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| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 12:41:07 PM #54740 |
 Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227  | All, As any of you can see, the site is dying slowly. Reason the site is dying User's have little incentive to come to the site anymore, except for conversation. Where YouN00b went wrong 1. YouN00b has a programmer for a programmer, not a mathematician for a programmer. Because of this, the interest system paid out way too heavily. Interest rate calculations were off, and for a brief period paid out way too many points, more then it was supposed to. Some of you made 150,000 points a day just for logging in. 150,000 points couldn't possibly be consumed on the site except by playing cards, as there are no other "sinks" for points. More sinks will be added, including games, to balance this out. A new interest system will be devised, one that "chokes" when the average point balance of a member becomes too high (which encourages spending). 2. "Cards" was mathematically unsound, previously paying out extravagant points, oft doubled (Sunday Funday). Since then, the cards game has been modified where the odds are a little more fair. 3. Unlimited point gains per day allowed members to vote a ton of submissions/users to gain many points. 4. Points are issued for topics and replies (25,10 respectively), however they are not deducted when the posts are deleted. This encourages spam topics which are later deleted. 5. Overtly generous point distributions for rewards. Plan of Action All accounts will have their point balances reset to zero in early February, per this debate topic. IF YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT SOLUTION, WE'D LOVE TO HEAR IT! Please make sure to post those solutions below. 1. With the new point balance in place, the interest system will take more metrics into consideration (in the past, only totals of stats (posts,submissions,etc) were used. The new system will take percentages of these points versus other metrics (level, duration on the site, etc) to figure out a percentage payable. If the points that a user posses exceeds a defined threshold (determined by aforementioned metrics), then the interest payable will stall. There may even be a potentially reversing effect, for example, accounts that are inactive for a longer period of time will experience negative interest until they reach zero. 2. Cards will be analyzed for the fairness of odds, costs, and payouts and re-released in the future. 3. "DPL", or Daily Point Limit will be implemented as triggered by either level or activity frequency (i.e. if you're busier than the average level x user, then you may have a higher limit. 4. Forum moderation effects will be corrected to remove points for removed posts/topics. 5. A panel may be appointed who come up with, and determine payouts for, contests. Points will be funded by the site, paid into the contest operator's account, and then they will have the ability to transfer the points to the winning account. How you can help 1. Understand that I know everybody worked hard for their points, but this is for the greater good. Interest has not been paid out since November of 2010 due to an extreme point balance on the site. This measure was to help correct the problems, however people are not spending. 2. If you find an exploit in Cards, or any other system, or you have a better grasp on odds, economy, interest systems, etc, please make sure to contact me. 3. Post new content that people may vote. 4. No action needed. 5. Volunteer to be on the committee. Please give suggestions where I can improve this debating point. I am not punishing anybody, I want to get the site to a point where people want to earn points and spend them on awesome activities. Thanks for your understanding. |
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| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 1:24:23 PM #54742 |
 Indy Member 'Garburator' Level 45 Posts: 1,938 Submissions: 95 | Hey Toasty, Great input on the topic. "Volunteer to be on the committee" - Sign me up. I think that resetting everyone's points is a fair move and can only improve things in time. I can't say I have much other input on the topic, but if you need help with something or have any questions that I can answer feel free to contact me and i'll try to help with the little knowledge I have. |
Deny! Deny! Deny! |
| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 5:57:22 PM #54746 |
 Coopz Member 'Penis Size: Massive' Level 35 Posts: 2,398 Submissions: 113 | I'm not so certain that points are the answer to YN's activity problem (I don't know what the answer actually is unfortunately) but thinking about it I can see that it may have some bearing on it. Maybe people would submit more stuff to get points if they could use them for something. I remember caring about getting points when it meant I could upgrade my memeber level, but now I have 243 million points (not an exageration) and it's my post count which restricts me from upgrading. I suppose that should encourage me to post more, but it would take me another 1,000 posts to be able to upgrade to the next level. And I still have the 4th highest post count, even after my very extended period of inactivity! (My point there being that there is only so much content one can reply to.) I don't really know what point I'm trying to make- I certainly don't have a problem with losing my points, especially if it could potentially help the site, but maybe at the same time there are other things which need to be restructured too, otherwise I would fear that the time you put into the point system could be wasted time and wouldn't really change anything. Unfortunately I don't have answers, just rambling thoughts, but I hope it may be of some use! |
Post last edited by Coopz on Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 5:57:42 PM  Ein Schrei wird zum Himmel fahren, Schneidet sich durch Engelsscharen. "Mein herz brennt, gib mir kraft." Der kalte Mond in voller Pracht hört die Schreie in der Nacht... und kein Engel steigt herab. |
| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 6:14:01 PM #54751 |
 Dodge Site Admin 'Open foot, insert mouth' Level 19 Posts: 1,989 Submissions: 53 | I agree with the reset. Makes sense. As for the cards, I think the 1,000,000 limit is far too high. IMO it should be 1,000 tops. Setting it at a million allows for too much gain. Also, I tried my ultimate cheater method (guaranteed to win) and I lost. :-P |
Oowwww. ( ̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅ ̲̅]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅ ̲̅)  Uses [view] tag. |
| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 6:20:45 PM #54753 |
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Dodge Site Admin 'Open foot, insert mouth' Level 19 Posts: 1,989 Submissions: 53 | Oh, also I think level should be handled by the statistics, not by choice. Submissions, points spent, votes cast, posts made, and topics started should affect your level. That would stop people from finding a particular 'niche' that they can exploit (like the points system+cards that we all raped) and leveling up excessively. Not too sure how that would work out in the long run, but it's worth a thought. |
Oowwww. ( ̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅ ̲̅]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅ ̲̅) Uses [view] tag. |
| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 6:43:48 PM #54754 |
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Indy Member 'Garburator' Level 45 Posts: 1,938 Submissions: 95 | Quote Dodge: I agree with the reset. Makes sense.As for the cards, I think the 1,000,000 limit is far too high. IMO itshould be 1,000 tops. Setting it at a million allows for too much gain.Also, I tried my ultimate cheater method (guaranteed to win) and I lost. :-PI lost like 100 million while gaining maybe 40 million, so I ended up in the negatives, it seemed to work out  |
Deny! Deny! Deny! |
| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 7:53:30 PM #54760 |
 ColinFiat Site Admin 'JavaScript' Level 26 Posts: 1,359 Submissions: 89 | My previous discourse on the topic of site participation has been explained at length with Toasty. The base theme behind every comment was vanity. Points have no value when there is no gain to be derived from them, no status attached to wealth or nothing to purchase with them. Even these three uses for site points have their foundations in vanity. YouN00b is not structured to follow many current economic and business models. However, one of the most simple is the onus to participate: fitness clubs force people to pay up-front for their entire membership period for two reasons. 1) Many lose the enthusiasm and will to exercise; therefore the club is paid for no expense. 2) Having paid encourages people to make an effort to participate. This can attract other people. That's the real world. To emulate this, new members could be given a thousand points which will be used in administrative actions at a rate equal to one month if left unused. Points are required for an initial forum post each day; subsequent post are free. Members can earn points through submissions or by posting in a free forum section; a member status thread or the "I love Toasty Because..." thread. A thread devoted to providing difficult information to locate gives people a satisfied feeling of accomplishment and, if significant, a boost to their ego and vanity. This is the exact opposite of the current system. members are given points for free. Doing nothing is a good way to earn points. The gambling establishment does not sustain itself. Playing cards should entail a cost to play. After the pay-to-play fee has been deducted from points, the member is then able to make a wager. Vanity. Submitting a picture from some other site or linking to someone else's youtube clip is a hollow ego boost. Self drawn art, stories/poems/songs, jokes, complaints or problems, bragging/accomplishments and anything else to boost the ego and feed the vane should have a prominent place and cost per submission. Points are awarded to the submitting member based on votes from other members. Economy: think of the most money hungry company you know and follow their business model. Then add vanity. |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 12:42:53 AM #54779 |
 DeadLazyBum Site Admin '♥' Level 33 Posts: 2,964 Submissions: 137 | I am fine with the losing of my measly couple of hundred points. I have made this clear by having you take them all in the past when I was quite high on the highest points list. I agree with certain aspects of Colin's post, but I am not sure about all. The cost to post is not something I have ever seen done, and I am not quite sure it would work out to well. That's not saying it isn't worth a try, I'm just not sure it would succeed. The initial cost to play cards seems like it would be a fine add-on to the game. I am also pretty decent with math, so if you'd like me to take a look at your odds for the game, I can make suggestions and offer changes if I believe anything could be done to better the game. I do agree with the cost to add a submission. It is quite similar to how RE was. You pay some points and hoped to gain more off of your submissions. It makes sure that you put some effort into them. I believe that picture and video submissions should have a much lower point gain per submission. With the lowering of those, you can add emphasis to the point gain per submission on articles/urbex which would encourage people to post more of those rather than pictures you can find on almost any site. Besides, you wanted the site geared more towards articles when it was started anyway, the users just got lost along the way. Also, would I be able to move my articles over from RE if I deleted them from the site (assuming they are there, I haven't been in quite some time) Edited to imitate Colin's post. |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 1:17:54 AM #54782 |
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Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227 | First off, it makes me very proud to see this may replies, and at the length there is. I'm going to read over this now, and follow up with my thoughts to each. I'm glad from the brief skimming of everything that it seems everybody supports the changes. Thanks again for the replies, it means a lot to me. Will read each one now. |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 1:44:25 AM #54783 |
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ColinFiat Site Admin 'JavaScript' Level 26 Posts: 1,359 Submissions: 89 | Need to go through and update the Site Feature Requests. Have the request below been satisfied? Last Topic and Last Reply shown in Profiles Make points more valuable by using them as some kind of currency, etc User Definable Profile Fields (at least 1 beside "Music") "Select all" button in message inbox for easy mass deletion Quote DeadLazyBum: Edited to imitate Colin's post. NICE! |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 1:58:11 AM #54784 |
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Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227 | Indy Quote: "Volunteer to be on the committee" - Sign me up. I think that resetting everyone's points is a fair move and can only improve things in time. I can't say I have much other input on the topic, but if you need help with something or have any questions that I can answer feel free to contact me and i'll try to help with the little knowledge I have. Indy, as the #1 point holder on the site, I appreciate your support of this change. I also will make sure that, once such a committee is organized, that you'll be on it. Coopz Quote: I'm not so certain that points are the answer to YN's activity problem (I don't know what the answer actually is unfortunately) but thinking about it I can see that it may have some bearing on it. Maybe people would submit more stuff to get points if they could use them for something. I remember caring about getting points when it meant I could upgrade my memeber level, but now I have 243 million points (not an exageration) and it's my post count which restricts me from upgrading. I suppose that should encourage me to post more, but it would take me another 1,000 posts to be able to upgrade to the next level. And I still have the 4th highest post count, even after my very extended period of inactivity! (My point there being that there is only so much content one can reply to.) I don't really know what point I'm trying to make- I certainly don't have a problem with losing my points, especially if it could potentially help the site, but maybe at the same time there are other things which need to be restructured too, otherwise I would fear that the time you put into the point system could be wasted time and wouldn't really change anything. Unfortunately I don't have answers, just rambling thoughts, but I hope it may be of some use! You're totally correct Coopz. One of the "site ideas" was to make the points more of a currency. I hope to use points as an instrument to allow user's to see benefits of all the work they put into the site. As a long-standing member, you and DLB (and a few others) have seen a ton of site changes, from the site being YN1, to a time where accounts were deleted when inactive, and when the Free Rice and Photoshop contests were big. Changes on a site like this take a while to do now, especially since I built this site wrong. My database structure worked great when the site was first built, but now it's really killing the enhancements I make. Any suggestions I get for adding value to points will be considered. In other sites we've all been to, they would charge points to post articles... I've never understood that myself, unless it falls under "it takes money to make money", but I'm just rambling. Dodge Quote: I agree with the reset. Makes sense.As for the cards, I think the 1,000,000 limit is far too high. IMO it should be 1,000 tops. Setting it at a million allows for too much gain. Also, I tried my ultimate cheater method (guaranteed to win) and I lost. :-P Oh, also I think level should be handled by the statistics, not by choice. Submissions, points spent, votes cast, posts made, and topics started should affect your level. That would stop people from finding a particular 'niche' that they can exploit (like the points system+cards that we all raped) and leveling up excessively. Not too sure how that would work out in the long run, but it's worth a thought. I agree with the limit on the cards being high. I was hoping that with the high limits, and corrected odds, that maybe people would actually lose some points due to poor gambling habits, which would help correct the total site balance. It helped a whole ton, until you weigh it against the site total. Then, it scratched the surface. I'm curious what the ultimate cheater method is, however? How's that work?... As for a merit based level system, I've thought about this... That will change my thinking about the site a ton... Only problem with doing that now is that people are already the levels they are, so that would also need to be reset. TommyBoy, Colin, and several others have a few levels due to the donations they have given the site, and incorporating them fairly into a new system will be a hard subject for me, as I find it very hard to truthfully give back to these members that have helped the site the way they have. I will need to think about this idea more, could help standardize things (interest bracketing, etc). Indy Quote: I lost like 100 million while gaining maybe 40 million, so I ended up in the negatives, it seemed to work outDid my code resolve negatives to positives or something? ColinFiat Quote: My previous discourse on the topic of site participation has been explained at length with Toasty. The base theme behind every comment was vanity. Points have no value when there is no gain to be derived from them, no status attached to wealth or nothing to purchase with them. Even these three uses for site points have their foundations in vanity. YouN00b is not structured to follow many current economic and business models. However, one of the most simple is the onus to participate: fitness clubs force people to pay up-front for their entire membership period for two reasons. 1) Many lose the enthusiasm and will to exercise; therefore the club is paid for no expense. 2) Having paid encourages people to make an effort to participate. This can attract other people. That's the real world. To emulate this, new members could be given a thousand points which will be used in administrative actions at a rate equal to one month if left unused. Points are required for an initial forum post each day; subsequent post are free. Members can earn points through submissions or by posting in a free forum section; a member status thread or the "I love Toasty Because..." thread. A thread devoted to providing difficult information to locate gives people a satisfied feeling of accomplishment and, if significant, a boost to their ego and vanity. This is the exact opposite of the current system. members are given points for free. Doing nothing is a good way to earn points. The gambling establishment does not sustain itself. Playing cards should entail a cost to play. After the pay-to-play fee has been deducted from points, the member is then able to make a wager. Vanity. Submitting a picture from some other site or linking to someone else's youtube clip is a hollow ego boost. Self drawn art, stories/poems/songs, jokes, complaints or problems, bragging/accomplishments and anything else to boost the ego and feed the vane should have a prominent place and cost per submission. Points are awarded to the submitting member based on votes from other members. Economy: think of the most money hungry company you know and follow their business model. Then add vanity. COLIN, THERE A RE SOME DAYS W HERE YOU MAKE ME WANT TO ADD A JUSTIFY TAG TO THE SITE TO HELP MAKE COLU MNS. Joking aside, on your charge of lack of originality. I concur more than you could imagine. Part of the death of YN is the fact that the content is fresher and more rapidly accessed on other sites, like imgur, 4chan, and so on. The video and image sections are both very odd sections in my head. I want to get rid of them, but the images promote the hell out of this site. 63,000+ sites link to these watermarked images, which gets the name out there, even if it's just a crappy Google Images link. The videos? They're worthless, there's a youtube tag in the forums, and overall -- they're better discussed there. If I got rid of the video section, I'd probably port them all to topics and throw them in one of the less-used forums, along with the comments. I'm interested in economy systems, but the problem I faced when starting this site is the typical "everybody wants to be a mod, everybody wants 'special friend' points." Thus, I handed out roles and points freely to get the site going. Well, since then, the mod team has been refined, but the points have went astray. The point reset allows me to completely reconsider the point system as any economy that works, without worrying about "back-door handshakes" that I've had to do before. As for the most money hungry company? Oracle, Google, others... DLB Quote: I am fine with the losing of my measly couple of hundred points.I have made this clear by having you take them all in the past when I was quite high on the highest points list. I agree with certain aspects of Colin's post, but I am not sure about all. The cost to post is not something I have ever seen done, and I am not quite sure it would work out to well. That's not saying it isn't worth a try, I'm just not sure it would succeed. The initial cost to play cards seems like it would be a fine add-on to the game. I am also pretty decent with math, so if you'd like me to take a look at your odds for the game, I can make suggestions and offer changes if I believe anything could be done to better the game. I do agree with the cost to add a submission. It is quite similar to how RE was. You pay some points and hoped to gain more off of your submissions. It makes sure that you put some effort into them. I believe that picture and video submissions should have a much lower point gain per submission. With the lowering of those, you can add emphasis to the point gain per submission on articles/urbex which would encourage people to post more of those rather than pictures you can find on almost any site. Besides, you wanted the site geared more towards articles when it was started anyway, the users just got lost along the way. Also, would I be able to move my articles over from RE if I deleted them from the site (assuming they are there, I haven't been in quite some time) Edited to imitate Colin's post. Lol'd at the imitation. DLB -- I believe you simply license your content to RE, placing it here would be within your legal abilities I believe (but I'm not a lawyer). Moving it here, and removing it from there? That would be ideal. As for your other points, what you said here sounds much like what I have said. The emphasis on Articles and Urbex is important, not only for getting more members, but to me. I don't care if people are adding stupid articles as long as they're good quality. You might wonder "Who wants to know how to clean a lint trap and passages on a dryer?" Well, I could have used that info a few months ago, but I tore into it, with the direction of a different site. I'd rather come to YN and find info, or even read what people are doing. I enjoy (and always have) enjoyed reading random articles. These are much more valuable to me than images/videos. Again, I'm really thinking about making "Videos" a ton of forum topics. As for charging to play the cards game... Could anybody give me a quick rundown of how you see that gameplay going? I'm not sure how I can charge upfront for something (it's like a cover charge to a casino, who does that?). Everybody, thanks again for the replies. These are helping me get my mind going on ways to correct the sites path. |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 2:00:48 AM #54785 |
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Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227 | ColinFiat Quote: Need to go through and update the Site Feature Requests. Have the request below been satisfied? Last Topic and Last Reply shown in Profiles Make points more valuable by using them as some kind of currency, etc User Definable Profile Fields (at least 1 beside "Music") "Select all" button in message inbox for easy mass deletion Well, yes and no. I've been working quite a bit on new profiles to replace some of the problems/lacking there. Melding "My Account", "My Homepage" and "My Profile" into one page. The user defined field, people want to title a field? That can be done. Select all button in messages? Yes. Making points a currency? That's the intent of the topic. |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 2:15:34 AM #54786 |
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DeadLazyBum Site Admin '♥' Level 33 Posts: 2,964 Submissions: 137 | I'm so glad this site has a SysOp who cares about what the members say. Onto the topic: Quote: As for charging to play the cards game... Could anybody give me a quick rundown of how you see that gameplay going? I'm not sure how I can charge upfront for something (it's like a cover charge to a casino, who does that?).Basically it goes towards the "you have to spend money to make money" aspect. The cost to play could be based on the total amount of points you have, the more points you have, the higher the cost. The reason I feel it should be based on point values is due to the fact that if it were based on member level, it would be unfair with members such as myself being a high level, but not having any points due to gambling addictions. |
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| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 6:48:52 PM #54798 |
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Indy Member 'Garburator' Level 45 Posts: 1,938 Submissions: 95 | Quote Toasty: Did my code resolve negatives to positives or something?Sorry that was poorly worded, I meant I gambled about 100,000,000 and only made 40,000,000 leaving me with a 60,000,000 loss on my total investment. |
Deny! Deny! Deny! |
| Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 9:49:07 AM #54823 |
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Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227 | Thanks everybody for the feedback. If I don't hear back again before 5PM CST, I'll go ahead and dump the points and work on getting the site built back up again. Thanks again for the feedback, it's very helpful. |
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| Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 3:45:45 PM #54826 |
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DeadLazyBum Site Admin '♥' Level 33 Posts: 2,964 Submissions: 137 | I think we should be able to keep our levels though. I worked for this level. |
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| Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 8:33:14 PM #54828 |
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Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227 | Only item to be reset is points. Levels, Submissions, and Posts won't be impacted. |
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| Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 8:51:58 PM #54829 |
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Toasty SysOp Level 40 Posts: 7,388 Submissions: 227 | So, I have slightly modified my strategy. Members with over 50,000 points that have logged in within the past week get to keep 50,000 points. Everybody else has been set to zero. If this seems unfair, please let me know. It's the only way I can keep the people who were the richest (or that donated) from feeling slighted. This brings the site balance from over 2.5 billion down to a mere 150,000, with Tommyboy, Indy, and Coopz having 33% of the economy at the present time. Any points earned right now should be considered valid. Please let me know if there's any issues at present with this change. |
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| Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 at 3:30:15 AM #54833 |
 Bier Member 'Autobots! Roll out!' Level 20 Posts: 1,297 Submissions: 128 | Sounds good to me, I dumped all my points anyways haha |
Dead End Ex: Posted Jan. 16 2010 Miniature Ex: Posted Oct. 15 2010  |
| Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 at 2:12:16 PM #54835 |
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DeadLazyBum Site Admin '♥' Level 33 Posts: 2,964 Submissions: 137 | Yeah, that doesn't bother me. I waste all of my points on cards anyway |
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ELECTRICJELLY 16 Minutes Ago