Askville Blog

Good Neighbor Policy Update

First off, thanks to everyone in the community for sending us your constructive feedback. A lot of the improvements you will see in the coming months are a direct result of your comments - please keep them coming. For example, the community found the broken link in the Moderator email that we've since repaired. And in early 2010 we'll be beefing up the Moderator email to include all the content that was removed instead of just a snippet.

Starting on January 1st, 2010, we are going to be fully enforcing the GNP. Today we are giving out 95% warnings and 5% strikes as we all get use to the GNP. Based on what we see today the ratios will probably shift to 70% warnings and 30% strikes. Strikes will be given out for blatant violation of the GNP and/or when a user continues to get warnings and doesn't course correct their behavior. We very much want to have everyone participate on Askville but we will put our foot down when someone tries to take advantage of Askville's community.

By far the biggest abuse we see is when a user makes a derogatory remark about another user or group. We are creating a supportive community that encourages participation and camaraderie - snide remarks work against our goal. Please stick to the topic, build on the conversation and refrain from potentially offensive comments.
 
A new item we're adding to the suite of moderator tools is the ability to look at the question as a whole instead of individual abuse reports that are tied to an Askville users. A common piece of feedback was, "Askville is just reacting to people who have abuse trigger fingers."  So, starting in Jan 2010, when the moderators get an abuse report we're going look at the entire piece of content (question, answer and discussion posts) and trim out all the violations in an effort to be fair and keep from having a series of orphaned discussion posts that point to removed content.

Enjoy your week on Askville.

December Best Answer Contest Update

Hey folks,

The December 2009 Best Answer Contest is well under way! We're only 8 days into December, and there are already 51 users who have earned the bronze achievement. Even more impressively, 11 Askvillers have now reached the silver level. Here're their names, in alphabetical order:

Silver Winners

• arabianknightress
• danielpauldavis
• goldie080
• HELENofTROY
• LifeEssence
• -Poppet-
• Schelli
• sgt.usmc
• Snow_Leopard
• usmc
• wildaboutbooks44

Congratulations all and we can't wait to find out who will be the first to reach gold!

Two New Achievements Released

We've just released two new Askville Achievements, and one of them is very special indeed.

The December 2009 Best Answers achievement is an exciting new achievement that can only be earned in the final month of 2009! Every answer you provide this month that receives a best answer ribbon earns you credit towards this achievement, but after December 31st, you'll never be able to earn ranks in this achievement again.

In order to earn the bronze, you'll need to give one best answer in December. The silver will require four, and the gold 16. In order to receive the ruby, though, you'll need a staggering 128 best answers in December alone. Can you do it? We think that some of you can!

Note: Any answer provided in December of 2009 counts, regardless of when the question was asked, when the question closes, and whether or when you appealed the answer. For example, if you answered a question on December 31st and didn't receive a best answer ribbon until January 5th, that ribbon would still count. Conversely, answers you've already made before December 1st, even if you receive your best answer ribbon in December, do not count for this achievement.

We're also announcing another new achievement called Breadth of Knowledge.

The Breadth of Knowledge achievement can be earned by reaching a topic experience level for five different topics. For instance, in order to earn the bronze level of this achievement, you must reach at least level 1 in five different topics.  Silver is for being at least level 2 in five different topics, and so on. Ruby will require being level 6 in five different topics (So far, that's just you, WoolyBadBooger).

Let us know what you think on this discussion board. Hope everyone enjoys these new achievements!

Report From the Field - The First Week of the Good Neighbor Policy

What an exciting first week we had with the new Askville Good Neighbor Policy.  It's great being able to interact with the community on a regular basis and hear direct feedback on wha's working well and what needs a tune up.  In the spirit of Askville it’s probably easiest to cover all our items in a FAQ form.

What is Askville trying to accomplish with the Good Neighbor Policy?
We want to ensure everyone is treated with respect and encouraged to share their knowledge with the community.  Askville is a community that follows the question and answer format.  Discussions are used to further everyone’s knowledge about the question in order to produce the best possible answer.  Askville is not a chat room.  If a post isn’t a question, an answer or a discussion that relates to the question then it doesn’t belong on Askville.  If you are looking for a place to chat with others there are lots of options on the Internet, if you are looking for a place to discuss Askville.com - we’re working on some options for you.

Who looks at the Abuse reports - a robot?
The Askville moderator manually looks at every abuse report and makes a decision based on the Askville Good Neighbor Policy.

Who is the Askville moderator?
The entire team moderates.  We believe that everyone on the team needs to participate as a moderator in order to understand and become familiar with our community. 

How do I stop getting ‘abuse’ reports filed against me? 
Follow our Good Neighbor Policy.  All the report abuses are manually inspected before making a decision.

Why are some posts taken down and others are not when they seem equally offensive?
Our current moderation tools are user based, not question based.  So when we get an abuse report we can only see one piece of content associated with the user and it’s difficult to get context for the entire conversation.  We’re working on a new tool that will allow us to see how the conversation unraveled so we can have more visibility into what happened.

Why does the Askville Moderator seem so ‘spastic’?
Do you have any idea how much coffee they make you drink in Seattle?  We’re always on edge over here!  Seriously, our backlog had over 1,000 report abuses then everyone started to test for robots.  This actually made it much more difficult to moderate since we trust the community to do what's right. Plus our tools need updating (per question above) and we're learning as much as the community is right now.  We'll get there, we're all committed to making Askville a better place.

Why are you suppressing content?  Doesn't this go against 'freedom of speech?'
Askville is not a site where you can write whatever you want.  There are a lot of other options on the Internet if you want to write about topics that violate our Good Neighbor Policy.

What else is the Askville Team up to?
We are working on a solution where the community can easily discuss Askville.com amongst themselves and with the Askville Team.  We’re also working on improving Askville’s existing features (we know sometimes we're sending the wrong link in the email) and adding some exciting new features.

We appreciate everyone’s feedback in our first week with the Good Neighbor Policy – I know it’s been a little bumpy.  We’re encouraged by the progress and look forward to creating a stronger community

Announcing the Good Neighbor Policy

Today we are excited to launch the Askville Good Neighbor Policy. Have you ever wondered how the Askville Terms of Service impact your contributions to Askville? Wonder no more! The Good Neighbor Policy is a distilled, half-page document that gives you guidance on how to contribute content to Askville. 

Over the past 3 years, the Askville Team has heard from the community that consistent moderation is one of the top features they would like to see. 
 
The strategy we are implementing for site moderation is as follows:

1. Posting the Good Neighbor Policy to give easy to follow guidelines for the community
2. Continued presence of a site moderator on Askville enforcing the Good Neighbor Policy
3. Four strikes you’re out. Anyone who violates the Askville Good Neighbor Policy will either be given a warning or a strike. If you get four strikes in any 90 day period your account will be permanently disabled.

In order to help the community become familiar with the rules, the Askville Moderator will give out warnings for most violations over the next 30 days. Only egregious violations will be given a strike. After 30 days the Askville Moderator will enforce the Good Neighbor Policy as is.

Enjoy your day on Askville.

The Askville Team

New Askville Achievements!

Hey Askvillers!

We're really excited to introduce five new achievement awards on Askville! 

The Inquisitive award is given to Askvillers who ask good questions - questions that generate answers from other users.

The Informative award is given to those who give good answers that earn four or more stars.

The Acclaimed award goes to those who have been well complimented on their work.

The Fans award is for our popular users who have earned a loyal following.

And, a new Advanced Challenge award allows newbies who have completed the existing Orientation Award to further explore the features of Askville.

Most of the achievements have multiple levels available - starting from bronze and going on to silver, gold and beyond!

All your existing Askville activity counts towards these achievements, so you may find that you already have some of them granted to you.

Your awards are shown wherever your profile is displayed. Also, when you click on anyone's avatar, a new "mini profile card" will pop up to display that person's achievements. You can even customize the order in which your achievements are displayed. To learn more, visit the Achievements page.

We hope to introduce more achievements in future, but in the meantime, we hope that you'll give us feedback privately or on this feature's release notes forum.

- The Askville Team

Three nice new features

Hey Askville!

For a while now, we've been watching our feedback box (it's at the bottom of every page, where it says "Give us feedback"), and we're pleased to announce that we've implemented three of the most-requested new features.

First off, we've added the ability to delete all of your inbox messages at once. Now you don't need to painstakingly remove every last message by hand.

Now that getting rid of your old mail is no problem, how about you go and unblock a few of your overly-communicative friends? It's now possible to quickly and easily unblock your fellow Askvillers. To see the list of users you've blocked, head over to My Askville, click on the "Settings" link, and click on the "Privacy" tab.

 

Just click "unblock" to let those users resume sending you inbox messages and compliments.  Don't worry, you can reblock them later if they abuse their new speaking privileges!

Finally, we've saved the best for last. Have you ever wanted to get to another users' profile page, but you couldn't find a link? Now all you need to do is type their name into the search bar, and it should pop right up.  You don't need to remember their whole name, just type as much as you know. If you don't see your friend, click "More People" for a list of everybody whose nickname matches your search.

We hope you like these new features, and we look forward to hearing about what you'd like us to do next!

Cheers,
The Askville Development Team

Askville is Hiring!

We're looking for strong software developers to join our team in Seattle!  Interested? Send in your resume to askville-jobs@amazon.com.

Job Description :

Amazon's New Products Group (owner of the social question and answer website Askville) is looking for rock-star software development engineers to join our team.

Since launching Askville a few short years ago, we have built a thriving community of dedicated users, and built a large and important business.  We are an independent, dedicated group of developers who love working in a fast paced startup-like environment.  We have a passion for developing the best Web 2.0 user experience possible, and for using the right tools to get the job done quickly, and with the highest possible quality.

We are looking for smart, driven engineers who are passionate about designing great software and great user experience, who want to solve challenging problems, and help others solve theirs.  The candidate will be responsible for helping to create innovative and good user experiences on the web building both client-side and server-side technology.  The candidate should have experience in designing and programming scalable, high availability systems involving huge data sets. The candidate should also be highly skilled in the art of indexing databases, schema design, performance tuning, database replication techniques, query optimization and handling database complexity. The candidate should also have strong experience in coding algorithms and data structures that produces superior performance.  We have built a great foundation and we are looking for someone to¬ come help us design and build the next generations, and work with us to take our business to the next level.

Job Qualifications
  - Bachelor's degree in computer science or related degree, or equivalent experience
  - Excellent OO design and coding skills in Java
  - Experience in Struts, Spring, JSP, JSF, Hibernate, Tomcat, JPA, etc.
  - Experience in developing efficient AJAX interfaces with in-depth knowledge of available AJAX libraries and frameworks
  - Experience in HTML, JavaScript, CSS and general Web 2.0 techniques
  - Preferably, familiarity with scripting languages like PHP and Ruby
  - Strong focus on the end-user
  - Team player with excellent communication skills

Bonus Question Update

We are introducing changes to address some of the community's concerns regarding Bonus Questions.
 
We recognize that bonus questions are not for everyone. Bonus questions are helpful to the Askville business and do aim to provide valuable information on a variety of topics. However, many of you are not interested in bonus questions and would prefer not to see them on the site. We understand your desires and would like to find ways to facilitate them while still keeping bonus questions around for those who find them valuable.
 
To help balance those needs, we will be changing how bonus questions impact the community. Later this week, we will no longer pay quest gold and experience points for answers to bonus questions. This also means that the Askviller-of-the-Day and the weekly leader boards will no longer consider answers to bonus questions. This should restore some credibility and fun to those elements of the site – as the only users who show up there are those who have done a good job of answering community questions.
 
Also, by default, we won’t show bonus questions in search results. (You do have an option to add them back to your search results if you wish.) Bonus questions will also not be shown at the bottom of every answer page.
 
We hope these changes will improve your experience of finding,  discussing and answering community questions.
 
As always, please provide us with feedback privately or on this discussion board. We will continue to listen and work hard to improve the site.
 
Thank you!
 
The Askville Team.

Changes

Hey Askvillers,

It all started with a wacky idea for a website. Joseph Park, Fai Leong, and myself sat around kicking around ideas, and what we came up with was the very first version of Askville. It's been three years since then, and Askville has grown from a small operation of a handful of employees to a profitable business with millions of visitors operated by a full team of software developers. Sadly, today we must announce that two of those founding members, Joseph Park, better known as the AskvilleMayor, and Fai Leong have departed from Askville.com. Askville is now in the hands of myself, Christian Cabanero (ChristianC), along with the Askville development team.

Happily, a new hand at the helm means that Askville is going to be going through some changes, and in that vein I have some exciting news. As my first official act, I am pleased to announce that the voting curtain, a.k.a. the red curtain, is no more!

The purpose of the red curtain was to try promoting fairness, which was a laudable goal. However, after analyzing the impact that it had on users, I realized that it forced the community into anonymity and hurt the social aspect of the Askville experience. In my opinion, Askville should be first and foremost an online community of friendly people helping each other out by answering questions, and seeing each other’s names and faces is an integral part of community.

We at Askville wish Joe and Fai much success in their future endeavors, and I along with the development team look forward to working on Askville.com for a long time to come.       

-Christian Cabanero (ChristianC)