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Fascinating video.
I have mixed feelings about the idea to turn off no-follow for upper belts.
Basically three areas to think about:
1) What do the belt levels measure, and how easily could they be gamed?
Right now belt levels reward quantity of participation over quality of participation. If I could zap a thousand useless answers, it would buy me as many points as two hundred best answers. There's also no recognition for helpful answers, or downside to unhelpful answers.
It's also possible to gain a considerable amount of points through the exchange of tips.
If I were a spammer, I could easily game all these things to become an upper belt. And in fact it's probably hard to come up with a cost-effective system that can't be gamed.
2) Perverse Incentives
Even if I become an upper level belt through giving out great, helpful answers, what are now my incentives?
Unlike before, I now have an incentive to give self-interested answers rather than the best answer. I can selflessly point to the best resource to answer your question, or I can use the chance to push my own or a friend's site.
The site becomes like others a subtle or not-so-subtle arena for self promotion.
3) Quality does deserve a reward
At the moment, other than the fun of the game, I don't see a great advanage in reaching the upper belt levels. Even now, on yellow, I am participating extensively, and probably about as much as I ever would. I'm maybe even spending too much time here for my own good! The daily limits of the yellow level don't constrain me at all.
So it would be great if there was a real incentive to become an upper belt.
But that incentive has to be carefully designed to reward quality and helpfulness, and avoid the risk of being gamed.
One possibility might be to give upper belts a better exchange rate between Mahalo Dollars and real world dollars. That could be graduated, and could be something worth working for.
Source(s):
Personal experience, bits of economic theory and other things that I happen to know!
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Spam could be an issue, but if someone at that belt level is providing spam answers, you should be able to spot it and revoke their status. And it seems like a lot of work to get that high.
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This would allow people like myself, who have a legit blog and some knowledge in a given area to support the Answers community with knowledgeable posts AND allow me to link to the article on my blog that support my answer AND allow Answers to make some money out of the deal.
It would actually be a whole new way to market yourself. For $1 I could market my knowledge. Nobody on the web is doing this, you could break some new ground here.
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Answered Question
M$1
January 13, 2009 07:33 PM
No follow on Mahalo Answers: Should we pass page rank from upper belts?
Currently Mahalo Answers users "no follow" on all user contributed content (i.e. answers and questions) in order to prevent spam.
Watching this video by Matt Cutts on "Virtual Blight" I'm starting to think that *perhaps* we should turn off "no follow" for people who are Purple or Brown Belts in the system. This would pass page rank from the highest members of the community.
Thoughts?
Watching this video by Matt Cutts on "Virtual Blight" I'm starting to think that *perhaps* we should turn off "no follow" for people who are Purple or Brown Belts in the system. This would pass page rank from the highest members of the community.
Thoughts?
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| January 13, 2009 08:10 PM |
I have mixed feelings about the idea to turn off no-follow for upper belts.
Basically three areas to think about:
1) What do the belt levels measure, and how easily could they be gamed?
Right now belt levels reward quantity of participation over quality of participation. If I could zap a thousand useless answers, it would buy me as many points as two hundred best answers. There's also no recognition for helpful answers, or downside to unhelpful answers.
It's also possible to gain a considerable amount of points through the exchange of tips.
If I were a spammer, I could easily game all these things to become an upper belt. And in fact it's probably hard to come up with a cost-effective system that can't be gamed.
2) Perverse Incentives
Even if I become an upper level belt through giving out great, helpful answers, what are now my incentives?
Unlike before, I now have an incentive to give self-interested answers rather than the best answer. I can selflessly point to the best resource to answer your question, or I can use the chance to push my own or a friend's site.
The site becomes like others a subtle or not-so-subtle arena for self promotion.
3) Quality does deserve a reward
At the moment, other than the fun of the game, I don't see a great advanage in reaching the upper belt levels. Even now, on yellow, I am participating extensively, and probably about as much as I ever would. I'm maybe even spending too much time here for my own good! The daily limits of the yellow level don't constrain me at all.
So it would be great if there was a real incentive to become an upper belt.
But that incentive has to be carefully designed to reward quality and helpfulness, and avoid the risk of being gamed.
One possibility might be to give upper belts a better exchange rate between Mahalo Dollars and real world dollars. That could be graduated, and could be something worth working for.
Source(s):
Personal experience, bits of economic theory and other things that I happen to know!
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Other Answers (8)
January 14, 2009 02:16 AM
I have to think that with the "brown belt review process", that hopefully this group of folks would care more about Mahalo than a bit of link cash.
I really think that this would be a good idea and if the site does well could provide an extra source of "tips" to folks who make it through the ranks.
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I really think that this would be a good idea and if the site does well could provide an extra source of "tips" to folks who make it through the ranks.
January 13, 2009 07:57 PM
Well, at some point the no-follow thing gets ridiculous. The fact that an experienced (upper belt) researcher has identified a page as relevant to a question is exactly the kind of thing that Google should be using in ranking that page. Spam could be an issue, but if someone at that belt level is providing spam answers, you should be able to spot it and revoke their status. And it seems like a lot of work to get that high.
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January 13, 2009 07:57 PM
Yes, would be a good idea, but you should be at least a purple belt, or a brown belt. Maybe you could even give the user a choice. Not sure how you would do this, but just because someone is a purple belt, does not mean they would like the "no follow" turned off.
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January 13, 2009 08:32 PM
Why not monetize this? Make me pay 1 Mahalo dollar to have a given link followed. Then furthermore only allow me to keep the follow functionality if the Helpful Answer ratio on my post is above 50%. And then finally as another safeguard make sure my overall Helpful Answer ratio is over 50%. This would allow people like myself, who have a legit blog and some knowledge in a given area to support the Answers community with knowledgeable posts AND allow me to link to the article on my blog that support my answer AND allow Answers to make some money out of the deal.
It would actually be a whole new way to market yourself. For $1 I could market my knowledge. Nobody on the web is doing this, you could break some new ground here.
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I wonder who flagged this not helpful, and why.