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Would MO be better off without the silly badge system?
http://blogs.ethz.ch/kowalski/2011/02/01/contra-mathoverflow/
To coin a phrase:
If you find the perfect maths website, don't spoil it by posting there.
Personally, I find all these "strategies" to avoid some piece of the software that someone doesn't like at best rather silly and at worst highly irritating (as the strategy employed can mean that it's harder for me to use the site in some way).
Kowalski says:
But for me, mathematics is a serious matter — like games are to a child.
To coin another phrase:
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a mathematician I realised what "childish" really meant.
Of course, I'm being childish myself here and I hope I haven't offended anyone! However, given that there is absolutely nothing we can do about the badges or the publicly visible reputation, why not simply accept the site as it is - warts and all - and get on with the mathematics instead of continually saying, "Wouldn't it be great if ..." or "Why do we have this feature?". I think I've said this before but I'll say it again: I actually like the fact that the software is frozen! It means that we can concentrate on more important things than continually tweaking it to try to make it "perfect".
Andrew: Do you really hope you haven't offended anyone? Because it looks like you were trying to offend a specific one.
Or to coin yet another phrase on the same topic:
Als das Kind Kind war,
spielte es mit Begeisterung
und jetzt, so ganz bei der Sache wie damals, nur noch,
wenn diese Sache seine Arbeit ist.
An unusually good effort from Google translate:
When the child was a child
played it with enthusiasm
and now, has just as much excitement as then, but only,
when it concerns its work.
I think the badges are pretty silly too. And so do many other people: recently I met a certain mathematician for the first time and found that my MO reputation (in the conventional sense, not 29,7xy) preceded me. This was -- as it is in general -- a positive experience for me. But she also made a good-natured crack along the lines of "I heard you won a platinum badge or something..." Point taken: yep, the badges sure are pretty silly.
I confess though that I find "I find the badge system pretty silly" to be a pretty silly reason not to participate in a site that you admit that you otherwise enjoy, value and follow. If there were some other site almost exactly like MO except without badges and with a more genteel approach to reputation -- sure, use that site instead. But there isn't. MO is the best site of its kind that we have right now, and is much better than any previous site of its kind. Get over the badges. They don't interfere with the asking, answering and commenting on math questions in any way.
My impression is that the badge system is emblematic of something E.K. feels which prevents him joining in -- note that he is at pains to say he finds the site interesting reading -- rather than the reason for him not joining in. (Hope that makes sense)
It's easy enough to hide badge counts or reputations via css if you personally don't want to see them, but I think avoiding them like that is sillier than the badges and reputation. Also, for all the silly aspects of badges and reputation, they do serve some very worthwhile purposes.
In my mind, the main function of reputation is (as Mark Meckes said) to make MO effectively self-moderating. The main function of badges is to lure people into making use of the full functionality of the software. A large chunk of the badges are (completely nominal) rewards for actually exercising the responsibilities that come with reputation, like voting, editing, retagging, and commenting.
Of course, badges and reputation are also kinda fun. For all their silliness, I think they do a good job of making MO slightly more engaging for lots of good mathematicians. It is a shame that there are excellent mathematicians who feel that the silliness badges and reputation effectively prevent them from using MO. There are also excellent mathematicians who feel that trying to do mathematics over the internet is silly and they wouldn't be caught dead doing it. It will never be the case that every mathematician wants to use MO. Instead of shooting for that impossible goal, I think we should just try to make it as awesome as possible for those that do choose to participate.
@Pete: Actually, it's not just the badges that I find silly. The reputation system in general is quite ridiculous and makes me feel a little dirty. It's true that MO is the only site of its kind right now, but that doesn't necessarily mean one shouldn't hedge bets by waiting to see if something more ethical comes along. I do that by not endorsing MO by participating with my real name. I'm not the only one who does this, and some people just don't use it at all. When/if a question/answer site comes along (it will probably not be thanks to the SE people) that's better, I'll stop using MO entirely. I only hope that MO doesn't have too much momentum at that point.
I am extremely confused by what the "ethical" implications of the reputation system could possibly be.
Gerry, Qiaochu: Perhaps "more ethical" was poor choice of words. Certainly whatever ethical considerations exist they are not very serious. I would prefer a system in which users did not accrue prominently displayed, one-dimensional "reputation" over time.
What Gerry Myerson said. [Oops, looks like Storkle beat me, temporally, at my attempt in being witty.]
The reputation system, beyond the "practical part" of presenting a barrier to entry so that the site can be self-moderating and not easily taken over and veering off into oblivion, really is only as a big deal as one wants to make it. I suspect that to have a strong opinion on the reputation/badge systems, one must be taking the system "seriously" on some level.
Willie Wong: What Storkle said.
+1 Willie. It is fairly easy to just ignore the reputation system; it's an idea that was very much not tailored to mathematical culture, so you don't have to pay attention to it. I don't see why that's worth denying other MO users of the potential benefits of your participation. It is very easy to contribute answers and the software is designed to maximize the impact of doing this (not only do you answer the OP's question, but questions get high PageRank, so anyone who Googles a similar question in the future will find your answer and be enlightened). In fact, I would argue that any "ethical" concerns you might have about specific details of MO are greatly outweighed by the enormous good that a helpful answer can do.
For example, I am incredibly grateful that Thurston has chosen to take the time to contribute answers to MO. His answers are unusually detailed and offer highly enlightening perspectives on various subjects. In fact, they are changing the way I approach mathematics.
Qiaochu, Wille: OK, I get it now! I have to admit it is funny the way you continue to emphasize my use of the word "ethical" after I admitted it was the wrong choice of word.
an_mo_user: Thank you for your thoughtful post. I actually think math competitions are great fun, but I wish that the sportive side of mathematics were not so dominant on what is now the premier website for interaction between professionals.
I am aware of (and appreciate) the practical purpose served by "reputation". I agree that it is not that hard to ignore. But names matter: experienced users often feel the need to reinterpret it as something else, point out the possibility of ignoring it, and insist that it is not significant and that others are taking it too seriously (I will give them the benfit of the doubt by assuming that they would be just as happy if reputation were capped at 10,000). I also believe that many of these problems would disappear if the statistic were named "Participation" and not displayed so prominently.
As I thought I had made clear, I do participate on the main site anonymously. But I continue to hope that a better site will come along.
@Storkle: by way of clarification, my post which appeared after yours clarifying your use of the word "ethical" was composed around the same time as your post, and I know for a fact that when I started writing you hadn't responded. I only just noticed that response after admittedly being quite puzzled at your direct address to me a few posts above. So please don't take it as an "after-the-fact piling on" about an unfortunate word-choice.
WillieWong: Thanks for making that clear; I probably should have thought harder about the timing before getting snippety with you.
This may sound like a snippy question, but it is asked in seriousness.
Yet, for me this reasoning hardly applies to the reputation system. To me it is above all a measure how long and/or how intensely somebody has participated (in a reqsonable way), and thus how much experience with the site/the community somebody has. Not more, and not less.
Would there be as many discussions about how inappropriate the reputation system is if the name was not "reputation," but something with less significance such as "points"?
Given the abundance of things that one can buy with one's MO reputation, perhaps we should just rename it "MO Moolah". =)
However, the competitiveness seems to be pretty friendly and low-key on the whole. Although I don't really like this point system either, it's a little hard to take "reputation" too seriously when some Fields Medalists have markedly less reputation than some young undergraduate and graduate students. (And besides, some people rack up a lot of points just by talking a lot.)
I like "moolah". :-)
@Todd:
Although I don't really like this point system either, it's a little hard to take "reputation" too seriously when some Fields Medalists have markedly less reputation than some young undergraduate and graduate students.
What? You mean I'm not the second best mathematician in the entire world?? Now you tell me...
Uh-oh, me and my big mouth ;-)
The inspiration would be Slashdot, which had "karma" probably before the founders of reddit had an internet connection :)
Ryan: Thanks for telling me about that effort. It seems like a worthwhile effort to free MO from SE. But I'm afraid I'm only as free to build a better site as my programming skills allow: in the end, not very free. Also, it looks like nothing has been happening there for a while, and I get an error when I try to open the page.
The name does not suggest that reputation should correspond to mathematical ability. This was absolutely not the intention of StackExchange, and it is clearly not the interpretation stated in the FAQ:
Reputation is a (very) rough measurement of how much the MathOverflow community trusts you.
It is completely internal to the community and was never intended to reflect anything about a user outside the community. One could speculate for hours about why mathematicians are particularly disposed to ignore this sentence in the FAQ. I think mathematicians generally have a tendency to take things too literally, and that this is a simple, and ignorable, case of culture clash between the people who wrote the software and the people who use it.
If nothing else will convince you that reputation is actually useful, consider that it is an efficient way to quickly evaluate anonymous users who are causing trouble. If an anonymous user who is causing trouble has reputation 50, they are probably trolls and should be dealt with accordingly even if they've gotten upvotes on a few answers (they can still be smart trolls!). If an anonymous user who is causing trouble has reputation 5000, they are clearly invested in the community and worth dealing with more carefully (there is no reason for such a user to suddenly become a troll).
One could speculate for hours about why mathematicians are particularly disposed to ignore this sentence in the FAQ.
It doesn't take much speculation. Hardly anyone reads the FAQ, and even fewer read it thoroughly.
Also, no matter how carefully anyone reads it, the FAQ does not have the power to redefine words for us. If the statistic had been named "sexiness", and the FAQ read "Sexiness is a (very) rough measure of how much the MO community trusts you," it would still be a terrible name. The name matters (I guess this is similar to what dan petersen wrote).
@Dan: I believe you misunderstood me.
Todd points out that some undergraduates have more points than some Fields medalists, as if this were surprising
No, not at all. I am merely pointing out that the word "reputation" is, therefore, pretty inapt. Far from surprising, there are obvious explanations which have already been given.
@Dan: surely we can agree that connotations depend on context, and that in this context there is no sensible way for that particular connotation to apply, since the software has no way of knowing anything about the objective mathematical ability of its users. Reddit has karma, but no user of reddit assumes that that statistic has anything to do with how likely they are to be reincarnated (or even with how much good they've done in the "real world"). Reddit users know to think of karma as "reddit karma," just as MO users know to think of reputation as "MO reputation."
@Storkle: I guess mathematical papers also do not have the power to redefine words, and yet it gets done all the time. When a mathematician says "a hedgehog is a topological space with property X" nobody interprets his theorems as saying anything about actual biological hedgehogs. It is of course debatable whether any given mathematical term is a good name or not, but do the names have anything to do with how interesting the paper is, for example? Again, I really cannot understand this fixation on names compared to the provision of an important public good.
Here is a bad analogy, but I hope it gets across the spirit of my frustration: this response feels to me like a firefighter refusing to put out a fire because somebody put Hello Kitty stickers on his firehose and he can't get them off.
Qiaochu: Well, in my own papers I was not always careful about giving objects good names, and have come to regret it on several occasions. Nowadays I spend more time thinking about what a good name for a mathematical object would be. I do think that giving mathematical objects good names is part of good mathematical writing, precisely because in a paper you do have the power to redefine words (and abusing this power can lead to plenty of confusion, I remember trying to understand what a perverse sheaf was for the first time, though now I've become so used to the phrase that for me, in ordinary conversation, perverse has lost all sense of disapprobation and I'm not sure I know what a sheaf is anymore).
In my opinion, a similar thing has happened on MO with the word "reputation". And I don't see the conflict with the "provision of an important public good". What's wrong with wanting to improve delivery?
Ryan: Perhaps surprisingly, I agree.
Then, Dr. Kowalski, I am no longer sure what your position on this subject is. I was pretty sure the point of this thread was to convince you that badges and reputation should have no bearing on your decision to contribute more or less to MO. At this point of the discussion, do you agree or disagree with that statement?
@Qiaochu: wouldn't that question be better asked of EK on his blog? I don't think sufficient evidence points to him reading this thread.
[Grrr, I got ninja'd again in this thread.]
I'm not EK! Also, EK's blog (linked by FGD in the first post above) has a more illuminating discussion in the comments.
...but my (Storkle's) position on the subject is that I don't like the system very much. That hasn't changed.
Whoops! I made some invalid inferences from the way Storkle responded to Pete Clark's comment. Well, in that case, I agree that this thread no longer has a purpose.