wolfcry

wolfcry

Reputation system based around the moral of the story of the boy who cried wolf.

~: warning - this is pure vapourware (so far) :~

initial ideas

i'll clean this up later... just scrawling down a rough outline of it.

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intro - setting the scene

imagine you're on, for example, a social network or forum.

you can post messages.

importance - your posts

you can mark your messages from -10, to +10, for importance.

above +5, requires extra steps, to ensure you're not marking it higher by accident, and so you are aware of the implications of marking higher than that.

the implications being, you're marking them higher in importance such that the message will push lesser important messages out of the way, and will be pushed to the fore on other people's streams.

that's marking your own posts.

importance - followed topics

you will also be able to mark topics you follow in this same way, from -10 to +10 importance, for your own convenience of managing and following your interests, so to help prevent you missing out on the really important stuff, among all the other stuff you follow as an interest.

importance - followed posters

much the same as marking followed topics, but for posters (users).

wolf cry

so where does the "wolf cry" come into this?

if someone abuses the system, marking clearly unimportant stuff as important, then you can mark them down, as having cried wolf. with this one increment down for having cried wolf, this means that their range will now be -11 to +9, and their default no longer at 0, but at -1. they can fight it, and try to mark their posts even higher, but this is only likely to push them further and further down, increment by increment, as more users call them out for crying wolf. such that eventually, they might high -10 from crying wolf.

and so, the moral of the story, is to never cry wolf.

remedy

reputation can, in time be restored. the exact nature of how, by what means, shrug i'm not sure on yet. multiple possible ways. time-outs on wolfcry marks. votes up. arbritration and absolution processes. grace periods to remedy the abuse after the post has been made. opperator/moderator interventions. and...

and... can also call out wolfcry marks as wolfcries too! this is in following with the maxim in law, that there's "always remedy". and so, it could end up falling quite deep. but as ever, if you abuse it, you run the likelyhood of being lost and forgotten.

there can also be other means (beyond individual's topic importance settings) to counter abuses of various cliques n so on. like if a bunch of guys gang up on you, and try to abuse the wolfcry system to push your content out of sight, not only can you proclaim their wolfcry marks upon you and your posts as crying wolf in themselves, but also, have these things work, adjusted, by 1) interest groups 2)

as mentioned already, there exists the potential here to also have importance marked down on an individual scale, a personal management of not only your own posts, but of the importance of other people's posts (by poster, or by topic/hashtag), without telling the village that a poster has been crying wolf. this then gives an avenue of management for personal tastes, without feeling obligated to push your personal tastes upon other people, nor, thus, risking having your calls of crying wolf marked as crying wolf too.

warnings for increments

to give an example of a +10 situation... nuclear war has broken out. that kind of thing.

to give an example of a +5 situation... the government just called a snap election.

.... in time i'll come up with better examples. might need to think of examples that wouldnt be so already obviously posted about loads.

grey areas of implementation

wolf cry parity

do calls of crying wolf upon existing wolfcry marks get treated the same as wolfcry marks on posts marked with too high an importance? does it make sense to have them be the same, or to have them be treated as distinct, as a separate means of remedy?

can marking crying wolf be marked for importance too?

total range.

i might do some workings here for the total ranges possible with this. some of the extended ideas may have to be abandoned for diminishing the value of the basic importance system... such that +10 would no longer be top importance, and it would be +20 and +30 with the users's own importance maxed out on followed topic and poster, and then even +40 with a sysadmin intervention (?), or even +42 with... well... already... surely that's too much... right?

these ranges may still be viable, just with adequate provision of explaining the system, to use it prudently and cautiously, not just going "omg, i love cats. +10!", but incremented, warned of implications, extra steps needed taken to ensure avoidance of flippant use breaking the system.

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to sumarise / simplify

so... that's all delving deeper into the complexities that grow from the basic idea.

the simple start of it, will be simply that you can mark the importance of your own posts (-10 to +10), and anyone can raise objection to your overstating of the importance.

this will then help you to remain conservative in your estimates of the importance of your own posts, and avoid over-excitedly engaging in hyperbolically overstating the importance, so that when you really do have something important, you'll be heard, and not be eaten by wolves.

more than a reputation system, this is a system to ensure important news and information is not lost to the noise.

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code

none yet. just an idea that's been lingering n growing for quite a few months now (if not, longer).

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dev plan

probably no progress will be made on this by until after i get voter developed to a rudimentary working example.

so dont hold your breath. ;)