Next Question
RSS
In theory, yes. There's always that chance of cliques forming and voting en masse.
The good news?
Voting matters very little. Question Askers are the ones to select "Best Answers". Even if the Asker neglects to choose a Best Answer, and the question gets dumped into the "Undecided" bin, then Answerers' identities are kept anonymous.
The only real advantage a mob could gain (short of full-on gaming, which I will address below), is by giving an answer prime placement at the top of the question page. Yes, around here the answer with the most "Helpful" votes gets bumped to the top. And much like every other community in the world, a lot of people get lazy and don't take the time to read the answers lower on the page.
To that end, though, I've been absolutely amazed by how often I've seen answers I would've considered "buried", rise all the way to the top. And not because of mob rule. These were just excellent answers! So there is hope that even mob "helpfuls" don't matter that much in the end...if there was such a mob.
Is There a Mob On Mahalo?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happily, no. I've seen them form on other Q&A boards, so I can spot them forming from a mile away. And it's not happening here. You'll find there are some good friends, and many people around here know each other (usually exclusively from Mahalo), but voting still seems amazingly fair and accurate! This is an excellent community for actually wanting to share information and for igniting civilized discussions.
Could a Mob Game the Mahalo System?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Only in theory. As you can imagine, two friends or a person with a ghost account could create dummy questions and award Best Answer to his own account/friend's account, reaping all of the "team tips" that people have added to vote the Question "helpful". The problem is that:
A.) This isn't a reliable way to make big cash. In fact, it'd be incredibly inefficient.
B.) The Mahalo big cheeses are so involved in the community and responding to persons of concern, that gamers rarely ever make it out of the gate.
So while some person or mob could get some hair-brained ideas about promoting each others' answers to game the system, not only would it be foolish, but the Grande Fromages would have them shut down in a heartbeat!
All of these factors really stop a mob from "Digging" into Mahalo. (Ha! Get it? Never mind....) Besides, I find that mobs tend to form mostly on sites that are fairly lawless, and there are plenty of sheriffs in this town!
Welcome to Mahalo!
Permalink | Report
aui
As far as I can see in Mahalo, there are very few favoritism here, if any. Most of the higher belts users are objective and friendly to everyone.
Permalink | Report
Helpful Answer?
(4)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
I believe you are talking about groups of Mahalo users becoming friends via Digg and then using this new found friendship to help out with each others submissions to the Digg website.
It is true that Digg has made it more difficult to use "voting gangs" to move articles or other submissions to the tops of the Digg list.
In another thread @expertknowledge posted this article from TechCrunch.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/23/digg-changes-algorithm-no-more-group-voting-up-stories
I read this whole article and it seems in the past a lot of this gaming of the Digg(ing) system was going on and Digg wanted to slow down or stop this gaming so they made some changes. Read the comments to the article and you get a good picture of how other people feel about these changes to Digg.
In the same thread @kelrae78 brought up some valid points and some information from @lon himself (Mahalos Editorial Director) Read her answer ~~>by clicking here
It seems that this "teaming up" will be good for us the team members as we are instructed to spread out our sharing accounts with other sites and submissions besides Mahalo. @lon seems to feel we will be okay as our Mahalo items are not buzz items for the most part and will not be in competition for the top spots on Digg's list anyway.
I have a few friends from here on Digg and treat their submissions with similar respect as other non Mahalo submissions, If I like what my fellow Mahaloans have submitted, I Digg'em. I think you can do the same.
Feel free to friend me on the Digg service http://digg.com/users/buddawiggi
About 30 percent of what I Digg is Mahalo related the rest is outside content.
I hope this was helpful
Tags: mahalo, digg
Helpful Answer?
(8)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
Usually the members will vote unhelpful to answers which just gaining two points for the answerer.
Can a mob can be formed? It can be. But you need to have enough friends and enough connections to form one. Who has the time for that???
Permalink | Report
Answered Question
M$2.60
November 01, 2009 12:50 AM
I've been wondering if there's a "Digg Effect" on Mahalo. Couldn't a group of users gang up to vote for each other?
RSS
Best Answer Decided by Votes
| November 02, 2009 01:41 PM |
The good news?
Voting matters very little. Question Askers are the ones to select "Best Answers". Even if the Asker neglects to choose a Best Answer, and the question gets dumped into the "Undecided" bin, then Answerers' identities are kept anonymous.
The only real advantage a mob could gain (short of full-on gaming, which I will address below), is by giving an answer prime placement at the top of the question page. Yes, around here the answer with the most "Helpful" votes gets bumped to the top. And much like every other community in the world, a lot of people get lazy and don't take the time to read the answers lower on the page.
To that end, though, I've been absolutely amazed by how often I've seen answers I would've considered "buried", rise all the way to the top. And not because of mob rule. These were just excellent answers! So there is hope that even mob "helpfuls" don't matter that much in the end...if there was such a mob.
Is There a Mob On Mahalo?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happily, no. I've seen them form on other Q&A boards, so I can spot them forming from a mile away. And it's not happening here. You'll find there are some good friends, and many people around here know each other (usually exclusively from Mahalo), but voting still seems amazingly fair and accurate! This is an excellent community for actually wanting to share information and for igniting civilized discussions.
Could a Mob Game the Mahalo System?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Only in theory. As you can imagine, two friends or a person with a ghost account could create dummy questions and award Best Answer to his own account/friend's account, reaping all of the "team tips" that people have added to vote the Question "helpful". The problem is that:
A.) This isn't a reliable way to make big cash. In fact, it'd be incredibly inefficient.
B.) The Mahalo big cheeses are so involved in the community and responding to persons of concern, that gamers rarely ever make it out of the gate.
So while some person or mob could get some hair-brained ideas about promoting each others' answers to game the system, not only would it be foolish, but the Grande Fromages would have them shut down in a heartbeat!
All of these factors really stop a mob from "Digging" into Mahalo. (Ha! Get it? Never mind....) Besides, I find that mobs tend to form mostly on sites that are fairly lawless, and there are plenty of sheriffs in this town!
Welcome to Mahalo!
Permalink | Report
Reply
aui
November 10, 2009 10:07 PM
Congratulations--my only regret is being offline a few days to miss seeing this in action... but now I have an idea of how it works!
Tip aui for this comment
Report
Other Answers (4)
November 01, 2009 01:23 AM
Vote for each other how? The best answer is picked by the questioner, unless the questioner let it go to voting process. If the questioner pick their friends' answers as best answers, that can happen, but it's their prerogative at first place. If you mean by vote is the helpful/unhelpful, that has little to no effect in best answer selection process. As far as I can see in Mahalo, there are very few favoritism here, if any. Most of the higher belts users are objective and friendly to everyone.
Permalink | Report
Reply
November 01, 2009 01:49 AM
Adding to lidyax's answer, once an asker leaves a question undecided and it goes to voting, the names and avatars of the answerers and commenters are hidden until after you vote. There are the odd member or two who make their name part of their answers, but that's very rare and unlikely to cause any systematic bias.
Report
November 01, 2009 02:03 AM
Yes, it's almost impossible to gang up like that because the staff members are very active and efficient. I see no reason for members to do this, since they can jeopardize their accounts. And cheating is just wrong, everyone here has learned or is learning to play by the rules.
Helpful Answer?
(4)
(0)
Helpful: buddawiggi, lisak52, lilyloretta, bunnyphuphu
Tip psynopsis for this answer
Reply
November 01, 2009 02:05 AM
Yes we can create a "Digg Effect" to an extent. I believe you are talking about groups of Mahalo users becoming friends via Digg and then using this new found friendship to help out with each others submissions to the Digg website.
It is true that Digg has made it more difficult to use "voting gangs" to move articles or other submissions to the tops of the Digg list.
In another thread @expertknowledge posted this article from TechCrunch.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/23/digg-changes-algorithm-no-more-group-voting-up-stories
I read this whole article and it seems in the past a lot of this gaming of the Digg(ing) system was going on and Digg wanted to slow down or stop this gaming so they made some changes. Read the comments to the article and you get a good picture of how other people feel about these changes to Digg.
In the same thread @kelrae78 brought up some valid points and some information from @lon himself (Mahalos Editorial Director) Read her answer ~~>by clicking here
It seems that this "teaming up" will be good for us the team members as we are instructed to spread out our sharing accounts with other sites and submissions besides Mahalo. @lon seems to feel we will be okay as our Mahalo items are not buzz items for the most part and will not be in competition for the top spots on Digg's list anyway.
I have a few friends from here on Digg and treat their submissions with similar respect as other non Mahalo submissions, If I like what my fellow Mahaloans have submitted, I Digg'em. I think you can do the same.
Feel free to friend me on the Digg service http://digg.com/users/buddawiggi
About 30 percent of what I Digg is Mahalo related the rest is outside content.
I hope this was helpful
Tags: mahalo, digg
Helpful Answer?
(8)
(0)
Helpful: kelraye78, jeffhoard, lisak52, lilyloretta, ghanan20003000, bunnyphuphu, komomai, pellrider
Tip buddawiggi for this answerVoted as best: twinpairs
Reply
November 01, 2009 03:26 AM
To add to @buddawiggi comment, I think you may be confused about what the term "Digg effect" means. Digg effect refers to when someone submits an article or content from a very small site or blog to Digg (a social bookmarking service), and the increase in traffic to the site causes the server to go down. You can see a perfect example of a "Digg effect" in action here: http://www.ndesign-studio.com/blog/updates/the-digg-effect/.
This is not really an issue with Mahalo, at least I hope, because the server that hosts the site is already equipped to handle the extra traffic. What we were discussing in the other question regarding a Digg group was simply adding a group of friends to our Digg profiles to get the word out about pages here on Mahalo that we ourselves manage. You can see an example of this on the Mahalo page about How to Know Which Signs Are Compatible With Aries. This is a page that I manage. If you scroll down, you will see my avatar and name under "managed by" and also the number of page views and amount of money that I have made from those page views.
I think the question that you are really asking here is more about how questions are judged in terms of best answers. And, as @lidyax mentioned, and as I am sure you will see from the outcome of this question that you posed here, the best answer is chosen by the person who posed the question, so group voting doesn't really have an impact unless the asker chooses not to pick a best answer and let members of the Mahalo community vote on the best answer.
For more answers about how Mahalo answers and tips work, see this page: http://www.mahalo.com/answers/tip_guidelines. For additonal ways to earn money on Mahalo, check out Mahalo tasks or do a Mahalo search for a particular search term and find a page that you would like to manage.
In addition, you can join us Wednesdays in the Mahalo tutorial podcast via ustream or check out past Mahalo Tutorials on @lon's page.
Welcome to Mahalo! I hope you like it here!
Report
This is not really an issue with Mahalo, at least I hope, because the server that hosts the site is already equipped to handle the extra traffic. What we were discussing in the other question regarding a Digg group was simply adding a group of friends to our Digg profiles to get the word out about pages here on Mahalo that we ourselves manage. You can see an example of this on the Mahalo page about How to Know Which Signs Are Compatible With Aries. This is a page that I manage. If you scroll down, you will see my avatar and name under "managed by" and also the number of page views and amount of money that I have made from those page views.
I think the question that you are really asking here is more about how questions are judged in terms of best answers. And, as @lidyax mentioned, and as I am sure you will see from the outcome of this question that you posed here, the best answer is chosen by the person who posed the question, so group voting doesn't really have an impact unless the asker chooses not to pick a best answer and let members of the Mahalo community vote on the best answer.
For more answers about how Mahalo answers and tips work, see this page: http://www.mahalo.com/answers/tip_guidelines. For additonal ways to earn money on Mahalo, check out Mahalo tasks or do a Mahalo search for a particular search term and find a page that you would like to manage.
In addition, you can join us Wednesdays in the Mahalo tutorial podcast via ustream or check out past Mahalo Tutorials on @lon's page.
Welcome to Mahalo! I hope you like it here!
November 01, 2009 03:39 AM
I was referring to a similar effect as seen on Digg, where there was a 'Mafia' effect at one point of users teaming up to promote each other, as answered by others below, but thanks for making a big effort!
Report
November 01, 2009 04:09 AM
OH @aui I see now. Sorry for the confusion. The other two answers here are correct cheating or gaming the system here at Mahalo Answers is monitored closely.
Both the staff and other Mahalo members are always on the look out for violations of the Mahalo Terms of Service like voting irregularities and I have even seen users be suspended or banned entirely for these violations.
But for the most pare the entire community is one built on trust and transparency. Mahalo is filled with nice people trying to do good work and help out in the long run.
Welcome to Mahalo!
Report
Both the staff and other Mahalo members are always on the look out for violations of the Mahalo Terms of Service like voting irregularities and I have even seen users be suspended or banned entirely for these violations.
But for the most pare the entire community is one built on trust and transparency. Mahalo is filled with nice people trying to do good work and help out in the long run.
Welcome to Mahalo!
November 01, 2009 06:12 AM
WOW--as a newbie here I'm floored by what I would call, in mimicry of Apples slogan "insanely great" this site is "evil genius" which is actually a compliment.
I did pose the question wrong as kelraye78 points out, because the term "Digg effect" is pretty generic by now--I guess the only differentiation was saying "a "Digg effect" " instead of "the "Digg effect" " --but that wasn't clear regardless... so everyone is pretty correct. Now I can't decide fairly and I will leave it to the group to vote--me bad!
One can't really grasp this site until asking/answering a question and seeing it in action. There is something going on that makes me think maybe this is the next big "killer app" because I can see how it could be addicting, a subject I might explore in further questions.
Good job people!
Report
I did pose the question wrong as kelraye78 points out, because the term "Digg effect" is pretty generic by now--I guess the only differentiation was saying "a "Digg effect" " instead of "the "Digg effect" " --but that wasn't clear regardless... so everyone is pretty correct. Now I can't decide fairly and I will leave it to the group to vote--me bad!
One can't really grasp this site until asking/answering a question and seeing it in action. There is something going on that makes me think maybe this is the next big "killer app" because I can see how it could be addicting, a subject I might explore in further questions.
Good job people!
November 01, 2009 04:11 PM
Welcome to Mahalo Scott!
I would also like to point out that when we as a community see someone who stands out with well written, well sourced (if needed), and just all around great answers... we will support and acknowledge that person here.
As you learn your way around here, remember that you have the power to help create this great community. You can use the 'report' button that is on every answer posted. If you see people disrespecting the place in any way, you can always contact the staff directly too.
contact@mahalo.com
Looking at your imdb resume, I'm sure you'd be a great asset here, and hope that you stay and play a while!
Report
I would also like to point out that when we as a community see someone who stands out with well written, well sourced (if needed), and just all around great answers... we will support and acknowledge that person here.
As you learn your way around here, remember that you have the power to help create this great community. You can use the 'report' button that is on every answer posted. If you see people disrespecting the place in any way, you can always contact the staff directly too.
contact@mahalo.com
Looking at your imdb resume, I'm sure you'd be a great asset here, and hope that you stay and play a while!
November 02, 2009 08:19 PM
The undecided questions will not show any identity of the answerers. so there is no way of a mob activity. An asker can select the best answer. Usually the members will vote unhelpful to answers which just gaining two points for the answerer.
Can a mob can be formed? It can be. But you need to have enough friends and enough connections to form one. Who has the time for that???
Permalink | Report
Reply
Answer this Question
Related Questions
Ask a Question
Buy Mahalo Dollars with Credit Card or PayPal
Top Members
Most Popular Tags
Categories
- Anonymous
-
Arts & Design
-
Beauty & Style
-
Books & Authors
-
Business
-
Cars & Transportation
-
Consumer Electronics
- Coupons Deals
-
Education
-
Entertainment
-
Environment
-
Fitness
-
Food & Drink
- From Email
- From Iphone
- From Twitter
-
Health
-
History
-
Hobbies
-
Home & Garden
-
How Tos
-
Humor
-
Jobs
-
Legal
-
Local
-
Love & Relationships
-
Mahalo Answers Community
-
Money
-
Music
-
News
-
NSFW
-
Parenting
-
Pets
-
Science & Mathematics
-
Services
-
Shopping
-
Social Science
-
Society & Culture
-
Sports
-
Technology & Internet
-
Travel
-
Video Games
Welcome New Members
- tshombe, November 28, 2009 08:00 AM
- ponting, November 28, 2009 07:57 AM
- ujjwal, November 28, 2009 07:37 AM
- healthindia, November 28, 2009 07:25 AM
- livnletliv, November 28, 2009 07:21 AM
Mahalo Dollars are the currency of Mahalo Answers.
Each Mahalo Dollar costs $1.
Once you earn more than 40 Mahalo Dollars, you can request to be paid via PayPal. Each Mahalo Dollar is currently worth $0.75 when paid out via PayPal. Learn More
