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This project is closing... but... it will continue as abetterplace.io!
Let's be fair and positive.
As some of you might have noticed, I made some changes to the website again. Seems like every month I'll experiment with a different system :-)
Ten days
One thing that bothered me with how it functioned until now is that an idea that was posted in the beginning of the month had more chance of becoming number 1 then an idea posted in the end of the month. Because that idea simply had more time to gather votes. Let's change that.
In the new system (called 'very fairy') each idea gets 10 days. After those 10 days voting is closed until the last day of the month. Because the last day of the month is now 'Open Day'! On Open Day all ideas open again and you can vote on everything.
So what happens to an idea posted on the 25th of March? It will go to April automatically...
It's somewhat easy and fair no? It might be a little bit more complex then how it was now, but I think it's a good solutions, at least for March :-)
Strategic Voting
Another thing that I thought a lot about was strategic voting. I noticed that ideas that become number one all of a sudden get a lot of negative votes. Often not because people disagree with the idea (even though sometimes they do), but because they prefer a different idea. But therefor you get people dissing you, while they actually don't mean to diss you! So as a tryout this month I removed the down vote, because actually with only being positive you already have a lot of influence, maybe there is no need to be negative as well...
So what do you think, wanna try it out? Feedback always very welcome.
Comments
Love the "Open Day" idea and think the "fair and positive" changes are a good move, I like the feel and intention behind it. At least see how it goes in this month... the strategic voting turned out to be more of a competition - and though it served to have really interesting conversations, these conversations will happen too without negative voting :)
and maarten, did you think about changing closing time for all votes on 8pm on open day? So during The Hangout we can all discuss the winning idea without a chance that it ends up second.
Hey Maarten shouldn't you have a place where all the old (from other months) idea's are still viewable? And people can still comment and discuss. Like an archive or a forum as proposed earlier. We the 'onlookers' need idea's and discussion too to make the world a better place. Like this it is just you the 'puppet'.
@andrea, thanks for the feedback! I'm also curious how it will go this month...
@bart, yep, I forgot to mention that. Open Day closes at 20:00. Thanks for reminding...
@Kasper, if you're on the ideas page, there is just below the 'Add a new idea' button links to the previous or next month. In that way you can view all the other ideas. Maybe this is not very obvious at the moment.
Next to this I think it would be interesting to have a kind of 'forum', or sharing/question board where we can have broader conversations. I didn't expect a demand for something like that, but maybe there is? If there is, I would love to make it happen! (if I find the time somewhere in between :-)
I miss the vote down button a little. I used it to weed out the silly or naive ideas.
@paul: i partly agree with you... if you find some idea to be silly or naive (i sometimes do) you can be critical in your comments. I love the small debates that sometimes arise, because it helps me to form my own opinions and it helps to shape those ideas into a better idea.
I always try to be constructive in my criticism, although it's not my strongest feature.
@Paul, I understand. I think I'll review it after a month... I actually also enjoy the generally positive and supportive feeling this gives.
@Bart :-) I think you're becoming very good at it!!