Minti System, Rankings, Voting, Reporting, Respect, Coping With The Negatives And What To Avoid Doing - edited and updated.

There are constantly comments and questions popping up all over Minti regarding ranking, voting, and reporting; and every now and then a conspiracy theory becomes a major topic of conversation. I am almost totally re-writing this advice as editing it is just to hard to do with all the things that I have seen and learned here, and the questions that still keep being asked are far more complex than what my original advice on this covered. I've also taken my own advice and tried to make this as constructive as possible. I believe that I'm in a fair postion to write this as, although I'm not an administrator and I didn't plan or set up this site; I have been on the site for a while, I've seen a lot, learned a lot, and I've held rank at both extremes: I've been ranked in the top 20 as well as deliberatley spending a lot of time hiding below rank 500+. I've been in trouble for saying the wrong thing, I've been applauded for saying the right thing at the right time as well. There's not much I haven't seen or done on this site, so I'm going to pass on what I do know and hope it helps members and non-members alike to do their bit to improve it.

Minti is about providing an on-line site that supports parents by providing communication, information, advice, and moral support to parents, from parents, in times of need. Many parents are isolated from friends, family, and others that have parenting knowledge and experience. Some members are in unique situations whereby the standard parenting practises don't apply. Some are surrounded by people that still believe in older parenting practises that are now considered archaic, where children were treated almost as second class citizens and corporal punishment - even abuse - was considered a normal part of life. These parents need to be able to reach out beyond their real-life social network and access the opinions and experience of other parents with different views, experiences, and knowledge. They need to be able to feel they are not alone and that there are people in the world that care and will give moral support and friendship, however far away they may be. This is what Minti provides. This is what Minti is about.

Minti is not about rankings. It is not about who gets the highest votes or the most 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 the most important aspects of the site, you are seriously disillusioned. 

The System:

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. My writing is popular with a heap of people that I don't know and am not likely to meet anytime soon.  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! - especially as I'm not getting paid to do it. LOL

There is a good reason for this system of voting and ranking. Some of the reasons are:

• 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 quickly determine what advice is the best to read.  The easiest way to do that is to have people read the advice and vote on it.  Those with higher votes are obviously more popular and thus are most likely to be the better advice, so people looking for something in a hurry will be looking at those ones first - and rightly so.
• The higher number of high votes an advice has increases it's likelyhood of appearing higher on the list when doing an advice search. This means that advice which is considered good and popular - and thus is more likely to be the better advice to take - will be found more readily by people google searching for information on that topic, as well as searching the Minti files on the site.
• 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. It doesn't mean they are a nice person or a good parent, it just means that this person is active on the site and most people think that what this person writes is worth paying attention to.
• 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 and the voting system 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.

Voting:

The fairest way to vote is simply based on your opinion of what the content of the piece contains. Not everyone has had a good education in writing, some people have English as a second language, and others have more important things to do than spend hours checking and editing for spelling, grammar, and punctuational errors. If the writing is good enough for you to understand the message that the author is trying to get across, that should be sufficient. How well written something is should not hold much baring on the vote so long as the content is comprehensible. That being said, something well written is easier to read and comprehend and will attract more readers. If you are writing a piece of advice, you need to make sure that what you are trying to say has indeed been written well enough to read and understand easily.

It doesn't matter if you like a person or not. What is important is what you are reading, with no other considerations for any past interaction with that person, or articles or comments they have written in the past. We all make mistakes, we all have disagreements, and we all have people that we do like and are friends with. Some people have strong opinions on certain matters that are important to them, and sometimes those opinions conflict with those of other people. That isn't important. Everyone has the right to have their opinion. What is most important is whether that opinion is expressed in a polite and inoffensive manner.

If you feel that an advice is potentially good, you have tried it and it worked, or you strongly believe it will work for other people in the same situation as the author, then by all means vote it high. If you genuinely believe that the advice will not work, you have tried it and it did not work for you, and you believe that it would not likely work for anyone else, then vote it low. It is really that simple.

As for voting on 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 it high.  If the comment is degrading, contains poor advice, and seriously detracts from the information in the advice, then by all means vote it low. 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 try to destroy someone's ranking by voting on it poorly.  It's obviously just that person's way of expressing themselves and letting others know they have been there and read it, they don't want any vote for it, so just leave it alone.

It is acceptable to pass on giving a vote for something. If you have read an advice or comment that simply doesn't apply to you, it disinterests you, or you are just not sure what you really want to vote for it, then don't vote. Just pass on by and find something else to read.

Rank:

Firstly, do you really need to actively do this? Wouldn't you be better off reading a story to your child or catching up on some other work? But if you do have a desire to do this, here's a few tips:

• Write advice, and do your best to write it well. I have also written an advice called 'Writing "Perfect" Advice' full of tips on how to improve the quality of your writing if you are interested in doing this. Make sure that you are not beating a dead horse by writing something that has been written a thousand times before. Do a search for a topic and have a look at similar articles that have been written to check if there is anything you know about a subject that hasn't yet been covered by someone else already. Do not breach copyright laws in writing anything, and if you do have to copy something from another source, make sure you reference everything properly.
• Write comments on other people's advice or answer questions in Q&A. Make them clear, constructive, inoffensive and helpful.
• Read other people's advice and comments and vote appropriately.
• Write a few good blogs, either on your homepage or join a group that appeals to you and blog in there.
• Maintain a high level of participation. If you go quiet and don't post anything for some time, your rank will start to fall as other people become more active in comparison to you. However, bare in mind that some people - like myself - don't have much better to do than sit on the computer for hours on end, and if you have children demanding your attention, remember that your most important job is to be a parent, not worry about trying to compete your rank against people with boring lives, like me.

Things you should not be doing to increase your rank include trying to work on decreasing the ranks of others by voting things they write low just because you want to try and bring them down. Doing this is a pointless waste of time as it is very ineffective and time consuming, so you're better off just imporving what you write instead. You should also not allow yourself to get tempted to vote your own advice and comments high to increase your rank. There are ways to do this, but I'm not going to give anyone any ideas about it. Members that have been caught trying do this sort of thing have been punished by the Administration in the past. The results can include a drop in rank, or even deletion from the site. Don't bother trying it, it isn't worth it. Besides being punished by the Administration, these things also have a nasty tendancy to upset other members, and the members on this site are human too. People can, and often do, retaliate to this sort of behaviour, and making someone else's time on Minti a misery will usually result in someone making your time on Minti a misery in return. No one wants that.

Remember, if you are or become a high rank, this does not give you the right to dictate to other members what they should believe, how they should parent their children, or what opinion they should have on any given matter.

In lieu of increasing your rank, you might be more interested in increasing your status. The way to do this is to check your Awards. See which ones you haven't got yet and then work towards getting them. You can increase your status without having to spend many hours on the computer as you can work on it slowly over a long period of time without losing what you have already achieved if you can't get on the computer for a while, or if you suddenly find other members are becoming more active than you are. As a hint, if you are having trouble writing advice ranking above 4 or more and you want to improve your chances of gaining that medal, instead of writing heaps of new advice, just try going back and editing what you already have written and see if you can make it better.

Reporting:

There are other advice articles about reporting advice, comments, and members on Minti that more than sufficiently cover this for most areas, so I will just summarise here. Reasons for reporting can include:

• Breaching copyright laws.
• Breaching the Code of Honor and Terms of Service.
• Spamming the site.
• Posting or linking offensive, inappropriate, or insulting material.
• Harassment, persecution, abusing or threatening of other members.

If you see something that you believe needs reporting, by all means do so. However, be careful to report the right thing. As I said earlier, everyone makes mistakes and has different opinions. You don't need to report a member for posting one offensive comment, just report the comment itself. If there is a dispute that arises that is getting out of hand, alert the Administration and let them deal with it. Posting responses that are equally offensive only makes matter worse and then you will end up being reported as well. Reporting a member is a very serious issue, and most of the time it is only necessary to alert the Administration to the fact that you believe the member is doing something wrong and the issue can be resolved without further damage.

Respect:

We need to respect each other. Everyone has different lives, different beliefs, morals and ethics, cultures, sexual preferences, and different levels of personal privacy. Just because someone thinks differently to you does not make them a lesser human being. Don't condemn others just because they are different to you.

If someone tells you something in confidence, it is well advised to maintain that confidence. Your own reputation on Minti will be very badly soiled and you will lose much respect and trust if you go telling the secrets of others to people they would rather not have know. There are private groups on Minti, and anyone can set one up. With special permission, if the group blogs contain very sensitive information, it may even be possible to have those groups hidden by the Administration. People start these groups for many different reasons. I started one myself to help me coordinate with trusted friends my escape from a life-threatening situation. If you find out information about something in these groups, keep it to yourself. No one will respect or trust you if you don't. And don't go speculating, asking questions about, or starting conspiracy theories or gossip about what you think might be going on in any private groups as it only causes unnecessary trouble and upsets people, it does no good at all, and it makes people very wary and untrusting of you.

Coping With The Negatives:

So something of your was voted low? Just fix it or ignore it. Some members will not have read this article, some will vote things low for the wrong reasons, and some simply accidently click on the wrong star without realising it (I've done that myself and had to go back and correct my vote). You don't have to be a member of Minti to vote on something, and many people surfing the internet will fly through Minti and pause to vote on something without realising what they are really voting for, why, or what they should be considering when making their vote. Then of course there are always going to be a small minority of people that are just vindictive and want to cause upset and they think that voting everything low will do that. If those types of votes are ignored, those petty people will eventually realise that their efforts are futile and they will give up.

On the other hand, sometimes there is a genuine reason somethig is voted low. Have a look at what you have written and see if it can be improved. Have you made it easy to read and understand? Have you made the mistake of attacking, offending or degrading anyone in your comment, be it a specific person or a general type of person? Have you provided adequate information or have you just rambled on and not really said anything worthwhile? Would what you have written be better off posted on a different part of the site? Has anyone given any suggestions as to what is wrong with it or how you could improve it in any comments that have been left? If the answers to any of these things is yes, or even just maybe, then you may do well to go back and edit it to improve what you have written, or post it somewhere more appropriate.

The voting system is rigged to average out all votes for the sake of fairness. A couple of inappropriate low votes will be quickly counteracted by higher votes later on. There are even some members that, when they have time, seek out low ranking comments and advice to check if the votes appear inappropriate and counteract them by voting higher, and leave advice on how to improve what is written if they feel it needs it.

Complaining and questioning all these things does not improve anything on the site. It just annoys those that get stuck answering the same questions over and over again. There are two types of criticism: constructive and inconstructive. Constructive criticism gives suggestions as to what is wrong and how it may be improved. Inconstructive criticism just degrades things without helping anyone figure out how to improve anything. Try to make your comments constructive, accept comments that are constructive, and ignore those that don't know how to be constructive. Lead by example, and enjoy your time on Minti.

Cheers, DA.