Some thoughts on what and what not to reward.
Marking own post solved
- YES at least for 1st & maybe 2nd post, we want them to stay engaged
- Not for all of 30 posts, because that encourages duplicate and repeat posting, or posting questions as a mini kb session maybe just to solve their own questions
Post Count Single Thread
- NO Currently people get a badge just from their own single question
Helpful Posts
Lithium potentially has such a system and with a weighting factor, that could be good. After all if it is a multi page long thread having a solution and the two most helpful posts at the top is a good concept.
- YES reward people for marking posts as helpful.
We have weighting & moderation we can nip abuse in the bud.
Not all posts can be solved or the OP does not mark them.
Some may be breaking issues with a known bug and maybe a reasonable workaround.
Those rightly will not be marked solved but again having workarounds or explanations prominent is good.
We did used to not only mark helpfull posts but promote them to the top of the thread. Problem was it got abused with either popular rants against Firefox, or posts that were complaints not solutions becoming the promoted posts so the System was modified.
In fact Kadir filed a bug suggesting a weighting system with Mods for I think getting 200 votes that would have solved the abuse issue.
Examples
A similar abuse is on what I termed deliberate regressions, by which I mean deliberate and intentional changes, that could be unpopular. Take for instance Fx 49 and Hello being removed. If someone asks how to bring it back we can not do that and it remains unsolved. But a post linking to our KB article does explain the options we want that promoted not just someone complaining about how bad Firefox is now and how it is like some other named company for not respecting users rights. A much better example would have been Australis, add-on signing may be unpopular currently, and eventually FlashPlayer removal will probably not be liked.
Then there are breaking issues.
Both in terms of it being new, and possible causing Firefox to Break.
The recent Symantec issue is a case like this. That one was actually resolved quickly, but again it is something we want to be able to highlight the workaround or the explanation even if we can not fully resolve tjhe issue because in this case it is a third party software issue.
Escalation & Abuse reporting
The Abuse button is a misnomer as I have said before. It could be named better, Report Abuse/problem so it can be used for spelling errors in thread titles, duplicate posts, solutions acknowledged but not marked, telephone numbers and email addresses etc..
People doing this are helping and improving the forum
- YES they should be rewarded
- Not if - repeatedly unhelpful invalid reports
- NO do not reward unworthy escalations. Preferably do not even allow escalations by ordinary contributors without them making constructive comments. We must avoid getting in to a situation where someone goes round escalating all unanswered questions and then gets rewarded for it.
Coffee ?!
The sort of concept use on the Ubuntu forums with coffee beans + descriptive name seems a good model. It does not cause crazy gaming competitiveness, and yet could be used to distinguish say a question asker and a contributor. I am sure some sort of fuzzy logic could tweak the amount of rewarding done & maybe someone creative could think of a variant better suited to Mozilla.
Madalina thought it interesting awesome was the word used in that thread.
'''Some thoughts on what and what not to reward.'''
Marking own post solved
- YES at least for 1st & maybe 2nd post, we want them to stay engaged
- Not for all of 30 posts, because that encourages duplicate and repeat posting, or posting questions as a mini kb session maybe just to solve their own questions
Post Count Single Thread
- NO Currently people get a badge just from their own single question
'''Helpful Posts'''
Lithium potentially has such a system and with a weighting factor, that could be good. After all if it is a multi page long thread having a solution and the two most helpful posts at the top is a good concept.
- YES reward people for marking posts as helpful.
We have weighting & moderation we can nip abuse in the bud.
Not all posts can be solved or the OP does not mark them.
Some may be breaking issues with a known bug and maybe a reasonable workaround.
Those rightly will not be marked solved but again having workarounds or explanations prominent is good.
We did used to not only mark helpfull posts but promote them to the top of the thread. Problem was it got abused with either popular rants against Firefox, or posts that were complaints not solutions becoming the promoted posts so the System was modified.
In fact Kadir filed a bug suggesting a weighting system with Mods for I think getting 200 votes that would have solved the abuse issue.
Examples
A similar abuse is on what I termed '''deliberate regressions''', by which I mean deliberate and intentional changes, that could be unpopular. Take for instance Fx 49 and Hello being removed. If someone asks how to bring it back we can not do that and it remains unsolved. But a post linking to our KB article does explain the options we want that promoted not just someone complaining about how bad Firefox is now and how it is like some other named company for not respecting users rights. A much better example would have been Australis, add-on signing may be unpopular currently, and eventually FlashPlayer removal will probably not be liked.
Then there are '''breaking issues'''.
Both in terms of it being new, and possible causing Firefox to Break.
The recent '''Symantec''' issue is a case like this. That one was actually resolved quickly, but again it is something we want to be able to highlight the workaround or the explanation even if we can not fully resolve tjhe issue because in this case it is a third party software issue.
'''Escalation & Abuse reporting'''
The Abuse button is a misnomer as I have said before. It could be named better, Report Abuse/'''problem''' so it can be used for spelling errors in thread titles, duplicate posts, solutions acknowledged but not marked, telephone numbers and email addresses etc..
People doing this are helping and improving the forum
- YES they should be rewarded
- Not if - repeatedly unhelpful invalid reports
- NO do not reward unworthy escalations. Preferably do not even allow escalations by ordinary contributors without them making constructive comments. We must avoid getting in to a situation where someone goes round escalating all unanswered questions and then gets rewarded for it.
---------
'''Coffee ?!'''
The sort of concept use on the Ubuntu forums with coffee beans + descriptive name seems a good model. It does not cause crazy gaming competitiveness, and yet could be used to distinguish say a question asker and a contributor. I am sure some sort of fuzzy logic could tweak the amount of rewarding done & maybe someone creative could think of a variant better suited to Mozilla.
'''Madalina''' thought it interesting [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors/710548#post-61324 awesome] was the word used in that thread.
