Gamify accuracy? Award value to quality, not just quantity

General
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Staff thoughts on gamification:

The site is always going to have some aspects of gamification simply because user stats are shown though, and some people will be checking their stats compared to other users.

One idea I had fleshed out, but don’t think I ever posted, was to show only improving, or only improving+leading IDs in the default view of stats. i.e. don’t tally all the supporting IDs. More details:

Refine ID stats to highlight expertise and disincentivize blind/mass agreement

The proposal was, for several areas where identifications are tallied, to:

  • include IDs on all observations (for=any) instead of just those on other peoples’ observations (for=others), and
  • limit to “Leading” and “Improving” IDs…or just “Improving IDs”

Definitions of the four types of IDs: Improving, Leading, Supporting, and Maverick:

  • Leading: Taxon descends from the community taxon. This identification could be leading toward the right answer.
  • Improving: First suggestion of this taxon that the community subsequently agreed with. This identification helped refine the community taxon.
  • Supporting: Taxon is the same as the community taxon. This identification supports the community ID.
  • Maverick: Taxon is not a descendant or ancestor of the community taxon. The community does not agree with this identification.

The intention of this proposal is to highlight people who can accurately identify taxa and disincentivize mass agreeing to appear at the top of leaderboards and top identifier listings. Whether or not the ID was made on your own observation or someone else’s has no bearing on if you should be highlighted as someone who can identify the taxon. See linked discussions at the bottom of this post for more on mass agreeing and leaderboards (i.e. people who add a lot of “Supporting” IDs, but few “Improving” or “Leading” IDs).

I understand the desire to highlight people who do a lot of identification for others vs. just for themselves, which is why the ID stat could remain as is on user profiles (for=others). If the intention of the leaderboard is to highlight IDs for others, I think it should be limited to Leading/Improving IDs. And, since there will be different intentions when looking at the ID stats on the Explore page and Project pages, it might be better to include several different ways to filter that information. For all stats that vary throughout the website, what is being calculated should be explained clearly in a tooltip. Identification stats areas preferences:

IDs for others and for self
(for=any)		 IDs for others only
(for=others)
All ID Types
(Leading, Improving,
Supporting, Maverick)		 Optional, non-default view
on Explore and Projects		 -User Profile
-Calendar (add)
-Site Stats (add)
Leading/Improving
IDs only		 -Explore Identifiers tab default view
-Project Identifiers tab default view
-Taxon page (Top Identifier)
-Observation detail page (Top Identifiers)		 -Leaderboard, if an overall leaderboard page has to remain on the site

Default view for Explore/Project pages:
image

Previously (“Identifications” and “Top Identifiers” should include identifications on personal observations, not just IDs made for others):

@kueda: I personally like showing stats for IDs made for others. It helps highlight people who don’t add a lot of observations but do help other people out a bunch. I feel like it might make sense to show stats for identifications added on your own observations if we only showed improving identifications. That might separate out the people who are good at adding identifications that the community supports from people who just observe a lot and people who confirm a lot. Those are important too, but we already have stats for observers.

And some other related conversations:

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