Gaia Community

Seeds, influence, without hierarchy

Kyle said Dec 21, 2007, 9:17 AM:

    Sorry if this has already been or partly been addressed in other discussions but I don't have enough time right now to read and post on all the discussions about seeds. Anyways my idea is for seeds to be an influential thing that people can use to get blogs, posts, discussions, even pictures to the main page and such for people to see and enjoy.
    (If someone can explain what seeds actually do right now I'd be grateful too)

    First off seeding should be available for all things, not just blogs and people. This way all types of things can be brought to the surface.
    I think that seeds should be used to bring things up for all to see, on the main page there should be another part that says highly seeded posts. On it you would see the recent (as in latest post is a few days ago at most) and is highly seeded by people. You could also choose to look at most seeded of all time, or within a week/month etc. This way great ideas, conversation, etc can be seen and contributed by more people as the main page fluctuates a lot this would be a bit more stable.
    Also this could be tied into friends activity and such, you could look at posts that have the most seeds from your friends. This could even be used to sort posts that have particular tags, like the most seeded discussions/posts about organic food or something. This way quality material that is relevant to what you are interested in could become more easily accessible.
    Seeds given to people would not rank them in anyway, just like how many friends people have doesn't mean that they are 'ranked' higher than anyone else. They wouldn't even be known how many you have by anyone other than you. People would give them to you because they value your opinion, influence, and such.

    Bad seeds should still be here because of potentially untrue info, spam, manipulation, etc. An example would be like a post that has been ended because of those or other reasons and is no longer valuable, but people seeded it at one time so it is still at the highly seeded 'rank'. Bad seeds wouldn't bring down how many seeds it has, it would be more like a ratio, good to bad seeds and you could use your judgment to see if the info is valuable or not. Also sorting by highly seeded could be just how many seeds it has or the ratio good:bad. There could also be a way to remove seeds if something catastrophic is reviled about the post. (maybe)

    Your thoughts, comments, etc are appreciated. Just an idea to better this community.

    -Kyle

Update: thought about 'recommend this' button and you could recommend something to a certain friend/s, or just you general recommendations (like favorites). Recommendations could also be tag specific or just tagged.

Show Replies

Re: Seeds, influence, without hierarchy

tinkonthebrink said Dec 22, 2007, 11:02 PM:

Having multiple discussion threads going on the same topic, like the seeds thing, can get overwhelming, but it's fairly easy to sort through them by tags and then skim through. When in doubt, though, I'd say the ThinkTank threads are a good starting point!

Right now I think the seeds system is kind of in beta mode as a content weighting system, and what it ultimately does is going to evolve as we all use it.

One thing I just wanted to mention, because it seems to come up so often, is that when people “give” you seeds, you don't then have more seeds. You generate seeds according to a few different factors, one of which is how active you are in the community.

I agree that the “bad seeds” were a good idea - with an unfortunate name. But there is a “flag for review” option to use for the problems you mentioned (and hey, surprise, it uses up one of your seeds to flag for review!).

I think the seeds idea is pretty interesting. It'll be fun to see what happens with it.

Re: Seeds, influence, without hierarchy

1Vector3 said Dec 22, 2007, 11:23 PM:

rapunzel, you are more tech-savvy than I am. Could you explain what you mentioned above about “sorting through” threads?pods? by tag, wrt for example the seed system? Do you mean more than going to Our Most Popular Pod Tags? (I am not even sure there is such a list as that.)

I know this is a How to-FAQ question, but you mentioned it here, and we can always copy my Q and your answer over there later,to be good girls.LOL

Many thanks, and blessings!!!

OM Bastet

Re: Seeds, influence, without hierarchy

tinkonthebrink said Dec 22, 2007, 11:55 PM:

Om-
On the upper right on pods is a keyword search bar - for example, here on ThinkTank, if you type in “seeds” you'll pull up all the posts relating to the seeds.

If you go to a blog, at the very top is a search bar, and if you type “seeds” in there, you'll get everything posted around the site tagged with “seeds”. If you type the word into the search bar to the right, just below your subscription settings, you'll search just that blog.

Does that help?

Re: Seeds, influence, without hierarchy

1Vector3 said Dec 26, 2007, 10:49 PM:

Oh, rapunzel, thanks for taking the time to explain. I got behind in reading my Notifications, so am just checking in now.

Now I understand. I don't think of “search terms” as “tags” or as “keywords,” that's all. We were just using different words but now I know what you mean. The search terms are applied to or searched for in various aspects of the content. I didn't think there were actual “tags” for pod content. So now I understand, and I do such searching or sorting, and my how useful it is!!!!!

Thanks again for your patient explaining!!!!

Blessings, OM Bastet