Should iFixit staff be exempt from the reputation system?

I think we've completely lost focus here.

We could label iFixit employees or cap reputation for them.

Then should we label Apple certified technicians and cap their rep? After all, it's unfair that they have access to Apple's tools and manuals when the average volunteer doesn't. That's just not fair to everyone.

Take it a step further. Should we label repair professionals as a whole and cap their rep? It's really unfair that they have access to all those machines and all that experience with those machines when the average volunteer has limited resources. Besides, they get PAID for their expertise!

In seeking to rectify some opined and perceived imbalance or injustice, we castrate the purpose of the system: to help others.

If the goal is to create reliable, trustworthy, high-quality answers, troubleshooting, and repair manuals for everything, then those who are creating quality work should be recognized accordingly. The entire purpose of the reputation system is to earmark trusted contributors as trusted. I look at the first row of top-ranked users, and here's what I see:

• For answering questions and troubleshooting: mayer, rj713, markus weiher, lemerise, and rdklinc are very appropriately earmarked as contributing top-notch answers.
• For repair manuals: walter and andrew are the best, and they are very appropriately earmarked as contributing great repair manuals.

Therefore, a person who comes to the site looking for an answer to their question or a high-quality repair manual know who they can trust, and the current system appropriately marks the trustworthy as trustworthy.

That indicates to me that the current system is doing exactly what it is supposed to.

It really seems that some are taking the rep system, designed for helping people find trustworthy help, and are distorting it to make it some sort of king of the hill nonsense. Can't we put our egos aside and seek to help people fix their stuff?

I think employee reputation is very pertinent to our system. You can easily see what involvement each of us has had with the community. My rep is pretty low. I don't answer many questions or create many guides. My answers should have less weight than someone like Water or Ben who have spent a lot of time working on machines.

If all I had was "iFixit employee" I would probably never answer repair questions even if I thought I knew the answer. I don't trust my replies to be 100% correct and would feel that I would sully the good name of our company by giving incorrect advice. At least now when I give an answer you can see that I may not know what I'm talking about because I have rep of less < 300. You can learn even more about what I do by seeing that my rep in "meta" is ~700. I rely on my rep to help people decide if they should take my advice or not.

I like this community and want to be a part of it. By isolating us from reputation it suddenly feels like us & you which makes me sad. I don't want to be a corporate entity, I want to be Chris who works for iFixit. A lot of us spend time outside of "paid work" interacting with the site and trying to improve it.

I propose that we have iFixit employees keep gaining rep but have some sort of tag (star next to their name, different color name, something obvious). Also, on the users page we would have filter options like we do on Answers with the options "Users, Employees, All" with the default on "Users." Then you will be ranked with your appropriate peers & there will be more distinction around who gets "paid" to help people and who does it out of the goodness of their heart.

Kyle I wish you would make a ruling on this and I would hope end the acrimony about the point system. As I mentioned to you some time ago that so long as I could edit or delete my own post I didn't need points. I stand by that although on reflection I would think it handy to be able to comment on our own as well as the post of others. The only other things would be to able to flag an obscene or dangerous post for the mods, and to be able to edit comments. No need to to lock, delete, close or vote up or down--just answer the questions.

My involvement in this was to try and level the playing field but its become a completely different animal. Whatever you decide is fine with me--like lemerise I'm going to concentrate on those in need of help.

Wishing you the best, Ralph

I personally dont think that ANYONE should be exempt from the point system, regardless of how they contribute to the site. BUT, I do believe that employees should be classified as such. I have contributed very little to iFixit, but the little that I have contributed was because of what I have attained and learned from the volunteers here. These people should be praised, not only for their expertise, but for the valuable time they spend on the site helping people for no compensation. In all actuality these people are the backbone of this site. Chris's idea gets a plus from me, it works for both sides. And i say that from an unbiased point of view because im not an employee, nor am I a major contributing volunteer like the rest of the patrons here. There's no need for division, we're all in this together: employees and volunteers, and we have ONE unified goal, and thats to help people fix things. In my opinion, the sum of the "whole" is always greater than the sum of its "parts", why divide?

first of all - i'm german, so maybe there might be some things that get lost in translation, but i think you will understand my point of view.

i think it's not a "king of the hill" thing and none want's to measure "bodyparts".

i understand the different point of views, but i think that something isn't right about the reputation system.

surely i don't give that much on the reputation count (i would never cheat and it's disgusting that nick did it) - but it's the only thing that shows others anything about your knowledge, even if it can only scratch the sufrace of it.

as ralph stated abov, many of us don't have the chance of making a guide that could "compete" with the ifixit guides. in fact - i'm pretty sure that if one of the ifixit employees kills a device while making the guide, it wouldn't be a huge problem, the parts would most likely end up in the parts store.

but that is not an option for the volunteers - if i would make a teardown/guide and would kill the device in the process - well - c'est la vie, sh!t happens or what ever - it would simply be my problem.

²kyle

you wrote "When people follow a repair guide and click 'I did it' at the end, 30 points are distributed amongst the guide authors (just like the 30 points awarded for accepting an answer.)"

thats correct - and that's one of the flaws in the system!

if i help someone with my answer - i can get 30 points (as long as they come back and accept the answer!) - even if i help 100 people with that answer - i would still have the 30 points (upvoting doesn't count - the most up- or downvotes are given by "page 1&2 users.

the most guides are done after a teardown, depending on the device, the teardwon would be good for ~15 guides, so the "chance" that someone clicks on the "i did it" button is ~15 times higher that getting an "answer accepted" (not to forget that a upvoted link to a guide gives the writer 45 points).

so i think that richard is right with his point of view

sterling wrote a comment in the topic i linked above: "A good repair guide is worth much more to the community than a good answer"

well, that might be right - but since many new users aren't able to find the right one (or select the right category, or knowing what device they have..) - it's a pretty hard statement.

what are we ??? - drones????

sorry, but some people won't find their own backside, they aren't able to read the users manual or simply use a search engine - they come and ask almost sensless stuff - there isn't a guide for that.

the community is based on the work of a few volunteers, the guides are one thing - but they would not be that successful if nobody pointed the "masses" into the right direction.

and the follow up question are also answered by the volunteers and not by the staff.

so i can't agree with sterling's statement.

let's try to sort it out a little bit.

since the staff knows each other best - devide yourself from the users tab, devide the non active members from there too (everyone who wasn't active in the last 6 month) and finally remove the 2 users with the crappiest answers (i think everybody knows who's ment with that - if not, you're way to seldom in the answers area) - what are you seeing then ??

a handful of users, trying to help others, most of the time without any appreciation. overrun by a "slightly" unfair system

i totally understand that the guide-writers should be rewarded for their work (paid or unpaid should not count) - but why the heck should someone get 45 points for helping someone with a guide - but the one who pointed the questioner in the right direction, maybe explained something that wasn't clear and for what - for 12 points (in case it was voted up).

as i stated in the beginnig - it's not about measuring bodyparts - the huge difference is just wrong.

there are no statistics about the real help (that wouldn't be possible at all) - there are many users that might have been clicked on the "i did it" but botched it up in the end (they are out there, i fixed one of those devices a few days ago).

i wrote this over the past few hours - so let's come to an end (with my 7. cup of coffee)

surely there are pros and cons for both sides

in fact - i see not that many options!

one possible step should be to make it equal

if the guide writer gets rewarded for his guide - the one who linked to it should get it too (since the questioner wasn't able to use the simple navigation and had to use the help of the one who pointed him into the right direction)

the "ace of answerers" speaks a clear language - it should count for both - guides and answers - or the limitation should be removed. it dilutes the "statistics".

a little quote:

We don't run Answers. You do. The community has complete control over the content on Answers. Answers is collaboratively managed by people just like you. With your help, we can show the world how to fix anything.

yes, we have the control on the content

but the decision of the "worthiness" is up to you.

i'm long enough in the computer/cell phone repair business and i know enough marketing strategies. don't get me wrong. but the whole page is a cash cow, a marketing concept - i have no problem with that - but it would be better if we mind our own businesses - and writing a guide to sell parts/tools is only marketing. the reward for that is a paid job that feeds the family (or sometimes only the goldfish) - our job is to help others for free.

but i like to be treated as an individual and not as a drone

I don't believe that iFixit employees should be completely removed from the reputation system. I am fine with not having my reputation show up in my posts, but like Sterling, I like having that number. I write guides even when I am not on the clock at iFixit, and I don't think it would be fair to me to not gain reputation for those guides, simply because I am an iFixit employee. I use my own tools, on my own equipment, take pictures with my own camera, and upload them onto my own computer, where I then publish the guides, all on a weekend.

I really think things should be kept the same. In real life public officials aren't required to walk around with a big sign on their head that says "I AM THE MAYOR" and I feel in our community while some of us are paid to create quality content, most of us are not, and contribute to the community purely as interested parties, not as an official arm of iFixit (similar to how government employees also vote and protest).

I also would like to mention that when the reputation system was created, it was not created as a competition. It was created as a tool to show how you as an individual are trusted by the community. I don't trust kyle any more than I trust mayer when it comes to repair device, but I trust both of them more than I trust a new user.

If you want to read a great novel which I think accurately represents what we are aiming for in a community, check out Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

Hi guys! I think the site should stay the same, and I think it makes sense to award points for guides, since they are an important element of iFixit. There should be a high level of visibility in terms of how points are awarded (as there may or may not be -- I haven't paid too much attention), especially in the middle of transitions such as this, during which the points are changing rapidly and things may seem slightly "goofy".

iFixit employees are not space aliens from another planet, so it makes sense for them to be included as well...I think coming up with an alternate universe for iFixit employees to exist in would be more trouble than it's worth. That said, I think it's useful to know who is an iFixit employee and who is not, and the amber-colored icons have always done a good job of serving that purpose.

But beyond that, whether a person has 23520360 points or 3363463463460 points, it barely makes a difference, unless you are keeping score. Both, obviously, are valued contributors. That said, the point system is a measure of contribution to the site, so while it generally "doesn't matter", contribution to the site is definitely valued, and as the degree of contribution is inevitably going to be compared to number of points, I do think it makes sense for the number to be as accurate as possible. (I'm not saying it ISN'T accurate, just that it's important that it should be.) So in that sense, I think it's a little overly simplistic to just say that it "doesn't matter". iFixit does not send us a paycheck for our time, such as other sites do, so that puts a lot of weight on the point system, since it's the only tangible reward (besides the fun/satisfaction/education involved with using the site, of course).

It's a fine line between inspiring healthy competition, keeping the true purpose of the site in mind, and avoiding it being all about the points. That's a difficult thing to do, but looking at other answers sites, which have failed in their missions in that they have become all about the money, or all about the whatever, I'd say all-in-all that iFixit has done a great job of keeping the balance.

I have lost about 20% of my reputation from downvoting posts. It's a shame, but those downvotes need to get cast, and as an admin, I'm the one who can afford to take the hit. So right off the bat, my reputation is probably much lower than what it would be if I were a normal user. And Walter's rep would have been at least in the hundred thousands if it were calculated retroactively. It's clear that reputation doesn't really reflect the same qualities in an admin as it does in a normal user, so showing it the same way doesn't make much sense.

That said, iFixit employees aren't separate from the community. We ask and answer questions just like normal users. We are part of the community, and anyone who puts in the time (regardless of financial compensation) to make useful guides would have the same number next to their name. iFixit employees don't get free reputation by virtue of being iFixit employees. Anyone can make a repair guide, just like anyone can answer a question. If some new user made a set of, for example, Nexus One guides, their reputation would probably skyrocket.

I like being able to see my reputation, since I think it's interesting, but I don't want it to feel like iFixit is competing with its users. I like to think that iFixit the company and iFixit the community are working together to help people fix their stuff.

So how about this: Show the reputation on our user profiles. Don't show our reputation on our posts. Keep us on the users page. (I use this page to look at admins' user profiles all the time, and it would be a huge pain if we didn't show up.) Show the rep on the users page (since it's sorted by reputation, it wouldn't make sense to show the user in their position but not show their rep), but underneath our reputation, note that we're iFixit staff. Hopefully, this will maintain the utility of the users page while letting everyone know that we're not trying to devalue your contributions.

I'm interested to hear your opinions in the comments.

One of the major problems I see with the guide points is that if I write a guide for a G5 Mac Pro dual 2.0 GHz, (which I'm going to do next week, I'll spend as much time and energy as Walter did on a Core 2 duo MacBook. But my amount of hits and points will be 1/20 of Walters because so few people have that machine. All of the most popular machine guides have been written. The guides are essential for your business but scores should not reflect the popularity of a machine.

It took me a while but it came to me the middle of the night of what’s wrong. The point system was meant to be used to give a measure of trust in the individual giving a solution to a problem. By putting in manual writers we’ve destroyed the usefulness of the system. Walter and Andrew may be great a writing manuals but may know nothing about how to diagnose and solve a problem. Sure they need recognition but not in the answers section. Adding points to them for manuals or taking pictures destroys the whole purpose of the point system. They didn’t get them for problem solving and that’s what people come here for help with. If you feel they should be here then give a split rating such as 1450/250. Where the 1450 is for problem solving and the 250 if for other things.