BPLRank v0.1

David

Maybe you missed the last posting from Glen Van Peski (founder of Gossamer Gear and designer of the first SUL pack not to mention contributor BPL) with an only recently upgraded ranking of 2.26

>>The most interesting/authoritative posting I have seen recently was that from Heather Rhodes (designer of the Pacer Pole) with a rank of 0.01.

Yeah, David. that was a great post. I'm surprised that it didn't get more reaction.

>>Give users the option of hiding their rank. Feel free to tell those who do that they will not enjoy extra rank-based discounts. It will be interesting to see how many hide it anyway. I suspect many more than Dr.J. would expect.

I'm not a big fan of the ranking system, but it appears that peerless leader has made up his mind. Still, an opt-in or opt-out option would be nice. Or at least a way to toggle the rank on or off.

Still, Dr. J's entepreneurial instincts seem to be sound. I've followed BPL since before it's inception and it's amazing what progress has been made in just a few years.

Maybe those of us who are not fond of rankings can learn to not take them too seriously. After all, they are no more a mesure of our worth in our little on-line community than how much money we make or what our base weight is.

I was just kidding about the base weight. ;-)

JR writes:

>> It doesnt take an algorithm to figure this out does it? Should I infer that my failure to get all hot and bothered about the newest LED color or magic metal spoon somehow negates the fact that I have an outdoor resume as long as my arm (as do many others who post here but are not members) and currently devote vast quantities of my time furthering my education on outdoor philosophy and technique as a returning full time student working on degrees in outdoor education and adult fitness? That is certainly the message being sent.

Your statement here makes me think that maybe I haven’t been effective enough at communicating the intent of this program.

I was hoping I made it clear enough in this post and this post, what BPLRank is, and is not.

So, maybe a third time’s the charm:

BPLRank is a measure of one’s contribution to BPL via time, community participation, authorship, and membership (and renewals). This website, and these forums, would not exist without the subscription fees paid by its members.

BPLRank is not a measure of one’s experience, one’s enthusiasm for LED lights, length of one’s resume, etc.

BPLRank is a beta feature that is young, immature, controversial, imperfect, and for some, irritating, disappointing, and “stupid”, and for others, means nothing.

Tenure and membership are the two most heavily weighted factors – at this time. If enough of you scream (go ahead, scream on, it’s ok) that BPLRank fails to acknowledge some users who have clearly made valuable and regular contributions here, then by all means, please PM me and identify those users to me, so we can have a look at what’s going on with the algorithm and why they are being ranked low. I’ve already received PM’s from folks identifying some of these users and they highlighted some limitations of the algorithm that we’ll certainly address in the next version. And it goes both ways: if you see high ranks attached to “stupid users” (sic) then we need to see that as well. Fortunately, we have few stupid users and no one has yet to complain about the other end of the spectrum.

In short, this system has to involve peer support and review, or it will fail.

I’m committed to developing a ranking system that is fair, provides a system of rewards for those who keep BPL going, and that do not penalize those who do contribute; as such, I appreciate the criticisms of the system so long as they remain constructive and solution oriented.

While I do appreciate your requests to hide your own (or others) rankings, the system needs to evolve in the public eye or there will be too much mystery behind it and those who choose to hide their ranks will prevent the algorithm from evolving with authenticity.

It’s easy for me to hide all of your rankings with a few keystrokes. But – if we are to make this (long term, as the algorithm matures) into a rewards systems for contributors, then I’d like to make sure the evolution of it, at least in its early stages, happens in the public eye.

With that, I challenge you right now not to judge whether or not it’s acceptable to show or hide ranks, or even employ the system here, but rather, please ask:

“Is this user’s rank fair? Is this user under/overranked, relative to the ranks of others?”

This “fairness” question certainly applies to the “popularity contest” argument for peer-review of posts and articles, for which “positively reviewed” contributions would increase one’s rank more so than “negatively reviewed” contributions. This is the main proposal that is on the table for the next version release of the ranking system.

JR,

I must be gettin' old.

I had received multiple notifications of PM's from others.

I had assumed that you PM'd me and i replied to a particular PM w/o reading it. I thought that i was replying to you.

Bottom Line: I sent my reply to you to someone else, who was kind enough to PM me back and let me know of my mistake.

Hope you rcv'd my email at the temp. email address you set up. Let me know.

Email received.

Dr J said: ""Intelligence is defined as the product resulting from the collection, processing, integration, analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of available information."

If stupidity and intelligence are opposites, then posting "Member since YYYY" and "# of Forum Posts: NN" would have to be considered "stupid" rather than "intelligent" by the above definitions."

Your semantic argument is flawed, sir. "Member since YYYY" and "# of posts" and "staff/member/nonmember" are not stupid, they are simply data points. They allow the FORUM MEMBER to be INTELLIGENT by using this data intelligently to assist in the evaluation of posters. Your alternative is to have some obscure secret algorithm imposed to do our thinking for us.

What if a GPS just assumed that it knew where you wanted to go and gave you only an arrow instead of coordinates and altitude. Nobody would use a GPS…

(then again I don't use a GPS anyway… just a map, compass, and alitemeter)

Our type are converned about numbers and sometimes we overfocus on them. I think this is one of those times. I think, as several other users have stated, that time and efforts might better be spent on content than on the counterintuitive and pointless BPLrank system. If the time were to be directed at forums, perhaps you should consider upgrading to a more versatile forum system like phpBB or UBB which, for starters, have far superior search capabilities. What would make this place better? A little rank number next to someone's name or the ability to do complex searches for specific topics and content in specific forumS even by date and partial username?

My self esteem is suffering from my rank of 0. I guess my
short membership of 1.5 years and lack of any posts or reviews have doomed me to the non-existent category.

Maybe this lame reply will at least help my score, even though my self-esteem will continue to suffer

Hi Kurt,

Rank rewards forum participation, so your 0.00 rank reflects your zero forum participation before today!

As such, you'll enjoy a modest increase in your rank when you wake up tomorrow.

Welcome to the forums, and we look forward to your future contributions.

Ryan

I think that ranks aren't necessary, useful, or beneficial. I engage in wilderness travel as a means of escaping all that is stupid and unhealthy about the way we live. And when I read BPL, I want it to reflect what I value most about my escapes, and to help me enjoy vicariously what I can't for much of the year.

Ryan, does that make sense? Ranks are for soldiers. I don't want to be a soldier and I don't want my tenure or participation to be evaluated. Backpacking is not about these things.

I do appreciate what you are trying to do with this, but I don't think it's appropriate.

nm

In reality the ranking system means nothing- but for some (like myself) I enjoy the rankings. It shows input, progress, tenure, and knowledge in the forum discussions. My question is WHY does BPL deduct ranking points? I have been humming along at a 3.58 and have since been dropped to a 3.45?????? I renewed my BPL membership–just purchased an Merino UL Hoody….Is this a simple mistake or is there some other reason?

Is this a BUMP?? Is somebody at BPL going to read my
post?

-Jay

They don't read posts by people with a ranking below 3.5, sorry man.

Thanks Chris—HAHAHA you got me!!!

Mine seems to be going up by about 0.01 per day at the moment. I think I'm ranking vampire who is gradually sucking your points away…. muhahahahaha.

Seriously though, maybe it has something to do with the frequency of posting. Just bump this thread about 50 times and see if your ranking goes back up ;-)

ps. Ha, nice one Chris! =-)

I'd like to opt out of this popularity contest. Can I?

Or am I relegated to people pre-judging me based on the fact that I provide no direct monetary benefit to BPL?

What a pathetic objection to the ranking system, claiming that it is a "popularity contest." Certainly, on sites that cater to the public at large (Facebook comes to mind) such metrics lose any meaning. But here? On this specialist site, full of fringe enthusiasts? I propose that none of us use it as a popularity contest.

Further, I think it has utility, and I'll tell you why…

Say I come across a post that is critical of some piece of gear, or some technique that another respected member had endorsed. I'm interested in said gear or technique, but a few posts later somebody describes it as "lame" and opines that the original poster is an "idiot."

Well, my initial opinion of the critical poster is that he is a marginally literate cretin who is either blatantly trolling or simply has a personality disorder. (I am rarely, if ever, wrong.) So, I check his BPL rank and see that he is rated 0.04. Hmm.

Well, I've just supported my initial appraisal well enough to safely ignore him, while praying that no-one else tries to engage him thus giving him the attention that he so desperately craves. He is either very new to the UL scene and thus probably a less reliable source that the OP with a rank of 2.92, or he is a pathetic troll. Or he is simply a cretin.

So, I find BPL rank very useful. This is the only way I use it, actually, and I would suspect that most members use it similarly. (I also like to know how OLD a poster is, by way of explaining atrocious leetspeak or a generally juvenile tone to a post. If the poster is in fact a juvenile then I can forgive them, obviously. If they 20 or older, though, I just ignore them for the cretin they are. Age should be a mandatory field.)

Trolls rarely have the dedication or patience to build up their ranking before starting their inane campaigns. BUT it is fairly easy to sit down and generate a high post count very shortly. There are programs that will do it for you, posting "I agree totally!" to half the threads on a site, for instance. (Admittedly, it is much harder to fake a membership date…) So, I think the rank scheme works better. Couple that with someone's membership date and whether or not they are BPL staff, etc., and you have a lot of information with which to place a value on their opinion.

For instance, I suspect that the BPL rank algorithm probably takes into account the LENGTH of a post before it decides to give credit for it, to avoid the trolls trying to up their post count, as above. (In which case I'm set! As you can see, I tend to be very verbose…) I would also suspect that it deducts points for each post that gets flagged above a certain threshold number of times. (In which case the Carbon Flame War must've really bit be in the butt…)

Also, I have no problem with giving a *slight* boost for members. People who are interested enough in the subject to blow some cash on it are probably ever so slightly more likely to be good sources on the subject. Not that non-members aren't good sources, mind you- it is just ever so slightly more difficult to be certain…

Hey Jack, how's the shoulder and collar bone coming along?
At least BPL don't force you to wear your rank on your sleeve with every post.

Dean, I'm surprised you need to know a rank to work out how much notice you should take of other's opinions. ;-)

I agree with the points you made Dean, but I don't believe the effect of being a member is slight. Unfortunately, unless things have changed, it has a very substantial effect on the ranking.

However, I still used to use the ranking in the manner you described despite the effect of membership. I don't use it as much now though because I can recognize almost all of the posters right away and know their general style, gear, etc… This information is far more relevant for judging their posts, but before I had learned this information the ranking came in handy for knowing, in general, the level of experience of the poster. Of course it is not always an accurate representation, but I think it does a fine job. It most certainly has nothing to do with popularity.

Also, you and I have the same ranking Dean so I feel honored to be ranked evenly with the inventor of the formula for calculating whether one is considered UL or SUL ;-)

Well, it is an admittedly imperfect system, Rog. After all, you have somehow broken the 1.00 barrier. :o)

"Come in Kettle, this is Pot, over!"

So, do you have a daemon looking for all mentions of your name or the Carbon Flame War, or what???

I was kinda proud of that 3.58 ranking.. So why was I dropped to a 3.45? A very simple question BPL staff..Was it because I just renewed my membership? I think not! Or because I post to many pictures in UL Creatures or in JMT in photo gallery?

It is because you keep asking. Soon it will be 3.27.

Thanks David-I digress.

Welllll, my rank just dropped from close to 4.0 down to 0.6 overnight, just because I didn't renew my membership (after five years of faithful membership), so I disagree with Roger's use of the ranking system (and the ranking system itself is kinda stinky to treat people like that). So obviously the rank has nothing to do with input, other than financial to BPL. It certainly doesn't reflect experience or history of forum contribution.

I'm fairly new here, at least as far as posting goes. But I've noticed 3-4 instances in the last month or so where an otherwise long-time poster (maybe also a BPL member? – dunno), who also seems pretty knowledgeable (based on their other posts), has made a caustic and/or derisive and/or snide jab at someone else in a thread.

Each time (these are different people) I clicked on them to see their rating, expecting to see something >2.00, or at least >1.00…

…and each time their rating was between 0.25 and 0.75.

Must be a good obnoxiousness-sniffer in the algorithm…