Should Mahalo limit the number of questions from a single member and/or on a single topic on the front page at one time?
Should Mahalo limit the number of slots offered questions from a single user on the front page in the "highly tipped" area? If so, should the limit be one such question? Two? Should the limitation instead be on the number of questions on a single topic?
Keep in mind that not every member can afford to fund multiple questions at a level of M$10 to M$24, and having the highly-tipped area lionized by a single member asking many questions in parallel, all on the same topic reduces the number of questions of general interest.
The other areas of the front page seem not to be a concern:
- Featured questions: decided by staff so these are already curated well.
- Most popular questions: decided by community votes, and so far provides a good measure of community interest.
- New questions: cycle through rapidly, so not a problem as long as one member doesn't spam the front page by submitting dozens of questions repeatedly.
- Unanswered questions: appear to be fairly random.
Clarification: I have no complaint about the member who currently has those 5 questions on the front page. He has in no way violated the TOS, nor has he done anything illegal, or unethical. I'm simply using this as a basis for the community to enquire into whether the current situation has highlighted a loophole in Mahalo Answers' front page policies.
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M$7 Answers
One user has figured out that for a very cheap price they can get their message across. It's only a matte of time before other users realize this.
What would be is if I could hide a particular user or hit an X to remove a question from my view. Facebook has these features where you can block a certain user or a game like Farmville. Mahalo will have this feature at some point as well: block religious question or block a specific user. This will solve the entire problem.
Until then you can simply page down. :)
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M$I would say that in consideration of others those wishing to forward ANY type of question asking agenda would be considerate enough to space out their questions and allow others some room up there but again.. it is space for sale and if they have the money.. they own the space.
We have the same issues sometime with other users in the default tip section where they would ask 10, 15, or 20+ questions all within a 30 minute period and although a bit unnerving and certainly pushes the questions of other off of the front page, I can't see any way we could stop or regulate this behavior but to ask for politeness and consideration of other when asking question in large groups.
So while I wish that people would be as considerate as possible when asking questions I do not think we could do anything but ask them to "try" and space out their questions over a longer period of time. I have seen a user say "I only have so much time and want to ask these question while I am thinking about it".. that has to be acceptable as the only limit is the number of question they can ask not how often they can ask this number of questions. I think to say "you can only ask 3, 4, or 5 questions at a time" would effectively restrict some users to than number of questions and not the number they are actually allowed to ask.
Now to regulate by subject matter in the "highest tipped questions" I just can't see a fair way to tell someone "you can only buy so much space in relation to one topic", after all it is for sale and that is the function of the "highest tipped question" section so I think this is again an issue of consideration, a user would be the most considerate if, even though they can afford it, allowed other users to buy some prime real estate as well but I do not know how we can ask them to not spend their money if it might inconvenience someone.
Overall I would have to say the "highest tipped question" section is reserved for those that have the money to spend and if the want to spend it all at once or more often the others.. we should let them and not regulate or impede their own expenditure of their own Mahalo Dollars up there in any way. That is truly the free market section of Mahalo Answers and I do not know how else we could have things up there.
personal opinion
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M$
> I'm afraid I have no idea how hard or easy it would be for Mahalo to implement either one
I don't know either. But my gut feeling is that both of them would be "non-trivial". :)
The highest tip position is advertising of topics. Long-term the topics may gain position in the search engines because of the activity, content, and Mahalo search ability algorithms. The highest tip questions may be a way to gain name recognition on the site. I consider highest tip a political campaign to promote an idea or product.
You bring up a very interesting point @buddawiggi. I guess it's possible to simply look at the highest-tipped section like a sort of advertising space. I can simply ignore it if I choose. However, that would be counter-productive for Mahalo and the asker (for obvious reasons) and for me, since I'd lose out on the highest earning potential on MA.
I like both of @philipy's suggestions. The one he made in his own answer, of allowing us to check off questions we'd already seen and decided we're not going to answer (sort of customizing our own front MA page) or alternatively having a question scheduler available for askers, with an encouragement to use it so they don't jam any of the front page sections with too many of their questions, especially when they're on a single topic.
I'm afraid I have no idea how hard or easy it would be for Mahalo to implement either one. However, I think it would be a good thing to remind members in general that etiquette means that just because you *can* do something, does not necessarily mean you *should* do it.
@philipy that is brilliant... post questions to a "scheduled postings" section and give them specific time when to be posted.. just awesome. I wonder how difficult of a project that gem would be to get to shine? I really love the idea.. which in my experience means it likely will not happen.
Would implementing this "scheduled posting" sort of feature require significant recoding or a lot of additional work for developers?
I've thought about offering a $50 question. "Should Mahalo be a family friendly site for all ages?" I would keep the question open for the maximum time and occupy the top of the answer page. I have the money and will probably submit the question.
I wonder if it would help if you could schedule the question gets posted?
There are perfectly good reasons why for example a whole bunch of questions about Doctor Who occur to me all at once. But I either have to make a note of them and spread out asking them, or ask them all quite close together.
However I don't like seeing the system filled with questions on only one topic, whether they are from one asker or many askers. That also goes when the system is awash with Oscar or iPad questions.
One thing that is disconcerting now though is that any given set of high-tipped questions is likely to linger for five days now.
What I'd really like is a way to "dismiss" questions that I know I'm not interested in, so I never have to scroll through them again.
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M$
iPad is popular but the questions that gain visibility should be where the action is occurring driven by member participation verses staff $
It would be awesome if Mahalo allowed us to tag questions as uninteresting to us, and thus without affecting the questions with regard to other users, allow us to customize the front page somewhat. In this manner, we could have the 10 highest tipped questions we have not yet dismissed, the featured questions we had not dismissed, etc.
The point is that just because I have no interest in iPad questions does not mean I think they are in principle uninteresting in the sense that would be needed to have me vote a question down.
A dismiss vote would be very good. If enough people vote dismiss from the queue then it gets the boot. I'm hoping members will have more control over the content visibility on the site.
> just because I have no interest in iPad questions does not mean I think they are in principle uninteresting
Me neither.... I even am interested in iPad, but tire of getting the same thing over and over.
I don't see much value in the New Question queue, other than voting. I'm want member voting tips to gain popular question status. I think the popular question status is the most important queue. The highest tip and feature question could be done away with and the queue could focus on the "Action" questions or the questions gaining the most interest, in my opinion.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I really dislike the "Highest Tip" members because it usually is a staff question product and not a true indicator of the popularity polling that is going on with the other members. I would like to see a more democratic system emerge on Mahalo.
Just out of curiosity, are your M$0.02 questions from the first question of the day, or is that after you run out of Mahalo-funded M$0.10 default questions?
If the former, why are you choosing not to take advantage of the 5 times higher default tips?
I found the 0 cent question worked to acquire votes and tips. I was able to see which questions were popular and it helps me become more affective. My earnings are all coming from revshare, so popularity is my model approach.
My question would have been: Is it ok for people to spam the front page? Then I realized the spamming may not be intentional or even the fault of the poster at all, so I refrained. :)
I love the suggestion about checking boxes to customize the front page.
I really think there should be a time limit for each of the highest tips to be on the front page, or at the very least cycle through them quicker, especially if there haven't been any views for a set amount of time, 24-36 hours if you ask me. Just because it is the highest tipped doesn't mean everyone is going to have interest in them.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
And of course, it would be cool to have the option of "hiding" stuff we're not interested in, although that's a feature I may never really use.
But if I were the Gods of Mahalo, and wanted to grow a big, interesting, amazing, diverse, revenue-earning website with something for everyone....
I would put something in place to ensure this diversity and reduce any glut of too much of the same at the same time, to ensure that each casual person who finds the Mahalo Answers front page does not get the wrong idea of what Mahalo is, what it's about, what it's for, who's involved, and whether it will appeal to them in future or not.
(I'd put the ads back on for logged in users, and give Page Managers the ability to control their ads, too... but that's another topic :)
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I think the religious question are very important for Mahalo. Morality stabilizes chaotic systems. Morality is the oil in the machinery prevent breakdown of the system. I will block atheism, infidelity, violent, or sexual related content.
I'm looking for to blocking certain offensive content
I'd like to block most of the front page and just have the question bar displaying.
That would be an extremely helpful feature. I'm sure many Mahaloians will welcome it. The best possibility would be a two-pronged approach.
1. One could simply check off a box next to each question to avoid seeing it again. This would be useful if for example one goes through the questions once, and marks off those one does not wish to try and answer. Then, the page could be refreshed, allowing e.g. the next 10 top tipped questions to show up.
2. One could "program" one's own filter, similar to a spam filter, using keywords and key-phrases to determine what one wishes to block. Blocking out certain users would be another possibility, but a very extreme one that hopefully would rarely if ever need to be used.