Congratulations, Ted. It's so wild. I remember when Tom M. hit 100 points and I was blown away that anyone could accumulate so many points! What a difference 7 or 8 months make.

Way to go Ted. 1,001...wild and unreal. Keep on keeping on and doing all the good things you do.

wow, ted, 1001, very cool... amazing... and over 50 points in just one day!!! you rock!

keep up all the great work you do... on to 2002!!! :)

A group of us saw how close you were, and knowing how much points don't matter to you... well, it was your London friend that dropped 40 points today just for giggles...

Way to go Ted!

You are a very special cat!

Well done!

Got to admit the whole "what on earth do these points mean anyway" thing gets to me sometimes. Not to take anything at all away from the contributions you've made here Ted. But judging from what Julie said about points not meaning anything to you I thought I'd open up this can of worms. When you look at how quickly the points drop down to the 200s I wonder what we're doing. That's quite a drop!

I just got through getting into this conversation with another friend. I sheepishly admit that periodically I get some validation from my collection of points. I have put a lot of my heart and soul into this place I tell myself. But is that my Piscean, artist, work by myself, paronoid self... or put another way... is that validation valid? Ha!

Yes, a can of worms indeed! :-) Perhaps it is only that it is almost 1AM and a call from my son woke me from a deep sleep to which I could not return. Musings of a sleep-deprived, point-laden, something or other...oh dear, I am tired.... to quote Miss Latella, "Never mind!" Enjoy the day.

>>When you look at how quickly the points drop down to the 200s I wonder what we're doing. That's quite a drop!<<

It's called a power curve and it's some kind of network effect.

Julie Caldwell said:

A group of us saw how close you were, and knowing how much points don't matter to you... well, it was your London friend that dropped 40 points today just for giggles...

???

Doesn't this undermine the integrity of the system? Isn't this the kind of thing that started all that nasty point baron mudslinging match months ago?

Ted knows I respect him as a true community leader, but I think this kind of thing does more damage than good. It unintentionally undermines Ted's integrity. This just seems like gaming the system. Ouch ...

ps- Just went to bed and was thinking about how much it means to me when I get those notes saying I've been given a point. I am so appreciative and wanted to come back and say that. So I did want to add that some of that aforementioned validation may in fact be valid.

Cans of worms are seldom orderly.

I think of the positive points like getting a card from a friend who cares. It makes me feel good also but in the long haul they're just a status symbol in my opinion. I give them for appreciation and they can be fun to get but why do we try to look so deep into them? That is the question... LOL

Close, Mark:

a power curve is a mathematical function.

Some things have "distributions" very similar to that of a power curve -- examples include words in language (Zipf), income (Pareto) and the so-called "network effect" (<M>, probably inspired by some e-guru ;P)

nmw

Mark Grimes said:

It's called a power curve and it's some kind of network effect.

If any of you haven't noticed how Ted goes behind the scenes and cleans up workspaces, code formating and the like... you soon realize that he deserves more points than any of us have ever given him. He truely believes in each one of us and the potential of O.net. For me, he's been a life line.

Regarding the under 200's, I regularly look for opportunities to give points to others despite how many points. If they've done good, I give points. The reality is you get points because you participate. When I was out of the country for 3 months, I didn't get many points. When I returned the points went up.

Sue, regarding the friend that gave Ted the 40 points... Ted's given you more points than that user has ever given Ted! The giggles had alot to do with the fact he hadn't given Ted many points and Ted's done alot of work with him, especially around the O.net conference. No gaming here. Sorry if I presented it that way.

Ted,

here's mud in your eye: congratulations!

;D

nmw

Dammit to hell Norbert, I love working with people who know real stuff (other than dribble like double readership path for direct marketing hoo-ha) ;-) Can you find a great link to outline (text/visual) for the whole power curve concept?

Julie, I have no problem at all with people investing their reputation in others, and most especially with investing it in Ted. He's in fact one of the people that I've invested the most points in myself.

My concern comes from the way your comment was framed: that the reputation system was used by a group of people as a gag. That undermines the integrity of the system. You invited me to come to this thread to congratulate Ted. When I arrived, I see your posting indicated that it was done as some sort of joke. I'm all for levity. I'm just not keen on the premise of using a tool that's already the source of so much grief to pop the lid off of Pandora's Box again.

Thanks for clearing this up, Julie.

Julie,

have you seen TFM?

The fact that most of the people with many points "profited" from such fun&games (albeit perhaps not because of their own playing, but rather because of feedback loops inspired by something like "forecasts of precipitation") was one of the main raisons for me to suggest that tabula rasa would have made alot of sense (but since everyone was so busy clicking, I had to say naughty words for anyone to even notice -- and then I got neggies :O ).

LOL: they're nonsense -- see also some words of wisdom passed on by Jennifer.

Julie Caldwell said:

No gaming here.

Mark,

see this definitions page

Now could you hook me up with some simple explanations of drivel readership and/or double direct and/or hoo-ha math? (not sure if I got all those fancy mockiting terms right) ;D

nmw

Mark Grimes said:

Dammit to hell Norbert, I love working with people who know real stuff (other than dribble like double readership path for direct marketing hoo-ha) ;-) Can you find a great link to outline (text/visual) for the whole power curve concept?

I'm just happy people are celebrating the goodness in others.

ahem, maybe i should explain my own giggles...

when first alerted to ted's status at a lot, but not quite 1000 pts, i thought "yeah, that's nice, so what." i too had ideas about gaming the system being just that, games. that's not what the system is for, i thought.

then, while catching up on some other things last night, middle of the night, dark really middle of the london night, way far from home night... i noticed that he was even closer.

i went around to find out that, being a horrible point giver because i don't care much for the point values and don't quite know what they stand for when i see the numbers... anyway... i noticed that ted had given me 30-some points and i'd given him only 5.

i figured he'd done way more to help me and the system than i have, so i evened it out. that brought him quite close to the mark. then i noticed that he was actually the top point GIVER. and noticing too that he's doing lots of heavy lifting on the conference in chicago. and it wasn't hard to justify a few more.

the giggles came toward the end, when i was thinking that he'd show up and see it over the top and still be sort of "ho-hum, points don't matter, let's get to work and DO something that really does matter around here, here's how to make a link, and i'll be right back after i fix a few broken ones, and here's the status of the conference budget, and i'm off for africa again..."

in the end, the fact that he'd given away more points than anybody else really sealed my intention to tip him over that top. i thought that was worth supporting as much as anything else, because giving does really matter. or so it seemed last night.

...continuing on the giving matters theme... maybe that can help explain the 'power curve' of points distribution.

i'd be interested, for instance, to see the distribution of total postings, total words, or even better yet: total hours spent reading and writing here.

i wonder if there wouldn't be an investment/giving curve that came pretty close to approximating the points curve. there might be some adjustments for a measure of triviality in posts or some folks posting a lot in very few places. value and diffusion of effort are harder to measure, i'd imagine... especially since we give so many points to people and relatively few to posts.

funny thing is that points to posts would actually help make the whole place easier to read. it would make the system work better, and then we could really see how valuable somebody was by counting the total value of all of their posts.

seems that if we want to feed people discovering their own power to do good things, we should really be focusing more on the things they do: their postings, and giving points for that not to them as people.

next wondering is this: what if once you reached 1000 points, your acct was closed? at 1000 points you got fully certified as knowing your way around o.net and being a good person, so then we'd start scoring all your points and the way to juice a person's reputation would be ONLY through points for what they post. first you get credit for being a good person, then you actually have to produce something valuable.

hmmm....

Michael, What a cool idea to cap at 1000 and then go soley by post scores. It is after all about Doing here... "their own power to DO good things..." Great post above.

Ted, I think you know I think you're awesome. I can't put words in your mouth, but I'm betting you would think that discussion with the goal of discovery and moving this community forward are good things. Although I didn't mean to co-opt your party...just to add a dash of the substance you're so fond of! :-) It's not about casting stones, but about understanding,and, thus, growing.

thanks, cynthia... and so what is the online equivalent of picking someone up and tossing them around on shoulders, yelling and screaming and cheering and laughing? i.e back to the party!

ted, congrats -- points for hide, as they say ;p

i don't think there is a need to "cap" reputation points. i think there is a need to make them more meaningful. i propose a system that serves as a filter:

all the public user sees is a number on a scale of 1-5 or so. when clicked, the user can drill down into a rich collection of feedback that measures things like:

• personal reputation score
• content feedback
• dontations (volunteer time contributed, cash donated, in-kind donations)
• Network effect (how many people linked; how many friend brought into the network)

etc etc. i know this isn't the place for this discussion. obviously its been on my mind ;) Ted, YER GREAT!

Michael ~~o.net chicago july join us!~~ Herman said:

next wondering is this: what if once you reached 1000 points, your acct was closed? at 1000 points you got fully certified as knowing your way around o.net and being a good person, so then we'd start scoring all your points and the way to juice a person's reputation would be ONLY through points for what they post. first you get credit for being a good person, then you actually have to produce something valuable.

Cool idea :^)