I see a lot of questions posted here that either don't make sense, or don't really appear to be serious. I understand some questions are from participants who's English may not be perfect, but I am not talking about those. I am talking about questions that are either obvious in their answer or nonsensical in their description. Some questions are even very similar and posted on the same day by the same members. Perhaps to achieve a badge for many questions? What are your thoughts on question moderation? Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
This is a professional community and should be treated as such. There will be many questions or comments that can be deemed as inappropriate, for which can be 'reported', or questions that are less of a quality of standard expected here, but as pointed out, that is subjective.
The question is who can deem questions as not inline with the purpose, mission, and standards of the community? PMI could designate discussion board moderators to help with the cause, but again, that is going down a slippery path, and I would advise caution - based on experience.
Many other communities utilize the ability to upvote and downvote as a way to self-moderate. That would be the most sensible, community driven solution to implement to help in promoting quality.
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1 reply by Thilo Wack
Jul 08, 2017 3:23 AM
Thilo Wack
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Great point, Andrew. Taking it from that, one could also define badges you get for content you posted that was deemed valuable by the community. That way we would have some self-moderation here as the peer-reveiwed badges would probably be seen to be worth more...
Badges are just a marketing ploy, an incentive to keep members participating on the site by giving us something to pursue and achieve. It's a fun, harmless tactic used all over the Internet. However, I think some members believe the badges on this site actually represent their skill and marketability as PMs, so they pursue them with unwarranted vigor. In reality, no recruiter cares how many answers we posted in these discussion threads, how many PMXPOs we attended or how large our networks are.
Spot-on Eric.
This is a case of unintended consequences where the strategy to motivate interaction (posting-related badge rewards) drives non-productive behavior (posting for the sake of posting to accelerate the reward).
If PMI removed just the community-impacting badges that can be 'gamed' that would help to reduce the number of nuisance posts that fall into this category. Since the community already seems to ignore such posts in the first place - "What is EVM?" doesn't even raise a "Read a book!" response, it would seem to be a simple solution that would only have a positive effect.
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1 reply by Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
Jul 07, 2017 7:59 PM
Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
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Actually one of my responses was going to be "Read the PMBOK" but then I realized that badge bandits surely know this already, s why take the bait. And I didn't want to warrant a response, since many responses is either another badge or more influence.
This is a case of unintended consequences where the strategy to motivate interaction (posting-related badge rewards) drives non-productive behavior (posting for the sake of posting to accelerate the reward).
If PMI removed just the community-impacting badges that can be 'gamed' that would help to reduce the number of nuisance posts that fall into this category. Since the community already seems to ignore such posts in the first place - "What is EVM?" doesn't even raise a "Read a book!" response, it would seem to be a simple solution that would only have a positive effect.
Actually one of my responses was going to be "Read the PMBOK" but then I realized that badge bandits surely know this already, s why take the bait. And I didn't want to warrant a response, since many responses is either another badge or more influence.
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1 reply by Drew Craig
Jul 08, 2017 7:55 AM
Drew Craig
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That is a problem then. When users first join a community, they look to the instilled hierarchy to see who the 'leadership' is within the community. The KPI"s available are Influence and number of comments/answers. The implementation of these were based on an assumption of a professional mindset toward meaningful and valuable contributions.
Additionally, those members have more clout and weight due to the time and effort put into and back into the community. This is all deserved. And those key members are where you expect the highest quality answers and responses from. We all know who these members are.
Although it is frustrating the quality of content is the discussion boards lately, and users posting to 10 one-hour webinars within just a couple minutes just to simply move up the ranks in number of comments, we cannot let that devalue the core foundation of the community and its hierarchy structure.
I do think it is important that somehow some of the distinctive leaders in this community could have the opportunity to work with the community managers and PMI on a solution - such as migrating to a new platform to allow for more powerful social features - like up/down vote, and member points based on the quality of responses or comments on a discussion - like Stack Exchange, or Reddit.
Saving Changes...
Thilo WackHead of Existing Product and Test Lab| optimedTholey-Hasborn, Germany
Jul 07, 2017 6:47 AM
Replying to Drew Craig
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This is a professional community and should be treated as such. There will be many questions or comments that can be deemed as inappropriate, for which can be 'reported', or questions that are less of a quality of standard expected here, but as pointed out, that is subjective.
The question is who can deem questions as not inline with the purpose, mission, and standards of the community? PMI could designate discussion board moderators to help with the cause, but again, that is going down a slippery path, and I would advise caution - based on experience.
Many other communities utilize the ability to upvote and downvote as a way to self-moderate. That would be the most sensible, community driven solution to implement to help in promoting quality.
Great point, Andrew. Taking it from that, one could also define badges you get for content you posted that was deemed valuable by the community. That way we would have some self-moderation here as the peer-reveiwed badges would probably be seen to be worth more... Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Jul 07, 2017 7:59 PM
Replying to Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
...
Actually one of my responses was going to be "Read the PMBOK" but then I realized that badge bandits surely know this already, s why take the bait. And I didn't want to warrant a response, since many responses is either another badge or more influence.
That is a problem then. When users first join a community, they look to the instilled hierarchy to see who the 'leadership' is within the community. The KPI"s available are Influence and number of comments/answers. The implementation of these were based on an assumption of a professional mindset toward meaningful and valuable contributions.
Additionally, those members have more clout and weight due to the time and effort put into and back into the community. This is all deserved. And those key members are where you expect the highest quality answers and responses from. We all know who these members are.
Although it is frustrating the quality of content is the discussion boards lately, and users posting to 10 one-hour webinars within just a couple minutes just to simply move up the ranks in number of comments, we cannot let that devalue the core foundation of the community and its hierarchy structure.
I do think it is important that somehow some of the distinctive leaders in this community could have the opportunity to work with the community managers and PMI on a solution - such as migrating to a new platform to allow for more powerful social features - like up/down vote, and member points based on the quality of responses or comments on a discussion - like Stack Exchange, or Reddit.
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2 replies by Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD and Vincent Guerard
Jul 08, 2017 8:23 AM
Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
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If up/down votes were linked to reducing or eradicating nonsensical questions, or not getting points towards badges or influence, that could be a good solution. The problem with that is you can have a group that doesn't like someone a simply vote them out. I keep coming back to a moderator, but that option doesn't seem very popular here.
Jul 09, 2017 3:06 PM
Vincent Guerard
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I understand that the way some moderation is done is that the influence is not affected by a large number of post or comments in a day.
Still some post large number of discussion question or reply that don't add value, same goes for the comments some will comment with just "Thanks" to more then 20 or 30 articles in a single day.
Maybe putting some limit to the count by day will have the same effect of moderation. Or a minimal length to post and comments!
That is a problem then. When users first join a community, they look to the instilled hierarchy to see who the 'leadership' is within the community. The KPI"s available are Influence and number of comments/answers. The implementation of these were based on an assumption of a professional mindset toward meaningful and valuable contributions.
Additionally, those members have more clout and weight due to the time and effort put into and back into the community. This is all deserved. And those key members are where you expect the highest quality answers and responses from. We all know who these members are.
Although it is frustrating the quality of content is the discussion boards lately, and users posting to 10 one-hour webinars within just a couple minutes just to simply move up the ranks in number of comments, we cannot let that devalue the core foundation of the community and its hierarchy structure.
I do think it is important that somehow some of the distinctive leaders in this community could have the opportunity to work with the community managers and PMI on a solution - such as migrating to a new platform to allow for more powerful social features - like up/down vote, and member points based on the quality of responses or comments on a discussion - like Stack Exchange, or Reddit.
If up/down votes were linked to reducing or eradicating nonsensical questions, or not getting points towards badges or influence, that could be a good solution. The problem with that is you can have a group that doesn't like someone a simply vote them out. I keep coming back to a moderator, but that option doesn't seem very popular here. Saving Changes...
That is a problem then. When users first join a community, they look to the instilled hierarchy to see who the 'leadership' is within the community. The KPI"s available are Influence and number of comments/answers. The implementation of these were based on an assumption of a professional mindset toward meaningful and valuable contributions.
Additionally, those members have more clout and weight due to the time and effort put into and back into the community. This is all deserved. And those key members are where you expect the highest quality answers and responses from. We all know who these members are.
Although it is frustrating the quality of content is the discussion boards lately, and users posting to 10 one-hour webinars within just a couple minutes just to simply move up the ranks in number of comments, we cannot let that devalue the core foundation of the community and its hierarchy structure.
I do think it is important that somehow some of the distinctive leaders in this community could have the opportunity to work with the community managers and PMI on a solution - such as migrating to a new platform to allow for more powerful social features - like up/down vote, and member points based on the quality of responses or comments on a discussion - like Stack Exchange, or Reddit.
I understand that the way some moderation is done is that the influence is not affected by a large number of post or comments in a day.
Still some post large number of discussion question or reply that don't add value, same goes for the comments some will comment with just "Thanks" to more then 20 or 30 articles in a single day.
Maybe putting some limit to the count by day will have the same effect of moderation. Or a minimal length to post and comments!
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1 reply by Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
Jul 09, 2017 6:30 PM
Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
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Or maybe just remove the badges for questions and comments, I don't really see the point of these. The algorithm can still include these variables for "influence" but just drop the associated badges.
I understand that the way some moderation is done is that the influence is not affected by a large number of post or comments in a day.
Still some post large number of discussion question or reply that don't add value, same goes for the comments some will comment with just "Thanks" to more then 20 or 30 articles in a single day.
Maybe putting some limit to the count by day will have the same effect of moderation. Or a minimal length to post and comments!
Or maybe just remove the badges for questions and comments, I don't really see the point of these. The algorithm can still include these variables for "influence" but just drop the associated badges. Saving Changes...
Sisca YuliharyaniSr. PM Consultant | Chief Strategy Officer| IndonesiaBandung, West Java, Indonesia
Hi Sante,
In project management central there is written "Okay - here is your chance to spill your guts - everything you ever wanted to know about project management but were afraid to ask."
I think maybe moderation will make some people "afraid to ask" :D
But i also feel uncomfortable when i browse to project management central, and find a lot of question that actually can be answered by reading PMBOK 5 th :(.
I just ignore those question, and maybe with this topic that you begin, people will stop to "spam" His/Her question and more careful to pick the topic to ask with.
Thank you :)
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1 reply by Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
Jul 09, 2017 11:42 PM
Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
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Hi Sisca, yes perhaps the only solution at the moment is to ignore them ;-)
