One of the things that make Windy Citizen unique is our reputation system or "clout" system. As members take action on the site, they earn clout points to distinguish them from other users who may be less active.
Today I'm rolling out a few changes to how we calculate clout that I want to tell you about. You may notice your clout score looking very different from what it looked like just yesterday.
Before today, any time someone voted on a story, whether they voted it up or down, they received a clout point. And any time they posted a comment or a story, they received a clout point. That's it. Clout scores, thus, reflected how many actions people were taking on the site, rather than the quality of those actions.
Starting today, clout will be based on two things, how many points the stories you've submitted have received, and how many points the comments you've submitted have received. We've not yet rolled out the voting buttons for comments, but will be shortly.
This change is retroactive, meaning your current clout score reflects how many votes your stories have received up to this day. Soon it will also reflect votes on your comments as well.
This change is an important step in making for better posts, better discussions, and a better front page on the Windy Citizen. If a person has a lot of clout, that means they've posted stories and comments that others found interesting and worth reading. Up until now, a members clout score simply reflected that they were voting on a lot of stories.
Scores should be recalculating over the course of the day. I've recalculated the top 20 members or so individually to see how the re-scoring has affected them.
Some have lost a great deal of clout. Some have gained a great deal of clout. Many have stayed about the same.
Making a change like this to a young, growing community is less than ideal, but it's a trigger that's best pulled sooner rather than later.
The last 8 months have seen a great deal of growth in our community and the quality of discussions happening here, but there's still a lot of work to be done to get the Citizen to where it needs to be so we can pull in a much larger community of Chicagoans while keeping the place interesting.
As always, thanks for your patience and support. With our new scoring system, people will be rewarded for sharing good stuff on the site. Quality rather than quantity will win out. This is how it should have been from day one, but technical difficulties slowed me from implementing it.
Onward.
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BradFlora
Brad Flora is founder of WindyCitizen.com, a web service that lets people share their favorite Chicago news and events with their friends and neighbors. More
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Comments
I applaud you for making a tough decision, Brad. Some folks who "lost" clout might be upset.
One suggestion, though. If this is the Windy Citizen, I say borrow a page from the City Council, no need to reinvent the wheel with fancy arithmetic. Do it the Chicago Way.
You gots to pay to play, baby.
In all seriousness, keep up the great work.
I gained, but less than 5% of my score so it's hardly a change. Is there any time calculation in the scores? Seems like there would be an advantage in rewarding people for coming by frequently to make evaluations. Of course, I realize that's another layer of complexity. If someone built up massive clout a year ago but completely disappeared, seems like that would reduce their awareness of what's hot, and therefore show up in their clout.
Ideas are like, um, noses; everybody has one. This is mine. In the end, it's your blog, do what you want and above all have fun!
Oh, damn, my score just dropped to less than half! I take it all back, it's a travesty, it's a huge mistake! Change it all back, how dare you!
(wink)
It did drop by over 60%, though.
I gained a huge amount.
Also, in unrelated news, I approve of this change.
However, I have to say that it's not real Chicago clout if I can't get a little extra by, for instance, passing an envelope or maybe a very special pack of tightly-rolled green cigarettes (true story, that one.)
When I visited this morning, I had six points, a drop of over 95% of my prior value. Now this afternoon, I'm up to the highest score I ever had. Wheee!
Working on it. Thanks for your patience.
My clout is up 500% from this morning! Awesome :)
It's been a rollercoaster ride. I'm all washed up suddenly, almost no clout.
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