I don’t think we need to worry that the bbs will be converted to a producers’ cooperative.
There are potentially business interests at issue here. Measuring reading aligns with other metrics important for thinking about revenue. As I read his blog, that’s apparently not@codinghorror’s motivation. I expect it’s on someone’s mind though.
Of course that’s not necessarily bad or even surprising. But it may represent tacit structural limits of discussions like this one.
What does this mean? Literal duplicated topics? Like how?
I think an absolute upper bound on read requirements is reasonable. Imagine the world’s largest discussion site: could anyone even read 25% of that?
Think about it this way: a group of say 20 super chatty folks could pretty easily generate more content than one person could ever possibly read. Up that to 50, 100, 200 people and beyond and it’s no contest. There is a fundamental data asymmetry in talking vs. listening that means it is better to favor listening, even putting aside the moral reason that the worst conversations are with people who aren’t actually listening to you or anyone in the conversation.
I think the maximum upper bound makes sense. I do like that idea. As far as increasing output, it came along with the the front page format change some time over a year ago. Maybe I can dig up the comment. In regard to duplicate topics: Rob Ford is dead, long live Rob Ford.
What is the base limit on likes? I’ve never reached it.
If I knew how many I had, I’d probably make more of an effort to exhaust them, even though that would involve logging in even when I’m only reading. It’s not that I don’t like more things, but I usually just heart the stuff I’m replying to and which reply to me, because the rest of the time I’m logged out.
If I had more likes, I’d be like Montgomery Brewster.
It’s happened several times in the last six months and the definition of common may vary from reader to reader. I tend to lean toward “not common, but it does happen.”
As the guy here who reads Every Damn Thing, I’ve gotta agree.
This BBS is too big to expect people to “Read” >25% of all of it on a rolling basis. It’s ridiculous.
And this is where I’ll admit to gamifying the BBS for my own giggles. I wanted Regular, and got it. And then I wanted to be the most read, and I got it.
It’s a rolling window too. e.g. I’ve got an hour and a half to wait before I can like anything again. I’ll go and like 3 or 4 comments in a topic and then I’ll be at my limit again.
Huh. I’m reading the Trust Level page, and it says that TL2 gets 1.5 x likes and TL3 gets 2 x likes, but it doesn’t clarify whether TL3 like total is 2 x TL2, or 2 x TL1.
If it’s 2 x TL2, then the like totals for levels 2 or 3 should both be multiples of 3.
I’m basing the “base of 50” off of the “you ran out of likes” badges; I could easily be wrong.