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Do you like the Kudos system?

By Carl | Posted: 31 August 2008

Views: 875
In articles by Carl
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Do you want the ability to switch off Kudos for particular articles? i.e. do you want to submit your article for feedback/review only without Kudos / ranking? Does Kudos annoy you? Should we abandon it altogether and hence abandon the competition too?

Any feedback you may have would be much appreciated!
All articles on this website by Carl are copyright ©Carl and should not be reproduced without the author's prior written consent. All opinions are the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily the opinions of The Writers' Circle.
Comments 
rowland
31 August 2008
Kudos is a great idea and gives the writer some idea what is thought about your work.  Stay with it, it is still early days. I think  you are doing a great job.  Many thanks  Rowland
Carl
31 August 2008
Thanks for that. rowland! And thanks for your great articles.
CommittedVision
06 September 2008
I like kudos.  I want to get better.  If people like my stuff, I want to know.  If they don't, I want to fix it - to capture them.

I guess I would like the ability to post a side note or something about the article I've posted.

Other than that, I can't wait to see other prizes for competitions!    :D
CommittedVision
07 September 2008
I'm realizing (after 68 views and 1 Fantastic Kudo)  the ultimate reality is this:  Are people willing to give up Kudos in order for someone else to win? LOL or are they just rendered speechless?  What if you could post comments anonymously?  I think people would be more willing to share truth.  What if everytime you decided to read a competition submission, you HAD to vote?

Just some thoughts.  Anyone else?
Carl
07 September 2008
Yes, I think anonymous comments might be a very good idea.. I would like to see a lot more commenting going on too. I don't want too many overly negative comments though. The idea is to spur ppl on with their writing, not put them off. It's a difficult balance to get.
Carl
07 September 2008
I also think that a bit of patience is needed with the way Kudos is working. This website is quite new. It will take a while for it to be well-known enough for Kudos to flow in as is intended. If anybody has any way to advertise this website elsewhere (e.g. on blogs etc.) that would be most appreciated!
CommittedVision
08 September 2008
I just STUMBLEUPONed you earlier today (for advertisement).

I get what you mean about the comment thing.  Maybe anonymous isn't such a good thing . . .
CommittedVision
08 September 2008
... I say that now only because the negative comments might not be easy to control.  It would be like 

babysitting. :D

With that being said, I still like the kudos/competition/comment idea.
leyla333
12 September 2008
Hi !

I think it's good idea to be noted by kudos. I agree with rowland,writer should have critics anyway he won't know how succesful was what he wrote.
Gary Jarvis
16 September 2008
I think the set up of the system is fasntastic and a good way for the competition to work although navigation for the threads and forums maybe needs to be re-thought as it was quite difficult to find this.

Also perhaps explanation that you don't have to comment to vote would help in people who have read but do not wish to comment.

Anyway keep up the good work
debcraft
14 October 2008
Hi, I'm totally new to this site and love the design and user friendly aspect of it.  The Kudos system is a great idea. For my own personal needs, I would like all who rate my work to leave feedback. If I get a '1' it's helpful to know why people don't think it's very good.  I'm a big girl - I can take it. I really do want to improve.
I do understand, however, that people might find it difficult to critique.  As a suggestion, I belong to an arts group that offer critique 'critique'.  As a skill in itself, people are sometimes hesitant to offer critique to avoid offending but with practise it will certainly improve.
Thanks again for a great site and if I've committed any faux pas so far - just let me know!
Debra
debcraft
14 October 2008
Hi Carl, 

me again!

I'm just wondering if you could clear up some confusion for me.  I've clicked on the 'Kudos' for a couple of pieces but found that the figure doesn't increase as much as I thought it would. For example, a Kudos rating of 1.75 increased to 2.25 but I had clicked on 3/5.  Please help before dyscalculia takes me over completely!

Thanks,

Debra
Carl
15 October 2008
The way I weight Kudos to give the final number has changed a few times.
Currently 1 ::= 0.125, 2 ::= 0.25, 3 ::= 0.5, 4 ::= 0.75, 5 ::= 1
(hence two 5 votes and a 2 vote is worth 2.25)

I used to have it so that 1 ::= -0.5, 2 ::= -0.25, 3 ::= 0.125, 4 =:: 0.5, 5 ::= 1.0 (i.e. where kudos could go down as well as up, like investments :D)
In that case two 5 votes and a 2 votes was worth 1.75

However I found a little bit of 'tactical' voting was going on in the competition - i.e. ppl voting their nearest competitor down and themselves up. It was turning into the Eurovision Song Contest :P
bobchoi
17 July 2009
Hi Carl,  your "Kudos" weighting scheme is interesting.  It's, however, skewed toward the number of votes received because in theory if an articles received a large number of votes, its "Kudos" score will be high even if most of the votes are low (1's or 2's).  Wouldn't it be easier if you simply take the average of the votes received by an article?  This puts equal weighting on each vote regardless whether it's high or low, and the number of votes no longer matters.  Just a thought.
bobchoi
17 July 2009
Carl, for awhile until I read your "Kudos" weighting scheme, I was assuming that the score was the average of all votes received. (Silly me!)  So when I found out the first chapter of one of my stories ("Fortune-teller") received "1" kudos from a single vote, I felt I deserved it because it was not so good.  Now that I know that "1" actually meant someone gave me a fantastic "5" out of a 5-point score, I must say something is wrong... I certainly do not deserve that, not from even a single vote!
m n m n I
15 January 2010
Carl
I like the kudos system
But I' not sure about the scoring
I don't know how you can quantify the quality of creative writing
I can only talk about my experience
To be an architect (you can't be called an architect if you're not licensed) you must pass 8 subjects (as far as I remember) in the NY Architectural Licensing Exam when I took it
The technical subjects like Structural Design or Contract Administration were graded with 100 as the highest score
On the last day, we had the grueling 12-hour Architectural Building Design graded Pass or Fail (Same thing with  the 4-hr Site Design)
To me, writing a poem, a novel . . . is like architectural design  (design by itself)
I don't think you can really quantify them
Our first impression is purely qualitative
Perhaps we can have a kudos scoring system like -1, 0, 1
or -1, OK, 1
with three main categories like technical/substance/creativity
(perhaps not the technical) or philosophy(or concept)/substance/expression
coming up with a Total Score
and comments as a must to be given by the judging reader
Hope this helps . . .
m n m n I
15 January 2010
More thoughts:
Kudos for the Writing (as a whole) by a  judge(reviewer) weighted as  -1 or 0 or 1 as with each category; but not the sum of the kudos of the categories
Total Kudos (as in a competition) as the sum of the kudos for the Writing (as a whole) . . .

Writer
Carl

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