At Discogs every edit you make scores points: adding a new entry is 3 points and editing an entry, or adding one or more pictures is worth 1 point.
Users are ranked according to the number of points they have. Some users have more than 100,000 points with a very select few significantly more than that.
Scoring points is a good example of gamification, where you try to get users to do perform a certain action and reward them for it. In this case it is about adding new releases or improving existing releases and the reward is points. To get more points can make some people feel good: you get immediate feedback after making a commit (more points) and you can see that you are making progress to a higher ranking. This positive feedback loop has been well researched.
Still I think that they should consider using gamification a bit more.
One way to enable the rankhunters is by letting them tackle one specific database problem, such as BaOI fields that are incorrect in the database, or trying to lift missing information (barcode, label code, rights society, and so on) from pictures. This should be fairly easy to set up: create a website with some low hanging fruit of known problems in the database. My database checking scripts already flag known possible smells and it would be trivial to adapt to generate a page (or a few pages) with items that need to be fixed. So far these scripts have been very reliable and easily uncover hundreds of thousands of possible smells.
Users are ranked according to the number of points they have. Some users have more than 100,000 points with a very select few significantly more than that.
Scoring points is a good example of gamification, where you try to get users to do perform a certain action and reward them for it. In this case it is about adding new releases or improving existing releases and the reward is points. To get more points can make some people feel good: you get immediate feedback after making a commit (more points) and you can see that you are making progress to a higher ranking. This positive feedback loop has been well researched.
What Discogs could do more...and should they?
At the moment Discogs is not really promoting the contributor ranking. The question is whether or not this should be changed. On the upside it could mean that people might more proactively search for problems in the data and fix them, but it could also lead to a lot of silly nonsensical fixes that are just to score points, like breaking up edits into multiple edits, and so on ("why add a complete release at once for three points when you can also get a multitude of that?", which is just very lame. But it can be very easily witnessed that people will go very far to 'win', even if there is nothing of value for them to win and playing a game actually costs them money (example: games on mobile devices with a store to buy goods that only have value inside the game). Also, losing might make some people feel miserable, plus because there is no end to the Discogs "game", there is constant pressure for people to play to keep winning.Still I think that they should consider using gamification a bit more.
Making contributor ranking more visible
While points are displayed on people's profile page the ranking itself is not. This would be an easy addition. The ranking page also does not allow you to search for a nickname (likely an easy addition as well), so people are not really encouraged to go find themselves in the contributor ranking. It can currently take some time to find your rank. By making it more visible people might get more interested in scoring more points. Another way to make it more visible is to show the difference in ranking between two consecutive weeks, so people can see how well (or not) they are progressing.Enabling "rankhunters"
One term that is used for people that make simple modifications to the discography for the sole benefit of getting a higher rank is "rankhunter". Some people use it in a derogatory way, but personally I don't see it like that: as long as the "rankhunters" make the entries better, even if it is marginally better, it is a win (pun intended) in my book. I think that the excesses will resolve themselves by moderation and, eventually, exclusion of people who do not play by the rules.One way to enable the rankhunters is by letting them tackle one specific database problem, such as BaOI fields that are incorrect in the database, or trying to lift missing information (barcode, label code, rights society, and so on) from pictures. This should be fairly easy to set up: create a website with some low hanging fruit of known problems in the database. My database checking scripts already flag known possible smells and it would be trivial to adapt to generate a page (or a few pages) with items that need to be fixed. So far these scripts have been very reliable and easily uncover hundreds of thousands of possible smells.
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