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ADVICE RATING |
 4.68 (Highly recommend) from 172 votes (1988 Visits) |
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MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing. |
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Anonymous Author (January 2007) |
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It was brought to my attention today that a small minority of members of the Minti Community appear to have been deliberately going out of their way to drop the rankings of other members. It seems that some people just don't get the idea of what Minti is about. It seems they have missed all the other advice pertaining to this, or didn't understand it, so I'll put it in my own words and see if it helps anyone else understand. If just one more person gets the right idea from reading this, spending a night up late and suffering sleep deprovation tomorrow will be worth it for me.
It is not about rankings.
It is not about who gets the highest votes.
It is not about who writes the most articles or comments.
It is not about who writes the best articles or comments.
It is not about voting, medals and patches, the number of friends in your friends list, or any of that stuff.
If you think any of these things are even remotely important, you are seriously disillusioned. You need to re-think your reasons for being a member of Minti, take a good look at why you think these things are so important to you, and I personally would advise you to either seek professional help from a psychologist or get a life!
YOUR RANKING ON MINTI IS NOT AN INDICATION OF HOW GOOD A PARENT YOU ARE!
It's just a number system that calculates your activity levels and the popularity of the things you write, on a web site where you can never know for sure exactly who you are communicating with - unless of course you know some of the members in real life - so what does it really matter? Wow! My writing is popular with a heap of people that I don't know and am not likely to meet anytime soon. How exciting! Duh! I'm not popular, just the things I have written are, and if what I have written is the summation of me, please put me out of my misery.
Minti is about being able to access parenting advice and the opinions of other parents.
Minti is about doing what you can to be helpful to other parents, and keeping the site active and maintained at the same time.
If this is your reason for being here, good on you, you have the right idea. So, if it's not about ranking and voting and all that superficial stuff, why have that on the site? I don't know the exact reasons why the people that set up this site would give. Sure, it's there to help encourage member participation, but here's how I see it:
- If you are new to Minti and are genuinely looking for advice on a subject, you don't know anything about the members, and you don't have a world of time to browse through thousands of pages of advice, you want a way to determine what advice is the best to read. The easiest way to do that is to have the members read the advice and vote on it. Those with higher votes are obviously more popular and better advice, so people looking for something in a hurry will be looking at those ones first - and rightly so.
- Ranking - which is determined by the number of high votes received for advice, comments, etc - creates a sense of credibility to the author. Someone who has consistantly written well accepted advice, comments, etc; will be ranked higher, and thus someone looking at the site for the first time will be able to see that this person's opinions and advice is popular and worth looking at.
- Ranking also gives new members a good idea of who is more experienced with the use of the site, so that when they want to ask someone to help them find their way around, or if they might find good advice on a particular subject that isn't necessarily coming up in a search, they have a few people they can message that can likely answer their questions. This can save them from having to search for hours or turn to the already busy Administrators, for every little thing. It can also save some people a lot of embarassment if they are wanting to ask something they aren't comfortable asking on a public Q&A, but would rather just ask one person that has been active around the site for a while, and has read a lot of the advice - or at least can quickly find the info needed.
- Rankings give the members an indication as to whether they should try to improve the quality of their advice and comments, increase the amount of participation they are putting into the site, and it encourages members to do the things that are important to the general maintenance of the site - that is, read and rank the value of the articles and contribute quality comments to answer questions and fill in the gaps.
There have been incidents recently where people have posted advice that is not advice at all, has been plagiarized, or has been posted incomplete where the person is actually using it to fish for information provided by other members in order to have their "advice" on-line. Of course, the more advice that is posted by a member, the more advice they have that can gain votes, and thus put them up ranks. This is not what Minti is about. So what if someone has more advice posted? That does not automatically mean it is of good quality and worth reading. If these people aren't careful, it could easily back fire on them, as any ranking they have gained could easily be lost, as their articles get severely voted down, or even reported.
There have also been incidents where people have flashed through a heap of advice pages and made votes, often targetting those belonging to certain people. Sorry folks, I don't care how good someone is at reading or how fast their computer operates, no one can read through 20 different advice articles of varying lengths and absorb the information well enough to make an informed decision about whether or not the article is worth voting on at all, let alone worth the mark given, all within 20 minutes. It is especially obvious when every one of those votes are anonymous and voted as Poor. This is nothing short of a cheap method to raise their ranking by bringing down the rankings of others, rather than doing the mature and civilised thing of trying to just improve their own writing quality and their site participation.
Another voting issue is in regards to comments. If the comment is good quality, provides some more substance to the article (and this can include a valid and well constructed disagreement to the view point of the author of the subject they are commenting on), adds a little extra information, or generally improves the quality of the topic concerned, then by all means get to it and vote on it. But if the comment is exactly that, a mere comment, such as a simple, "good onya mate", "I agree, couldn't have said it better myself", "well written, good advice" etc; don't destroy someone's ranking by voting on it poorly. It's obviously just that person's way of expressing themselves, they don't want any vote for it, so just leave it alone.
Also, some people are voting down articles just because it doesn't apply specifically to them. For example, parents with teenage children may vote down articles about breastfeeding because they don't need that information anymore. That is not why the voting system is exists, is not how it is supposed to be used, and if an advice is not relevant to you, ignore it, don't vote or comment at all, and go find something that is relevant to you.
The people that are deliberately going around and damaging the rankings of others are making a big mistake. Not only are they making themselves look bad to everyone else but, it is possible to look at the Recent Activity pages, which go back a very long way, to see who has done what. With a bit of searching, I - and anyone else on the site - can find out what anyone was doing on Minti 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 7 hours and 36 minutes ago, or at any other time - if I so desired. Although a lot of stuff comes up as anonymous and the majority of the members can't see past that, the Administrators can still access that information and see what people have really been up to.
When people start behaving in such a pathetic manner as to put themselves up by putting others down, the members that are doing the right thing will get annoyed at it. They will report those sad members to the Administrators, who will investigate, and they do have the power to drop members' rankings, or in worst case scenarios, abolish and ban these people from the site altogether.
Lastly, if anyone wants to drop my ranking by voting this down, go ahead! I don't give a <<insert expletive here>> because I'm not writing any advice for the purpose of votes, rankings, or popularity. I'm significantly important enough to those I love in the real world, and that's all that matters to me. I don't need a high rank, medal or patch to prove I'm good.
"Ego? I don't need an ego! I'm good enough without one."
L. Pascoe, 1997. (No, he's not famous, he's just an old mate of mine, but he said it and I'm stealing it, so I have to give the credit where it is due.)
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Any contributed content above is the subjective opinion of that member or external author, and not of Minti.com Pty Ltd. If you are searching for health related advice we strongly suggest you seek professional medical support. View our Terms of Service for more details.
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| ADVICE RATING |
4.68 (Highly recommend) from 172 votes |
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Thankyou for your vote (you can change your vote at any time). Please leave some helpful comments about this advice using the box below.
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
I think that people need to keep it real when voting on advice. I've actually only written a few and I was very surprised to have 5 star votes, as I didnt really think I did that great a job. Pretty much sat and typed on the spot, then edited a bit. I was actually a bit relieved when the rating dropped a bit as I felt it was a bit more realistic.
I think we need to encourage people who are less skilled or obviously have low verbal skills. Sometimes I see some really fantastic advice which just isn't presented well at all. I am very reluctant to give this a low vote. I don't want this person, who obviously struggles with writing, to just not bother, when in fact they have given some really great imput. This may well give them the confidence to improve. On the other hand we dont want to encourage people to take little thought and care and present something to still get a high vote, when the ycould have done better.
As far as other members voting down others, who really cares. threre will always be that type in all of life's situations. So just enjoy the site and dont worry. Even if they ever do make it to the top (which is unlikely), how will they gain satisfaction.
I do find this article to be somewhat contradicting itself. Who's got time to go ''stalking'' somebodies recent activites?
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
i can agree with this,,, its something iv noticed as well,, i do like to vote and look at pics,, but not for my gain,, great article well donexxxshar
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
Cheers to you. You are so right. I guess we all need to be mindful of the fact that everyone does not think or see things the way we may do. Therefore, others opinions and views are theirs and should be treated as such. If we are meant to be upright, good standing citizens, then we shouldn't be judging or condemning another because their view is not agreeable to us. For me Minti is a site for parents who just want to share their experiences with others and well as receive from others any guidance or direction in certain matters. Overall, for me it is a site of encouragement, support, and uplfiting, where one's views are read and commented on if one desires or not. If of course, we take offense of someone's views, then maybe we need to search within ourselves to see why. Maybe it has nothing to do with the person but to do more with our own upbringing and view of life and the world. Who knows? Not me anyway. I just know I enjoy reading the articles and the encouraging comments received. I also enjoy the group sessions and the chance to express or share my views and experiences with others, not because I know better but because it may help someone else. At the end of the day, that is what matters. Helping others to remain strong and steadfast on their journey as parents giving guidance and direction to our future leaders.
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Re: MINTI MEMBER RANKINGS, VOTING, and what to avoid doing.
I read this piece of advice quite often - some of it is good - however some of it is really quite negative, and you need to take into account that the author is now anonymous - and what connotations that holds. That being said, the explanation in regard to rankings, and why there are rankings is spot on.
Please don't think that if you are voted down that people are victimising you... Sometimes people just don't like your advice - or the comment you have to say, or the way you have said it. Think, 'what can I change to improve it?' Not that you are being picked on, it really doesn't happen very often, and remember people are entitled to their own opinion - you don't get a gold star for just rocking up.
Also, on the rare occasion that you may be subject to bad behaviour by the odd member - it is the group that decides in the end, and if your advice or comments are worthy - they will eventually be voted up. The idea is to post information and comments that will help others, and that in itself is the main reward.
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minti
this is simple and straight forward in plain english for anyone to understand ,
, Im not great at putting all my info together to write articles so i dont ,,, .its totally unfair to judge people on some of the articles and comments just cause they have a chip on their shoulder , what may not work for one person dosent mean it wont work for another its a little catty.....im not into voteing anyone down i think thats a little immiture
most advice and commments are from personal experience and that is what makes it important .and real ,and also helpful ,,lots of things in life is all about trial and error ,its great to read things from all ages from male and female as we all go through things differntly and have tried many ways to get through it ,,, thats what i like about minti also all walks of life are on here and i love it ....
we have all got a story and we have all been though something in our lifes dosent matter if its big or small its all personal experience that may help another ..
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Okay, I'll try again...
Wasn't directed at you, was directed at anyone that voted it as a one. I can't tell who voted what, no one can except for the Super-Admin and techies that work on the sight. If you didn't like it, ignore it. As for the first part of your question, I'm just going to copy and paste from above. If you want better clarification, try reading the comments below from 2 of the Administrators of the site: Clay and Rachel.
If you are new to Minti and are genuinely looking for advice on a subject, you don't know anything about the members, and you don't have a world of time to browse through thousands of pages of advice, you want a way to determine what advice is the best to read. The easiest way to do that is to have the members read the advice and vote on it. Those with higher votes are obviously more popular and better advice, so people looking for something in a hurry will be looking at those ones first - and rightly so.
Ranking - which is determined by the number of high votes received for advice, comments, etc - creates a sense of credibility to the author. Someone who has consistantly written well accepted advice, comments, etc; will be ranked higher, and thus someone looking at the site for the first time will be able to see that this person's opinions and advice is popular and worth looking at.
Ranking also gives new members a good idea of who is more experienced with the use of the site, so that when they want to ask someone to help them find their way around, or if they might find good advice on a particular subject that isn't necessarily coming up in a search, they have a few people they can message that can likely answer their questions. This can save them from having to search for hours or turn to the already busy Administrators, for every little thing. It can also save some people a lot of embarassment if they are wanting to ask something they aren't comfortable asking on a public Q&A, but would rather just ask one person that has been active around the site for a while, and has read a lot of the advice - or at least can quickly find the info needed.
Rankings give the members an indication as to whether they should try to improve the quality of their advice and comments, increase the amount of participation they are putting into the site, and it encourages members to do the things that are important to the general maintenance of the site - that is, read and rank the value of the articles and contribute quality comments to answer questions and fill in the gaps.
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Hipocrate
I wrote a huge long thing that has dissapeared, it must have been too long for a comment box. I don't agree with you, not even YOU agree with you it would appear.
You wrote" Wow! My writing is popular with a heap of people that I don't know and am not likely to meet anytime soon. How exciting! Duh! I'm not popular, just the things I have written are, and if what I have written is the summation of me, please put me out of my misery." then in writing the perfect parenting advice you write.
Since I came on Minti, I've had one little personal goal: to write one piece of advice that received a perfect score of 5 in the first 10 votes. I've finally achieved that goal - the first 16 votes scored 5." & "satisfy my sense of self-achievement; 16 very different people from different parts of the world thought that the advice I wrote was "perfect". "
Not to mention the fact that the higher you are ranked the more weight your vote has. if #200659 voted poor then your rank would be unlikely to even get a dent, if rank#13 voted poor you'd drop like a stone. Not to mention the prize of a rhoomba for those in the top 10. It also means that the friends you have made and those you will make agree with you, they respect your thoughts and feelings....they are your friends regardless of if you'll ever be able to physically shake hands or not.
Maybe you all do genuinely feel that the ranks etc. are worth nothing, I doubt it, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I think they are worth what effort and work I put in, and that is something, that is part of my heart & soul I am sharing with the masses & I don't think there is any shame in being recognised for work well done. A cyber pat on the back if you will.
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hipocrate
I have a life, I write articles when I have something to say. I make comments on things which ever way I choose to and I answer questions when I think I have a rellevent answer. I also used to be in the top 10 and I'm not ashamed to say that I like it up there. I worked hard to get a good ranking and I was proud of it. The only reason I dropped was becasue I had no net access for 7 weeks. I've been an active member since august last year. I felt as though my ranking was a one stop visual source of my contributions and yes, how much what I said mattered to other people. I LIKE it when other people agree with me. Does that make me a loser? I don't FEEL like a loser, so I would say NO. Does it make me someone who has made friends on a web site and who takes the backing and the respect of those friends seriously...YES it does. What is wrong with liking the fact that people are giving you respect, cyber pats on the back if you will. That's what irks me about this article I think the most. The fact that you obviously have little to no respect for anyone who has mistakingly become your friend because you as much as say that they mean nothing to you because you will never see them in person. I feel sorry for the people who might be your minti friends.
I'm a bit amused and a bit miffed by this article and all the comments below..........I shall ponder that emotion some more. It seems a bit hipocritical to me that in the begining of your article you say you don't care about your rank and then in the former part you berate those who would vote low.
The ranking scores don't exaclty work that way as far as I understand it anyway. For someone to mark your advice as poor and for it to have any influence on your ranking they would have to be in the top 10 and even then if you had had several excellents a top 5 or top 10 vote wont cancel that many out, just one or 2. The better your rank the more power your vote has and thats a fact. There is also a prize for those in the top rankings of a rhoombah vacuume cleaner, so whats wrong with that as an insentive....that is I assume why the call it a prize etc.
For someone who claims to have no ego you sure do seem to be full of it to me.
Oh and by the way, just so there is no mis-understanding, I will be voting poor on this becasue quite obviously I do NOT agree with it or it's tone. As you rank higher than me, I dare say you wont even be able to tell. I do not agree with people stealing info and proporting it to be original, I do not agree with repeat articles or recycled articles, but that is what the minti admin is for and I know for a fact they those who try and fraudulantly glean a higher rank DO get caught out and are banned (at least they suddenly dissapear). So why don't you leave the crime solving to the experts and just enjoy the site as you say you are want to do, which again I find ironic considering you obviously do have rather strong feelings about those who would attempt to lower your rank etc.
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Jeepers!!!
Being fairly new to the site (less than a week), it boggles me to read all of this. Maybe I missed reading something when I registered, but I was clueless when starting, and I happened to make a few votes and comments, and presto, I had a patch and a medal. I personally couldn't give two hoots about the ranking system, etc. I'm on here for some good reading and different people's perspectives on issues that no one ever has time to discuss when you get together with them. I am enjoying the site, I am hoping to write my first article over the next few days (if I can find the uninterrupted time), and I'm looking forward to any feedback that I may get with this. So, good on you for writing this, obviously there must have been just cause, and it's always a huge shame when people lose the big picture on things.
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This was on the Q&A, I copied as is, check out the votes!
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Awesome, couldnt have said it any better
We are reaching out and touching parents lives, share, share, share, care, care,care...the reward system is only there to reward honest contribution, motivate participation and provide a level of trust in the content for searchers...we do have controls and mechanisms in place that detect extreme gaming of the system...(ie. anonymous votes dont' can't for hardly anything and you can only vote once anonymously from one computer or any comptuter once) so it's a time waster...also we can detect additional accounts from one member...there is a lot we can detect, even if the member moves, removes or changes...we find it...and eventually members do too!!!!
Human behaviour is a very transparent and often most visible when the person is trying to do the opposite.
The more you share honestly, the more the rewards shine on you...
Go Minti parents, lets make an impact on the world one parent advice at a time!!!!!!
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Soap box...
Hmmm food for thought - however, there have been a few people getting up on their soap boxes about this in the past few weeks that I have been a member, and it is sort of taking the fun out of it. When you offer free speech to people, and allow them to give their opinion, there are always going to be good days, and bad days for everyone, and people who don't really gel with others when they have a bad day, then seem supportive as anything when they are having a better day.
If I think a comment is derrogatory, or has nothing helpful to offer the original writer, or is discouraging in anyway - even to the point of complaining about the text style & not even mentioning the content - I will vote it down. It is my perrogative, as it should be discouraged, which is why I vote it down instead of complaining about it. It often is easy to do this quickly, as if you find a person who has left such a comment, usually you click on them and they have left a string of them in a row that day. I vote those down, and I will continue to do so.
Sometimes I feel guilty and vote it back up because the person deserves to be rewarded for their contribution, as long as they aren't 'having a go' which some people seem to be in the habit of doing as it isn't in the spirit of things...
I do think that it should all be taken slightly less seriously though, it is a parents website, not a factual medical dictionary or advisory panel. I thought it was light hearted, fun and informative, however, I am beginning to rethink that with all this serious whining lately about how other members are conducting themselves. Surely it is best to consider that you yourself are doing the right thing, and let the administrators take it up with each individual if need be. If I was brand new and saw this post, I wouldn't think that this was a very positive community to be a member of, and that isn't the case at all.
What you said is fine, however, it is no less damaging than what you say other people are doing, it is like one political party bagging the other - all it does is give the opposition power.
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Soap box...
Yep, I'm very good at standing on the highest soap box I can find and screaming at the top of my lungs about any injustice, abuse, or misuse that gets under my skin; but I do my best to do it in a constructive manner that is helpful, rather than just go around behind backs and griping constantly without offering any possible solution.
Yes, I agree, it was all getting far too serious, that why I have tried my best to do my bit to stop the BS so we can all get back to having something to laugh about, cause, gees, I was really starting to loose my sense of humour for a bit there as well - and that's saying something!
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so stupid
i agree too!
and i know what you mean allyp, people have their own oppinions and they should be respected by other members, like i have said before, if you dont have nothing nice to say, dont say it at all (same goes with voting, dont agree with it, dont vote. it only puts people down)
great article wendigo, this should be read by many!
xx channy  PS, i know what rank im at, im happy with what i have accomplished, its just a bonus.
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It's good that you've put this here, it's just a shame there are people about who think it's all about the ranking etc. I'm here to help, which is why I've not done much here as I only tend to ask and answer if I know what I'm talking about. Well written, very concise, I hope people read this and understand what Minti's all about.
's Hayley
