Perusing a bunch of social design patterns material tonight, including a very rewarding two-part conversation between Josh Porter and Yahoo’s Bryce Glass regarding patterns for reputation systems. This bit from Part II grabbed me good:
7) What is the biggest mistake that designers make when implementing reputation patterns?
I’d say 2 related things: one is employing those more empirical patterns— Points, and Levels, ranked and tracked on Leaderboards— in situations where they’re not appropriate. I feel like I’m belaboring the point, but… if your community values fun, and easy-going interactions with each other and helpfulness? Then don’t destroy that fantastic dynamic by comparing members, one to another. Don’t elevate certain members’ status at the expense of everyone else in the community—’cause resentment, factions and gaming are soon to follow.
And related to this is the mistake of rewarding the wrong types of behavior. Specifically, there’s a tendency to want to reward activity (how many times have I contributed, or how frequently) instead of the quality of those contributions. (Do people like this video? Have they watched it? Responded? Linked to it, or embedded it on their blog? Voted for it, or assigned a rating?) Of course, both are important: you want people who are actively engaged and prolific contributors: but you want those contributions to be quality ones: thoughtfully prepared, formatted along community norms, and above all useful or interesting to the community.
Italics mine. I was in fact toying with the thought of deploying a competitive, compare-your-progress-with-that-of-your-friends/peers feature in an app I’m working on. But the barnraising spirit is so critical to this app that I’m now thinking twice about that.
I love this kind of work; it’s just fun. :-)
