Know-How Exchange : Our Forum

Perhaps posting to different categories should cost a different number of points. A request for a tagline/name could be 250 points. Homework is 25 points. Strategy questions & Website reviews 1000 points, etc.

This will reflect the amount of expertise / time it will take to answer questions.

I would also like to see that the posted questions contain some key information that would speed answering their questions: their website, email, where they are located, etc. I often find that the questions contain incomplete information.

Dear Randall

As a matter of principal I’m usually against having more regulation, but we do need to stamp out abuse and to maintain the vibrancy of the forum.

That joker you alerted me to who gave away 1600 points is called Iamveryfine. He awarded his points to Gunjit for a facile answer and then closed the question.

A bit of research showed that Iamveryfine has amassed 2250 points, all from Gunjit and Gunjit has amassed 3625 points, mainly from Iamveryfine. This is point swapping for the sake of rising up the rankings. There are others, some apparently connected with these idiots who are indulging in this practice.

Randall is right. Unless we put a stop to it, there’s nothing to stop me placing a question for WMMA and awarding him 40,000 points and then getting Randall to give me 100,000 in return, thus knocking mgoodman off his hard earned top spot. That kind of activity would devalue the forum and eventually make it worthless.

I have no problem offering a long answer (I don’t think that I know any other way of writing!) to a 25 pointer – take ASVP/ChrisB’s monster thread for 25 points. And I’m not beyond flunking in a posting myself – I recently offered 1000 points for a question which failed to capture the imagination, so I closed it pronto to reward those who had troubled to respond to a badly thought out idea.

Good on you Randall for raising the issue and yes, I look forward to seeing the results of Val’s and Carrie’s deliberations.

Meanwhile, our MP technical wizards could look up the email address of the abusers and remind them that we know where they study!

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions and SalesVision

Dear Council of KHE Elders...

I think I should apologise for or at least clarify the intent behind my 25-point monster thread.

From the response the question has garnered it was clearly not about the points. Which was what I wanted.

I think most people who've been here a while know I am not generally stingy with my points.

When a question is posted, there is a scale suggested by MarketingProfs under Step 4 - Assign a Value which asks:

Determine how important and difficult your question is. The more points you assign, the more likely someone will answer your question since the expert has a chance to obtain these points.

1. This question is important or extremely difficult (500 points)
2. This question is important or difficult (250 points)
3. This question is moderately difficult (125 points)
4. This question is not important and easy (50 points)
5. This question is worth [x] points (min. of 25 points)

I think the problem is a usability-interface design issue because the last option (5) doesn't indicate the relative importance and allows any number from 25 to all the points you possess.

What is probably needed is to replace that last option (5) with two lines instead:

One at the top of the list which says the question is mission-critical, life-threatening, crucially important and allows a user-settable value with a minimum of 1000 points. This might also allow automatic "Urgent" status regardless of the questioner's status.

The second would be below the 50-point category and might say something along the lines of "This question is not at all important and I'm unconcerned whether I ever get any useful replies". Obviously, option 5 is less important than option 4 which says the question is not important and easy.

WRT Randall's comments about two users passing points between themselves to elevate their rankings, I'm pretty sure the forum administrators can determine whether the same IP address was being used for an account or two and it may be that the two accounts are actually owned by the same person. Shades of someone from the distant past, who longer-time members here may remember?

Must say, I'm generally for warning, then only banning for repeat offences, people who do that. I'm sure they are just mischievous newbies, and we should give them the benefit of the doubt on the basis they might in the future add some value to the forum if shown the straight and narrow.

Cheers

ChrisB

Yes I agree, but my answer is to just not bother with questions that deal with taglines, urls and names unless something hits me instantly.

Personally, I don't care about points. I just want to keep the old noggin working and learn. These types of questions don't do it for me.

That said there are plenty on the forum who enjoy answering these, so what's the harm. As someone mentioned, maybe a special section can be cretaed for naming and taglines.

The thing that I hate most is that people often do not give their profile information. So even when you want to answer you often can not get enough information to make an intelligent response.

Hi Randall,

it would take you to raise these matters and I commend you on such efforts...you too Gary as you like me remember in the old forum days...that's right.

THE OLD 4-UM DAIZE...
Yes back in the old forum days we wouldn't hesitate to move someone along if they did not provide the kind of background necessary. As a matter of fact Val or Carrie wouldn't have had to jump in after the fact because they'd be smelling the smoke from the brawl that resurrected because back then our forum team just would not put up with a bunch of non-sense like not filling out profiles, expecting Marketingprofs Experts to create a business plan for you online without providing a detailed assessment of who your current customers are (we'd immediately think this was some student trying to fake and fluff his question up so that experts would think he was in business...we just wouldn't put up with this hogwash). Furthermore we were a whole lot more real and about getting our online users to recognize that while we do SERVE them they must FEED US the proper information so that we could help. And point swapping would instantly get your butt kicked off of the forum as you'd receive some personal emails suggesting you straighten your act up. Well that was the good-ole days.

So Randall I commend you and Stevea great input too. Yes we do care about our forum and we should expect others to honor the foundation of what we have laid.

And I agree Gary...I think we should make people pay for tagline questions...because the pattern I noticed is that if you just jump in and throw anything out there you're subject to get points at the end of the day even though you haven't reflected that you have a hint of a mental strategy at all and people are climbing up to the top with thousands of points for answers that they have put no time in on. Now I respect that some people may not like my post and I'm totally alright with that but most will agree that my post whether it's on a 25 point question or a 3,000 point question comes with some meat on the bone. Most of these "Point Snatchers" are only bring a bone and that's okay too if you're a dog. But I liked to believe that our customers should be given more ADDED VALUE and in some cases they should be charged for that value. SINCE TAGLINES are a big ringer make it pay for those who want to try and take considerable advantage of our Profs Experts. Well I've got to go and run to lunch and I will return to add some more meat to this bone. But I'm so glad you got it started and everyone has put in some great advice from Chris B to Steve H to Jay, Juliet, Harry, Carrie and Jcrooks. Great work.

Also we did use to have an offline forum to discuss with our exclusive experts...ask Shelly as she used to head that thing up and we really hammered out some great pointers. Thanks everyone and REMEMBER... our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. I'm only an email away from you if you need further guidance, direction or you'd just like to talk more about it. You see I love it when my customers are happy. Are you happy yet? Is this information helping you? Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant,

Lovingly Deremiah *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

My apologies if I've offended anyone here by posting before fully understanding how things function on this board. Please do consider the no foul intended folks like I who've stumbled across this site searching for help. In a bit of excitement and bliss of actually finding a resource that can help their daunting situation, they quickly make a post. Rash? Yes. Impolite? Maybe. Human? No question.

Alas, I read this thread, acknowledged the error of my ways, felt a bit embarrassed, got over it and went about making amends.

Again, My apologies.
Good day!