in reply to RE: Proposed XP System Changes
in thread Proposed XP System Changes

Well, changes to the XP system have been discussed for a long time. In this case, it was rapidly reaching the point where something HAD to be done, and quickly. The proposal was worked out "by a group of users", including myself - and I'm not really old school, despite my rank of Friar. That group itself wasn't all that large, but we all talked to several other people as we made the changes, including people as low in rank as Initiates. In fact, counting vroom, I think we hit at least one or two people from each level looking for ideas. Other people showed up in the middle of the discussion (#perlmonks is an open channel, after all) and were consulted as well. So when we say that a group of users created this system, we really mean a larger group of people than were actually present.

Second, when this was put up this morning, a lot of people saw it, and although there were only a few posts made, quite a few people made it clear in the chatterbox and privately that they approved. A few people had concerns, like yours, but most of them agreed that they were pretty minor, or resulted from inclear descriptions in the node (our fault, by the way, not vroom's.) So we all agreed, vroom concurring, that since there didn't seem to be any major objection, that it made sense to go ahead.

Regarding your specific points, it's not that we want less experienced monks to stay at the lower levels; it's that we want rank to be determined by the community of monks, rather than by how quickly you can burn through your votes every morning. We wants the new users to become monks and friars and saints as quickly as they're able; by learning, by contributing, and by sharing.

Finally, let's talk about the concerns you list here, or if someone has a point we haven't considered, let's talk them out and see where we can improve. This system is very much a work in progress; the changes are meant not as a fix-all but as a starting point, something to provoke discussion and see where everyone wants to go with it. Or, come visit #perlmonks on irc.slashnet.org. Let's talk about it there, too. We already are, and we don't want to block anybody out from that conversation.

- email Ozymandias
  • Comment on (Ozymandias) RE: RE: Proposed XP System Changes

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RE: (Ozymandias) RE: RE: Proposed XP System Changes
by ivory (Pilgrim) on Aug 04, 2000 at 00:44 UTC
    It just seems sudden to me. I realize that people have been talking about chaning the XP system, but I kind of hoped things would go a bit more slowly. Sometimes there is a great deal of lag time between proposals and action (like, whatever happened to the proposals for quests?).

    Regardless, I have a suggestion: why not make the first couple of levels a bit more spread out? I mean it doesn't take much to get to monk level and if we really want levels to reflect that someone is knowledgable about perl and perticipates in the site, then make the first few ranks harder to attain.

    Two other things I really wanted to add:

    1. I definately don't think that anyone should lose rank or XP except in cases of serious negative voting (like -10).

    2. Current levels/XP shouldn't be downgraded due to the XP system change...it's just unfair to have retroactive rule changes.

    Ivory

[reply]
      To be honest, I'd have preferred a little more time for discussion, myself. But... it's vroom's site. He liked the idea, he implemented it. That doesn't mean we can't make changes to the proposal, even now.

      1. We made the system work somewhat like that, and I think your idea does have merit. What level would be a good one, do you think? It's better, generally speaking, to work in terms of percentages or fractions of NORM, because hard-coded values will be out of date quickly.

      2. That's not happening, so far as I know. At any rate, it's not in the proposal we gave vroom, and he didn't say anything about doing that.

      As for spreading out the earlier levels... that might be a good idea. Especially Scribe; it always felt too narrow to me. People make scribe and it seems like the next day they're a monk.

      On the other hand, I think it might be a good idea to wait on that one, in particular, until we see how things go under the new system. Maybe the low vote bonus and so on will spread it out enough on it's own. Maybe not. What do you think?

      - email Ozymandias
[reply]
      I don't think that making the early levels harder to attain is going to help new people feel like they belong at all. I still remember being a new user and enjoying watching my XP grow. Spread those levels out and you're going to make it worse for new people (IMO). I would also be in favour of some kind of "downsizing" of the current levels, but only if we can think of a good way of doing that that will seem fair to the people who are downgraded. Can you suggest a suitable scheme? (that's not intended to be snide or condescending, please don't read it that way.)

      Nuance

[reply]
        One idea I've borrowed from Everything is the additional requirement of X number of writeups to achieve a level.

        Granted, normalization of a writeup's XP is different, as the goal of 'collecting human knowledge' is to 'answering questions and learning more about Perl', but in both cases experience and levels with funny titles have the dual purposes of recognizing quality contributions to the site and promoting specific behaviors.

        The current method appears to reduce rank inflation effectively, for now, without shaking up currently attained ranks. That's a success, in my book. Someday, though, it might be worth considering a dual-nature ranking system.

[reply]

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