Reappropriating the points

This is something that has been spoken about in the past, but never really followed up. Now that listal has grown somewhat and we have more active members, I was thinking of ways that people's contributions could be awarded (albeit with meaningless points!) more fairly. I came up with a few ideas. I'm not suggesting any of the points totals at present be lowered, so nobody should lose out on what they've already contributed. Anyone else please feel free to chime in:

Reviews: Currently 50 points.

I think this is far too low. I can upload five or so pictures in about 30 seconds and score the same amount of points as I would for a review. People like PvtCaboose spend hours at a time on single reviews and they are generally informative and interesting. I think the points for a review should jump to at least 100 points. I then suggest that for every 500 words, a 50 point bonus is added. People think this could be abused, but there is still a 'report' button that could be utilised against spammers. And at the end of the day, it's still 50 points they could've got by adding 5 pictures of pikachu or whatever.

Lists: Currently 50 points.

Since people figured out how to put pictures and html into their lists, the quality of them has just got better and better. There are some outstanding lists on listal, and given it's the name of the site, I think we should be rewarding lists (particularly creative ones) with more points. I think the points for a list with 10 items should jump to at least 100 points. Then with every item with a NOTE added, another 10 points should be awarded. Furthermore, every 10 items added on top of the original ten should have another 10 point bonus.

These are the big two, they are the most creative and member-driven things on the site and I think they should be awarded much more positively than they currently are!

Rating: Currently 3 points.

I think points for ratings should be a little higher. I like to see big collectors on this site and it takes some serious dedication to look over at your media items and try and transfer them all over to listal. Unless people are adding their collections, you'll never find other members to collaborate and 'be similar' with. I'm still suggesting a modest increase though, to 4 points.

Votes: Currently 4 points

I was trying to think of the best way to award true creativity on the site further. I realised that votes are the best way to award 'bonus points' considering The People are doing the work for you! I suggest votes are raised to 5 points as a bare minimum. Then, with every 10 votes acquired, the votes are worth 5 extra points each.

1 - 9 votes = 5 points per vote
10 - 19 votes = 10 points per vote
20 - 29 votes = 15 points per vote
and on and on...

Maybe people would use their votes more responsibly then! Or maybe they'd keep joining up with alts, I don't know. But I think giving members more voting power is a really great idea.

I think the rest of the points are fine as they are. All counter-points welcome.

And just bumping again!

I'm wondering if we should get points for adding items to the website from Amazon.com. There's a lot of stuff I wouldn't mind adding here, even though I haven't seen or heard it. Just to help the website out I guess while I'm bored at work. I think we should get points for that.
Just an idea.

I'm not sure about points for adding stuff from Amazon (though I do it a lot..am I in the minority??), but I would support points for adding stuff that isn't on Listal or Amazon.

I also think it could be interesting to give extra points to lists that fulfill a unique niche or role. Escafeld just did a list for Anna May Wong that I thought was interesting and not really a "add random stuff" sort of list, I have ones on Cave shooters and Shinya Tsukamoto films - basically stuff that's semi-obscure, requires a little knowledge or research, etc. Dunno how we'd necessarily do that, short of adding an optional "reason for voting" list of radio buttons, but it's an idea.

Another suggestion regarding allocation of points:

How about receiving points based on the number of votes you've received?

For example every 100 votes you receive you get 500 points

100 votes 500 points
200 votes 1000 votes
300 votes 1500 points
400 votes 2000 points
etc etc

How about a points system that encourages casting votes ..

for every 100 votes you cast you receive say 50 points

200 votes cast 100 points
300 votes cast 150 points
400 votes cast 200 points
etc etc

Just an idea like. :-)

In the past, people got points for voting and abused it into oblivion! I don't think there should be incentives for voting, as we might get people just blanket voting for things rather than dishing them out based on merit.

The other idea I like though. If Tom can't code a way for votes to be worth more points the more they accumulate, then having an automatic 'bonus' for every 100 votes you get could be a better idea.

Any advancement on these suggestions, Tom?

Sweet!

What about items that get votes above that?

What bonus will you be giving Tom?

Blimey, my points have increased by nearly 40000!

Reviews are still being under appreciated, to the extent that they hardly ever reach the dizzy heights of 20+ votes that lists do. Any advancement on awarding more points for reviews? They should be at least a hundred points each as a baseline!

Listal is run by the members, we essentially moderate ourselves and can report reviews accordingly. Reviews and lists were both worth 50 points each until recently, so I assume it was thought that they were equally worthwhile for the site (which I agree with).

I agree there should be a minimum word or character count though. I think if something is less than, I don't know - 100 words, then it should receive no points and appear as a 'private' review, much like lists can be made private.

I think there's far too much snobbery attached to the length of reviews. Sometimes short-form 'twitter' style reviews can be just as useful. Indeed it can be a challenge to write something succinct & concise in less than say 160 characters that conveys your view on film rather than waxing lyrical with reams of words.

I like to rate the movies I watch but the rating in itself doesn't fully convey what I may like or dislike about the film. Sometimes I may want to expand on my rating by saying a few words about the movie but not write a long-form 'imdb' style review.

There's merit in both review forms for me but I like to make short-form reviews which I do but not on this site because if I did I'd get slaughtered as some sort of spam monster who was clearly just trying to bump up his points total.

So I refrain from short form reviewing on this site & use blippr instead to 'blip' my media. Reviews in 160 characters or less. However I would be more than happy for listal users to start short -form reviewing because when I use this site as a recommendation engine I would get more from it by considering both the rating & short form review & taken with any extended review could really help me decide which films to watch.

The only thing word length determines is the amount of effort someone has put in, there's no guarantee that a long review wont be a load of guff, but then rewarding someone with 100 points as a starting point isn't exactly going to destroy listal at the seams. I think it just recognises the contribution people put in.

My last post was probably about 100 words long, I think anything shorter than that just can't really constitute a review simply by definition! The real reward comes from votes on top, which are the real measure of quality I guess.

I've never seen any definition of review that includes how many words a review should contain. A review can be as a short as one word.

Fact remains if someone makes a short form review of say 50 words & someone finds that useful then it is a worthwhile review whether it receives a vote or not.

I want all reviews to be worth 100 points. I personally don't care how short a review is, as if it's just a sentence of 'dis iz cool' I report it. As long as it gets deleted I don't care very much (I wouldn't even mind if the poster kept the 100 points!). If it's something a bit longer, like a snapshot opinion, I tend to glide over it anyway.

Personally I don't think single word reviews are any help whatsoever, particularly on a website where you don't know the review poster in question personally. Case in point, if MovieMan calls a movie 'Awesome' then I know it will be shit, but only because I've researched his tastes and read some of his more expansive reviews. If I was a new member I could be left watching something terrible like Reno 911. It's other people who have beef with short reviews getting points, though I think 100 characters should be set as a minimum to qualify for points.