Hey Askvillers,
Based on feedback and voting abuse/accuracy (or lack thereof), we have decided to revamp our voting process. Since voting is such an important part of the Askville experience, we wanted to get your feedback before we make any final decisions on what the changes will be.
For everyone's benefit, the current voting system is outlined below:
- Only the Asker and Answerers can vote on answers.
- Asker's vote currently counts for two (2) votes.
- Voting period lasts for 3 days although the Asker and all Answerers can vote as soon as other answers are submitted. All votes are hidden (i.e. no one knows who voted for whom).
- There is a 5-tier voting scale (Awful, Weak, Okay, Good, Great). Awful and Weak ratings result in negative experience points (xp points) and negative quest coin payouts of -10 and -5, respectively. Answerers can not vote on their own answer.
- We take the average of all votes that are cast to determine which of the 5 tiers each answer is rated. If an answer got zero or 1 vote then we will give the answer a default Okay rating.
- There is no difference in score within a tier (i.e. one answer which barely got rated Good is equivalent to another answer that just missed being rated Great).
- The Best Answer ribbon goes to the highest rated answer that was rated either Good or Great.
- Tie-breaker rules for Best Answer ribbon is:
- If the Asker has voted one answer higher than another than the higher rated answer wins Best Answer ribbon.
- If the Asker voted the same on all answers that are currently tied for Best Answer (or did
not vote at all), then the answer that was submitted first would win
the Best Answer ribbon.
- Voting Superpower Authority - allows 3rd party users, who have achieved at least level 1 in one of the topics that the question was categorized under, to cast their vote on all answers. For each vote cast, they must give an explanation of their vote. Their vote counts as 1 vote.
The main problems with the current voting system is that the maximum number of votes that can be cast is 5 votes (Asker and maximum of 4 Answerers), excluding Voting Superpower Authority. This gives a lot of weight to each vote that is cast. Moreover, not all eligible voters actually vote and some voters are abusing their voting privileges. To give additional context, over the past month the following are actual voting stats from the Askville community:
- 66% of all answers submitted were voted by the Asker
- 89% of all answers submitted were voted by each Answerer
- Less than 1% of all answers had Voting Superpower votes
- 26% of all answers got a default Okay vote due to an answer getting zero (12%) or just 1 vote (14%).
- Each answer received on average 2.84 votes
Proposed Voting System
Consequently, we plan on revamping the voting system so that more votes are cast on each answer, which we hope will lead to fairer voting. The new voting system that we are building is based on the following:
- Anyone can vote (Asker, Answerer, 3rd party users). All votes cast will still be hidden.
- We will be removing the Voting Superpower since everyone will now be able to vote on all answers. Users who purchased the Voting Superpower will get a coin refund.
- We will change the 5 tier rating system to 1 to 5 stars. There will no longer be negative experience (xp) points or quest coins for answers that were rated 1 or 2 stars. New payout of xp points and quest coins consist of the following:
- 1 star - 0 xp points and 0 quest coins
- 2 stars - 0 xp points and 1 quest coins
- 3 stars - 1 xp points and 1 quest coins
- 4 stars - 5 xp points and 5 quest coins
- 5 stars - 10 xp points and 10 quest coins
- If an answer gets zero or 1 vote, then the answer will get a default 3 star rating. Answerers can not vote on their own answer.
- Each person's vote will have a weighting based on the following criteria:
- User's Topic Level - If you have reached level 1 or higher in any of the topics tagged with the question, your vote will count more than voters who are level 0 or have no xp points. The higher level you are in a topic, the more weighting your vote will have.
- User's Voting Accuracy - everyone who votes will now have a separately tracked voting accuracy score. If the user's vote matches the final rating of the answer, it will improve the user's accuracy score. The higher your voting accuracy, the more weighting your vote will have. We will also reduce the weighting of a user's votes if their voting accuracy is poor.
- Each answer will get a numerical score based on this new voting algorithm and the new 1 to 5 star scale. Answers can get fractional scores (e.g. 4.25 stars). This will reduce the likelihood of ties.
- Best Answer ribbons will still go to the highest rated answer that is greater than 4 stars. If there still is a tie with this new rating system, then no Best Answer ribbon will be given.
We believe this new voting system will result in more votes from our community while also taking into account user's expertise in topics. Moreover, we also want to reward people who are good/accurate voters. Our primary goal is to more fairly reward users for giving great answers. Although no voting system is perfect, we do believe this proposed voting system will be a big step in the right direction.
We want your feedback!
This new voting system is still a work in progress and we would love your feedback before we finalize it. To give us feedback, please post your comments at the following question that we just asked on Askville from the newly created "AskvilleMayor":
Askvillers - Please comment on the new blog post about Askville's proposed voting system
Like most askville related discussions, we will be monitoring this question to hear what you think before we make our final changes. Thanks in advance for your feedback and we hope this will make Askville an even better place to ask... answer... meet... play!
Cheers,
The Askville Team
Askville.com
