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If I'm any guide, there might be several things going on...
1) After the initial excitement of playing with a new toy, use drops to a lower level. That lower level is likely to become the more normal sustained level than that initial burst of excitement and exploration. That's true whether we're talking about getting a new iPod, joining Facebook or using Mahalo.
2) In other questions we've discussed various frustrations we have.
No best answer selected, questions going to vote, tips withheld, argumentative behaviour breaking out etc. These things make Mahalo less appealing. Also the fact that Jason is mostly sanguine about all of these things doesn't fill me with confidence that any of the things that turn me off are going to change.
3) The character of the site seems to be changing. More trivia and more trolling. Huge amounts of celebrity gossip. Lots of teen type questions. A lot of things that as far as I am concerned are just spam. Of course Jason doesn't consider them spam, he considers them great evidence of lots of new users and ever increasing numbers of questions being asked. Again, this does not fill me with confidence that the site is going to continue to be a place I like hanging out. Maybe a great place for others, and maybe a great success for Jason, but maybe not the kind of place that is worth a lot of my time.
In a way, it is surprising I still participate as much as I do. Part of it is that I hope some of things that bug me are growing pains which will be sorted. A lot of it is that there are some great people here, and still some good questions and good answers. Also, it's a matter of habit, and attachment to the points and M$ I've already got.
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We've got a three new features coming out in the next ten days that should really take things to the next level including more belt levels, twitter integration and a test in which we put .25 on each of the non-tipped questions. That last one, us posting the quarter tip, is just an experiment to see if it gets the un-tipped questions a little extra action. :-)
... PS - don't tell anyone! :-)
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Of course, questions such as these which don't require heavy research, I'm more than willing to answer since multiple varying opinions tend to be better for the person asking the question than a single definitive answer.
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And on the other side, the answers are getting even worse. Lots of answers seem to be guesses by kids.
Mahalo is looking at the wrong metrics for long term success. It's looking for quantity not quality. That won't last. As the quality declines the whole project will sink.
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Answered Question
February 16, 2009 05:42 AM
Are people giving up on Mahalo Answers?
Seems like some of the initial, big contributors are not answering questions (connectedgeek, robbrown, bugsy...) Is there a reason people are letting go of their participation?
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| February 16, 2009 06:25 PM |
1) After the initial excitement of playing with a new toy, use drops to a lower level. That lower level is likely to become the more normal sustained level than that initial burst of excitement and exploration. That's true whether we're talking about getting a new iPod, joining Facebook or using Mahalo.
2) In other questions we've discussed various frustrations we have.
No best answer selected, questions going to vote, tips withheld, argumentative behaviour breaking out etc. These things make Mahalo less appealing. Also the fact that Jason is mostly sanguine about all of these things doesn't fill me with confidence that any of the things that turn me off are going to change.
3) The character of the site seems to be changing. More trivia and more trolling. Huge amounts of celebrity gossip. Lots of teen type questions. A lot of things that as far as I am concerned are just spam. Of course Jason doesn't consider them spam, he considers them great evidence of lots of new users and ever increasing numbers of questions being asked. Again, this does not fill me with confidence that the site is going to continue to be a place I like hanging out. Maybe a great place for others, and maybe a great success for Jason, but maybe not the kind of place that is worth a lot of my time.
In a way, it is surprising I still participate as much as I do. Part of it is that I hope some of things that bug me are growing pains which will be sorted. A lot of it is that there are some great people here, and still some good questions and good answers. Also, it's a matter of habit, and attachment to the points and M$ I've already got.
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• Well thought out answer and articulated well.
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Other Answers (9)
February 16, 2009 05:49 AM
I've noticed the same thing over the past couple of weeks but my hope is that the individuals that are less noticeable right now are simply busy with other things, as opposed to "giving up" on the service. I know I had hit a point were I was not around answering questions much, due to being rather sick (the joys of living in the midwest with 40 degree temp changes between days) but life outside of the computer sometimes has to come first... Lets all hope this is the case as many of these contributors have been very important to the site and will continue to be if they stick with it!
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February 16, 2009 06:09 AM
Activity is way up in terms of questions, answers, signups and page views. My guess is the top users are going to take a pause from time to time. I actually did on my trip to Copenhagen! :-) We've got a three new features coming out in the next ten days that should really take things to the next level including more belt levels, twitter integration and a test in which we put .25 on each of the non-tipped questions. That last one, us posting the quarter tip, is just an experiment to see if it gets the un-tipped questions a little extra action. :-)
... PS - don't tell anyone! :-)
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February 16, 2009 06:19 AM
@jasoncalacanis... please don't take any job for the government that might require you keeping a secret ;) lol
http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Men_in_Black/men_in_black_movie_image_tommy_lee_jones_and_will_smith.jpg
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February 16, 2009 09:26 AM
I'm not a power user of Mahalo Answers by any means (I'm working on providing fewer answers but putting a lot more thought into each answer), but I will avoid the site for a little when I come here and see an entire page of questions on the same subject (Grammys, Super Bowl, All Star Game, etc). Of course, questions such as these which don't require heavy research, I'm more than willing to answer since multiple varying opinions tend to be better for the person asking the question than a single definitive answer.
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February 16, 2009 03:26 PM
I've had to be gone over the weekend due to my daughter's participation in an international student ballet competition--lots of extra practices, and then the trip (they won, BTW). I was offline for five days. I'll be very busy this week, too, but I should be able to get on from time to time.
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February 17, 2009 01:20 PM
I'm getting disgusted myself. There are too many inane questions. It is too hard to search through and find reasonable ones. Good questions scroll off because of all the bad ones. And on the other side, the answers are getting even worse. Lots of answers seem to be guesses by kids.
Mahalo is looking at the wrong metrics for long term success. It's looking for quantity not quality. That won't last. As the quality declines the whole project will sink.
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re: the issues in #2 I'm not so much sanguine as I am confident that these issue will be worked out.
For example, when no best answer is selected and a question goes to vote that is exactly how the system is designed to work. People asking the question often don't want to have to select a best answer and we can't force them to do so. We're had a lot of discussions about this issue and no one has come up with a better idea yet, so that to me is an indication that we're fairly close to having the best possible situation.
In terms of tips withheld we don't have any reports of repeat offenders in this regard and the number of tips withheld is very low. We built a system with a "money back grantee" in order to get people comfortable with the idea of tipping. That's worked really well as people don't feel a risk to offering a tip, and it's worked doubly well since there has been little to no abuse of the system. Again, if you have a list of repeat offenders please hit the report key or let a staffer know and we will handle it right quick!
Finally, while debate is great we don't allow folks to get into flame wars. When this happens, and it isn't often, simple hit the report key and we will handle it.
Regarding #3: This is going to be easily solved when we resort the front page taking into account "interesting question" votes. The community can click on ten questions that are not interesting three or four times, while voting up another ten and you'll get a view that should be much more, well, interesting.
At a certain point we're going to jump from 200-400 questions a day to 2-4,000. That is inevitable and when that happens the sorting of questions will be the real challenge... and we'll face that challenge together again.
Finally, your point that what's great for me is different from what's great for the community is not very fair or accurate. What's great for me and the Mahalo staffers is that a vibrant community groups together in order to help people. That's the long-term goal and in the short I feel like we're already there. We've got so many amazing folks answering questions and patrolling the system after just 60 days we're shocked... we thought this community would take at least six months to come together.
.... in other words... I'm psyched!!! :-)
There is no "the community" in the abstract. There is a particular set of people that will be attracted to or put off by the site, by its branding and how you promote it. And then network effects will kick in so that more people that like the kind of people that are already here and like talking about the stuff that is talked about on the site will be attracted, while people that aren't into that will drift away.
And that is perfectly legit, I am not criticising you for that.
I don't know if you are clear what kind of a group of people you are trying to attract, or the nature of the community you want to build. Maybe you are, and it's just not the kind of community I initially thought I'd found here.
It's simply the case that a site that is full of celebrity gossip and teens asking where to find nude photos of X is not my personal idea of a great place to hang out. I am not saying there isn't a place for such sites in the world, or you'd be wrong to go for that.
On the plus side, there are still interesting folks here, and the interesting Q&A are still there, but to my mind less so than a month ago.
On the minus side, do I feel great about spending my time on a site where there are people asking questions about how to enlarge their penis? Not exactly. Will I be recommending the site as enthusiastically to my friends as I was in Jan? Not hardly. I'd be embarrassed to have them see some of the stuff here.
Still, I like it enough to hope it'll get back more to what the spirit was when I first joined.
If I didn't think the site had the potential to be something wonderful, and I didn't care about whether it got there, I wouldn't put all this time and energy into discussing its stengths and weaknesses.