, cat pics and funny videos or what ever through RESaidit I assume?

Right now we have the possibility to boost for visibility, three people voting that video as insightful and no way to get rid of funny or thinky posts if one want - Something a decent moderation of subs dedicated to funny OR insightful posts will allow for.

There's also the point about it being misunderstood as ridicule on a pedestal and giving ones only vote as "lol" on a post about the holocaust surely cements the troll factor, but you've already replied to that, trollvoting only helps the post.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I appreciate you taking the time to lay out your argument so clearly. You make a good point about being able to vote both... so basically you think in people's desire to add more points to something they like that isn't funny, they'll use the funny vote to promote it more? I see what you mean now.

On the one hand that's kind of also laughing at content they're trying to seriously promote, so I don't know if people would do that. Plus anyone truly dedicated to gaming the vote system can just switch between multiple accounts, so I'm not sure how much it's actually preventing in reality.

We put a lot of work in to coding the functionality of being able to vote both. It'd be a real shame to undo all that, plus it's one of the unique features to saidit.

What if we met in the middle? What if insightful is +2, funny +1, but then if you vote both it's still just +2 total, but it gives +1 to the insightful category and +1 to the funny category? This way it doesn't give additional points, but still gives the diversity of indication of being able to vote multiple ways. That way it doesn't encourage voting funny for visibility, but the complexity of the voting system is still maintained.

I think we would definitely consider a system like this, it makes a lot of sense.

[–]ColdRoland 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

you think in people's desire to add more points to something they like that isn't funny, they'll use the funny vote to promote it more?

Yes. It's a system based on trust, and I think sooner or later untrustworthy people will start using Saidit.

On the one hand that's kind of also laughing at content they're trying to seriously promote, so I don't know if people would do that.

I think people will game the system to get the desired result. Ever seen a twitter message starting with "1/5"? Why would they do that when the platform clearly is made for 280 characters?

Plus anyone truly dedicated to gaming the vote system can just switch between multiple accounts, so I'm not sure how much it's actually preventing in reality.

It prevents normal users from gaming the system in a situation where there is no limits and no clear rules. Using VPNs, using profiles/private and creating a ton of sock puppets is a clear circumvention of the system and the threshold for doing this is significantly higher.

We put a lot of work in to coding the functionality of being able to vote both. It'd be a real shame to undo all that, plus it's one of the unique features to saidit.

Very understandable. My suggestion doesn't change that in any way but forces a clearer divide between insightful and funny.

And by the way, all your hard work is greatly appreciated and I hope that you all consider my bitching as my way of contributing to a site I believe can achieve greatness if you don't make the same mistakes as similar sites or make brand new mistakes.

What if insightful is +2, funny +1, but then if you vote both it's still just +2 total, but it gives +1 to the insightful category and +1 to the funny category?

That is a good idea that stops the boosting and keeps your design goals. I have a suggestion that handles both while it will probably increase the knowledge and use of the funny vote:

AFAIK right now "Hot" is a combination of insight/funny votes while "Funny" sorts the post based on their funny rank only. There is no way of sorting it on "Insightful" only.

Why don't we have "Funny", "Insightful" and "Hot" (which sorts by the cumulative score from both votes) sorting tabs? It will make it easier to sort by preferred content and encourage people to vote funny as funny (re: the three people finding a comedy video "insightful").

For a balance in the "Hot" (Cumulative scores), funny posts would have to be valued the same as insightful posts (1 or 2 points for both). But this would prevent a problem I think will arise as soon as people actually start to use the votes as intended...

With the current system all explicitly funny posts will be gone from the front page due to the points weight and relegated to the "funny" tab/frontpage. A post with 11 insightful votes will overtake a funny post with 15 votes and this will make funny posts an afterthought since they very rarely will hit the front page.

I believe this will very well encompass your design goals to:

This way it doesn't give additional points, but still gives the diversity of indication of being able to vote multiple ways. That way it doesn't encourage voting funny for visibility, but the complexity of the voting system is still maintained.

But even if you only consider the "max 2 points per post" change I'm happy. Thanks boss.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is no way of sorting it on "Insightful" only.

We plan to add this, it's something that's missing right now. We are 100% going to do this.

And by the way, all your hard work is greatly appreciated and I hope that you all consider my bitching as my way of contributing

I get it, and I appreciate it.

I do think that something that is both funny and insightful should be rewarded more than something that's just one, though.

With the current system all explicitly funny posts will be gone from the front page due to the points weight and relegated to the "funny" tab/frontpage.

Not entirely true, funny stuff still makes to to the front page somewhat regularly.

A post with 11 insightful votes will overtake a funny post with 15 votes and this will make funny posts an afterthought since they very rarely will hit the front page.

Yes, that's rather the point. We intend to prioritize insightful things over funny things.

d3rr and I will think about this some more, I appreciate the food for thought and your consideration for the website's future!