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Author Topic: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation  (Read 6258 times)

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AL the Inconspicuous

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Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« on: January 29, 2010, 01:03:39 AM »

I've always been a big fan of the various decentralized "karma"-like systems that the free market would naturally come up with to track individuals' reputations.  I once wanted to try something like that through the FTL Wiki, but I thought a preliminary step would be gathering the data to normalize the multiple identities many people have across the various FSP-related forums, and I really fumbled that step big time, so nothing ever materialized.

I was very excited to see see that Dave Ridley is now promoting a similar idea:

[youtube=425,350]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QvX-S0fCwfw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QvX-S0fCwfw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

Experience has shown that I'm very ineffective at taking charge of such ideas, but perhaps I could be more effective with more people on board.  My offer to do whatever scripting work will be necessary to implement this (ex. MediaWiki plug-ins, etc) still remains.
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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2010, 02:32:35 AM »

One idea would be to make it invite only, so that we don't just get a mass of haters to bombard us.
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AL the Inconspicuous

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2010, 04:43:10 AM »

Some steps that can be done to ensure the authoritativeness of the Reputation Wiki:

  • Use a unified authentication system between the FTL Wiki and the existing FTL Forum / Drupal bridge.

  • Disable anonymous edits of the Wiki, and perhaps even require that only accounts "in good standing" be allowed to edit.  This can be combined with a mechanism to disallow starting new threads by forum newbies until they have X non-spam posts, as well as the existing "shithead" mechanism used on this forum.

  • Add links from the forum user profile to each person's article on the Wiki.  Other FSP-related blogs / forums can automatically add links to the FTL wiki article for that user-name as well, and redirect / disambiguation Wiki pages can be used for people who've had more than one alias in addition to their real name (if known).

  • Encourage people to edit their own and other people's Wiki articles with information that is publicly known, including photos, links to other accounts, calls to FTL, court records, etc, etc, etc.  This point should be thought about carefully, because we've had some issues with people wanting me to remove their real names from my old "a.k.a." threads, even though I've found that information with just a simple Google search...

  • Educate people on the basic strategy of this system: it is in everyone's best interest to provide some level of transparency and "snitch" on each-other to some degree (especially to link together multiple online identities used by the same person), but spreading baseless rumors or downright lying about someone should backfire.  The basic personal feedback log etiquette should be similar to Wikipedia discussions - don't step on other people's writings, keep things organized, sign your name (it's possible to identify you through edit history diffs anyway), be polite and constructive, etc.  "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" - at least that's the theory we're experimenting with here.

  • Use a special MediaWiki plug-in that allows each member in good standing to rank any other member numerically on the scale of 1 to 10 (or 1 to 5 stars, whatever) based on any of the predefined attributes (like the ones Dave Ridley suggested in the video above).  The list of attributes doesn't have to be set in stone right off the bat, but it would be most useful if everyone was rated on the most common ones.  Various algorithms can be used to calculate the final karma: simple vote average, taking number of votes into account (like IMDB's Top 250), weighed average based on the opinion-giver's own karma, etc.

  • The data of [Person A] assigning [Ranking X] on [Attribute Y] to [Person B] should probably be made public for everyone to see, but I'd like to get more feedback on that idea.  (This would include new rankings and timestamped ranking changes as well.)

  • Explicitly place all content of the FTL Wiki database (minus IP's and passwords) into public domain with regular full XML exports, which means anyone can create a fork of this reputation system at any time in case the original goes bad for whatever conceivable reason.  It would be nice if the same thing was done to FSP-related blogs and forums as well, so it would be super-easy to instantly mirror them in case one gets taken down.
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AL the Inconspicuous

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2010, 03:26:14 AM »

(bump)
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One two three

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2010, 01:44:21 PM »

Doesn't the FTL BBS prove that reputation systems are questionable, at best?
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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2010, 02:33:00 PM »

Doesn't the FTL BBS prove that reputation systems are questionable, at best?
Yeah the karma system was major fail
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AL the Inconspicuous

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2010, 02:43:12 PM »

That was because the only thing that karma measured was persistence, and anyone could fool it with some elementary sockpuppetry.  What I described above allows you to assign one rating per person per attribute.  You can change your rating, but you only get one vote.  Furthermore, the value of your vote may be weighed by your own rating.  And you'll be able to see who rated you poorly, talk things out, find out what it would take for them to change their rating, make amends, etc.
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anarchir

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2010, 02:56:34 PM »

That was because the only thing that karma measured was persistence, and anyone could fool it with some elementary sockpuppetry.  What I described above allows you to assign one rating per person per attribute.  You can change your rating, but you only get one vote.  Furthermore, the value of your vote may be weighed by your own rating.  And you'll be able to see who rated you poorly, talk things out, find out what it would take for them to change their rating, make amends, etc.

This would be an awesome project. Too bad I dont know anything about programming or anything to set this up, but I will help if anyone has ideas.
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AL the Inconspicuous

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2010, 11:56:31 PM »

When Alex Libman takes charge, bad things happen (see above).  So I can only hope that someone higher up in the FTL admin hierarchy will champion this idea in my stead...
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anarchir

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2010, 12:21:23 AM »

Lets just keep bumping this project till someone with the required knowledge/skills takes note.
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digitalfour

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2010, 01:02:56 AM »

I know this isn't exactly the same, but check out BullionStacker.com's rating system. You give positive, negative or neutral feedback each time you do business, and you can delete it later if need be.

The benefit of being able to give multiple feedbacks per person is that it shows how much dealing you have done.
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AL the Inconspicuous

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2010, 02:21:49 AM »

Lets just keep bumping this project till someone with the required knowledge/skills takes note.

It's not really about skill, it's about access.  There's no way I could even begin to implement it without knowing the details of the backend schema first.  It's also a matter of planning and getting all the developers on the same page - maybe it would make sense to discuss transitioning from MediaWiki to one of the wiki modules for Drupal, etc.

The best way forward would probably be to set up a testing server (which can be a cheap virtual hosting account because it wouldn't need much bandwidth) and some level of one-way MySQL replication (minus the passwords, etc).  Then they could give people like myself access and the freedom to experiment with various ideas, with good ideas being migrated to the main server once they're stable.

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anarchir

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Re: Using the FTL Wiki for activist reputation
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2010, 03:41:59 AM »

Lets just keep bumping this project till someone with the required knowledge/skills takes note.

It's not really about skill, it's about access.  There's no way I could even begin to implement it without knowing the details of the backend schema first.  It's also a matter of planning and getting all the developers on the same page - maybe it would make sense to discuss transitioning from MediaWiki to one of the wiki modules for Drupal, etc.

The best way forward would probably be to set up a testing server (which can be a cheap virtual hosting account because it wouldn't need much bandwidth) and some level of one-way MySQL replication (minus the passwords, etc).  Then they could give people like myself access and the freedom to experiment with various ideas, with good ideas being migrated to the main server once they're stable.

Well, I'm zero help in that regard. I dont know anything at all about MySQL, MediaWiki, Drupal, or developing in general. Oh well.
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