What would you like to know about myLot?

The myLot Reputation System is extremely accurate and reliable. In fact, we have only needed to make minor tweaks since it was launched over a year ago.

I know it can be frustrating to myLot users when their star-ratings go down. If your star rating goes down, then your first reaction might be, well how did that happen? The system must be broken!

You, the myLot users, control the ratings of the other users. Your reputation is a measure of how you're perceived by the community as a whole. The algorithm is smart, and it includes many factors to ensure the system is reliable and fair.

Wow, thank you so much for the explanation. I've always believed that the ratings are accurate, so it only means that it's those other members that rates us negative that causes our ratings to go down. Well, aside from the deletions of the discussions we start, comment and/or responds to..

Crash,

I hate to say I disagree, I think the star rating system would be a lot more accurate if you would allow people who do not respond to a post allow to rate a negative without a valid reason, just disagreeing is NOT a valid reason to mark someone a negative.

Thus a lot of people suffer from people who follow a person and their discussions around and mark them all negative just because they didn't like or agree with one post, I don't see that this makes the star rating system accurate.

Mooch

im sorry crash but i agree with oneandonemakesix..there was once a huge disagreement with my friend and in return she and her mom and friends on mylot attacked me and gave me neg ratings..and it went from a 10 for a year straight to a 4..and there are many many people that if they dont disagree just give out neg marks..and thats not how it should be used..and its just not me..but many other users from posts i have seen..and i agree with six..that if u dont post under that thread no one should be able to rate anyone..thanks for listening..have a good one!

I am confident in my responses to questions about the Discussion Rating System under this and other responses. The behind-the-scenes granular data supports my contentions.

Disallowing non-participants from rating would be counter-productive. Then you would (or should) never seen any negative ratings.

If there is a discussion, comment, or reponse that you feel contributes negatively to the myLot community, you should rate it negatively and NOT participate in that discussion.

I'm sorry crash but I have to agree with oneandonemakesix and cloud kicker..I feel that the rating system can be abused by members. I also feel to make it more accurate that mylot should only allow members who answered the discussion to rate that discussion otherwise it's not fair.

Hey I had that doubt too.Thanks crash for solving it and thanks raijin for the question.

"If there is a discussion, comment, or response that you feel contributes negatively to the myLot community, you should rate it negatively and NOT participate in that discussion."

I guess that explains it, but lucky for me I don't rate negative but just leave it to you guys (admin)..

>Disallowing non-participants from rating would be counter-productive. Then you would (or should) never seen any negative ratings. <

I rarely rate negative, as it is, but when a person lets take abortion for example, takes a hard stand for it or against it, and someone with the opposite view point strongly disagrees, no matter how well written and how articulate that post is, I hae to say right now that there are those that get their friends to gang up on that person and litterly follow him around and the discussions a negative, and their stars go from 8s to 2s over night, I've seen it happen several times on mylot......

just because you disagree with a person doesn't mean you should rate them a negative....and get your friends to do it.



Mooch

I think there should be TWO separate star rating system, one specifically for the discussions made and two for the poster, inorder to solve this situation of people just giving negative ratings because of opposing opinions.

Just to help let Mylot know a lot of people feel this way about the rating system I have to agree with oneandonemakessix too.
Though it's never happened to me I've seen people who always give intelligent articulate response's star ratings drop over night for no apparent reason. The fact anyone can rate anyones response makes it too easy for an organised group of people to go round and negatively rate all of someones responses and cause their star rating to drop. I've seen good members leave mylot altogether over this sort of thing and it's bad that it goes on, it is after all a type of cyber bullying and Mylot should take strong action against people found to be doing it.
Perhaps Mylot staff like yourself should have some sort of warning system installed in the admin area so if someone suddenly starts receiving a lot of negative ratings over night you can go and check if the responses that got these negative ratings really deserved it. If not you could caution or even ban the people giving these negative ratings (as I bet you will find it is the same group of people). I for example only ever give a negative rating if someone has given a one line or three word response, and I leave a comment asking the person to elaborate to get them to say more hoping they will learn from the experience. I wouldn't give a negative rating because I don't agree with what someone said, or even if the say something a bit rude. In that situation I give a comment defending my opinion and have a discussion, that is what Mylot is for after all.
Something needs to be done as people are scared to express their honest opinions in case they get picked on and that is not what Mylot is all about. We should be free to debate and even disagree on some things in a mature manner that doesn't end up in name calling and mass negative ratings.

I'm totally with Mooch on this one.
Some people are just petty and go around cyberstalking users with their little minus-rating vendettas. There's got to be some give there.

I have one suggestion.

If a person is giving (-)ve rating to a person for say more than 10 times without giving any post. S/He must be asked a valid reason for it.

or

Mylot can restrict any user from giving (-)ve rating to certain limit, say 10-20 per post.

Like I now can rate negative to Crash for 10 times only. Once I will reach that 10 mark, I can't make any (-)ve rating against crash.

I think this way we can make star system a bit fairer.

Cheers!

This is the very reason why we stayed away from mylot for so long, crash. Sad but true. I have friends who were harassed by others who knew how to use that instrument to bring down a person. When we "retaliate" by discussing it thru opening discussions, these discussions were deleted. what kind of a system is that? I would rather see that discussion stay there than for it to be deleted just because somebody reported it without anyone investigating what happened. We do not live in russia, crash.

I am sorry if this is the opening or the welcome you get here, it should have been happier. it has been so long that we are complaining and nothing is happening. Once in a while, I go back to see what is new and the same discussions abour deletions are here. Definitely, money is not the issue here to many who went away.

I also have to agree with oneandonemakesix. Also, the accuracy of the stars and reputation has always been skewed from the get-go due to the fact that there were and still are so many members that "copy and paste" snips of text they never wrote themselves. Meaning they are getting credit for quality discussions and responses; hence, their little stars are higher numbers. It's hard to report all those members that still do that. So you do stumble on numerous members that have these high rated stars yet they received them for words they didn't take the time to write themself.

I learned early on to stop using the stars to help me weed through interesting and quality discussions--it doesn't work. Plus, the "+" and "-" system gets abused and misused like oneandonemakesix said.

thank you for your response. it was very informative. I love reading and feeling more aware of my environment.

Crash, your above post is the most narrow-minded and fascist comment I have ever heard! When "reputation" is measured by the perception of those known to be very narrow-minded and misinformed, then fairness is out of the question. Therefore, to base the reputation of any system on the whims of fascists is neither accuracy nor reliability!

True, there are myloters that cruise discussions looking for discussion topics and responses and/or comments they do not agree with and report such as "offensive"! I have always believed that Mylot is sponsored by some bunch with a political agenda, and their agents would report any opinion other than theirs as being offensive!

I have not only seen very intelligent discussions deleted, I have also seen very intelligent, informative and very revealing responses and/or comments disappear, and Myloters (as if intimidated by previous experiences) avoid very stimulating discussions that are very likely to produce very revealing and informative responses! As a matter of fact, few days ago, they deleted my responses to discussions
"Jenny McCarthy blames Vaccines for her child's Autism?" - http://www.mylot.com/w/di... Those with an Interest in Autism" - http://www.mylot.com/w/di...

My responses you now see at the very bottom of these discussions are my repostings! Yes! Whenever I discover my response(s) or comment(s) to a discussion is missing, I simply repost! I remember seeing my rating go from 9 to 2 overnight, after I responded to a discussion on WMD by factually stating that:
1). If Iraq has or had WMD, then we are never to forget that the WMD was originally given to Iraq by the USA for the purpose of destroying Iran (during the Iraq/Iran war). Why was it not considered dangerous then?

2). If Iraq or any other nation has or wants WMD, then it is because neither the USA nor Russia (both yet to comply, after more than 30 years, with signed treaties on WMD) nor Israel would comply with the NPT! ETC. (Laughs)

Everlasting, you and yours are never to be intimidated by fascists! Whenever anyone uses some cheap trick on you, simply fire back the same tactic! Never let anyone dictate your perspective about life!

Mylot is a forum consisting of contributors with various religious and socioeconomic backgrounds from all around the world and, often, with different priorities in life. Now, anyone with the least commonsense knows that there are bound to be various viewpoints on about any issue, when more than one person is concerned. It does not take a rocket-scientist to figure that one will most likely be encountering the "one man's meat, another man's poison" scenarios here.

Mlw32785 and Everlasting, did you all noticed that my response (posted before mlw32785's) suddenly disappeared? (Laughs) Well, I just reposted!

Honestly, this is actually pretty easy. We try to stay out of it. We don't care who is right or wrong. In fact, most times people are sharing opinions, so there isn't necessarily a right or a wrong.

We care about people treating each other with respect. If we become aware of disrespectful behavior, then we handle it accordingly.

If you feel someone is flaming you, your best bet is to use the "report abuse" option. Don't get into a public argument in the discussion area. No one wants to read that, and more often than not, it will end up deleted anyway, since this is against the myLot Community guidelines.

Feel free to defend your position if you're in a healthy debate, but if it ever turns into flaming, your best bet is to walk away, and the community will judge the other person with negative feedback.

That is great to know. I have friends you Know that their star rating is going down because of a person marking everything they write with - . I told her to report the person. It is good to know I suggested the right thing.

Only problem with that is we can't prove a person is marking us with a minus, only mylot admin know that. I've also heard before that it would take a lot more than one person doing it to make your star rating drop dramatically so people must be organizing groups of people to do it.

Now this one is good advice. It is hard to walk away from someone flaming or taunting you, but if you can walk away you are the one on top. They can sit there sputtering to themselves and make a total fool of themselves lol.

Go to this page:

http://www.mylot.com/nr/editprofile.aspx

And click on "allow mature content" towards the bottom. I think that will take care of it for you.

yes even i think thats the reason....

i would like to know this as well..it's very confusing.

I think everybody is curious to know this, how is make the counts for the worth of each post

This depends on a LOT of factors. Our proprietary algorithm places a derived value on every question, comment, and response. The higher the perceived value, the more we will pay.

Put another way, we don't "pay per post". We reward our members based upon their contributions. Some contributions are worth more than others!

Would that mean that a post with a one line answer might not get paid at all?

"Perceived value" by whom? Mylot and its sponsors have agents that cruise discussions looking for anything that they allege is offensive because of difference in opinion and penalize the contributors by lowing their ratings and deducting earnings! "Lot of factors" indeed!

When "reputation" is measured by the perception of those known to be very narrow-minded and misinformed, then fairness is out of the question. To base the reputation of any system on the whims of fascists is neither accuracy nor reliability! But as one Myloter already said, all these reflects on Mylot, not the contribuitor!

And Aussies2007, not necessarily: Simply respond to discussions that do not address anything that matters and you will be okay, regardless of the length of your response!

i even want that mylot should tell us how do we know that how much are we getting paid for per reply mylot can also keep a condition as per the lines written for per disscussion n also that the amount we earn from the uploading of the pictures should be cleared also

In the beginning, it was all about traffic, but now we're very interested in revenue generation.

100% of our revenue is generated through advertising on myLot. This will be the source of revenue generation in the future as well.

Obviously, the more people we have on myLot, the more potential revenue we can generate, so now that we have our key advertising relationships established, it's all about growing myLot.

Thanks Crash for your prompt reply!

Can I add a question? May I know how big a family is the myLot team?

Around 15.

i was looking for this one thanks to ask
& i hope it will be nice revenue

And of course, Higher Revenues also mean that we Members also get more here on Mylot!

Great question, and I want to be very clear on this one.

It is IMPOSSIBLE for any one myLot member to sabatoge another myLot member's star rating.

Let's take your example where a member goes around and rates all of your discussions negatively. This behavior is tracked and noticed, and that users ratings are rendered virtually worthless in our system. Not only will their ratings become irrelevant to you, but their ratings will become irrelavent to any dicusssion in the future as well.

Internally, we call this "trust". In a nutshell, certain members can be trusted with their pluses and minues. Others cannot. Some "trusted" raters are more trusted than others. Etc. etc.

The best way to ensure a high star rating is to stay out of poor quality discussions. Those tend to get rated negatively by a higher number of people.

I had the same thing happen to me at one point, and it seemed as though one particular member had pushed my rating down drastically. If it is not possible for a single member to push our ratings down alone, perhaps they got together with a few of their friends.

That would be caught too:)

Thanks for clearing That up. So it is the ultimate what comes around goes around.

Well then how can a persons rating number go down so much in one day? I haven't had a discussion deleted as far as I know or a response so how could my rating go down 10 points or more in one day. Are you saying that I got a bunch of negative ratings from numerous people?

My theory on Chrislotz's question is that the star rating is based on a percentage of plusses (with a moderation figured in based on the reliability of the rater). If one's activity is at a steady rate but then one posts a lot of discussions and responses all at once, one's star rating can go down simply because all of that activity hasn't yet been rated.

glad you cleared things up... thanks crash! i don't really have a specific question coz some might have asked it already... i'll just read along...
it's just good to know that there's someone here who's like an administrator in mylot... thanks

XOXOX

If it is so easily caught, then why has my star gone from a blue 10 to a white 7 in a blink of an eye. I know that Admin. knows who the troll is and I have asked for assistance in PMs to no avail. To me the star is not so important. It is the principle of the whole thing. It is the rudness with which I have been treated when I have done nothing wrong. There are others who have been treated this way too. Trolls can slip in and destroy someone just for fun and not have any reprocussions.
Shalom~Salaam~Peace

I too have dropped a few points, my reaction has been I must have done something wrong. However, if it is not one person that can do this, what is admin doing about groups of people getting together in private and planning a campaign against a user, this has certainly happened
blessed be
p.s
what a good idea this is

Hello Crash!

I'll ask my 'proper' question later but you got me thinking over here:

"Let's take your example where a member goes around and rates all of your discussions negatively. This behavior is tracked and noticed, and that users ratings are rendered virtually worthless in our system."

Does it imply, by extrapolation, that any user going around giving enormous numbers of "positive" ratings will also be rendered as NOT trustworthy? because some of my friends' ratings were damaged by some people and I had considered it a friendship gesture to give them 700-1000 positive ratings in a single day on their older posts. And, I didn't tell them about it. There ratings did improve 2-3 points, the following day, which was less than what they had lost, which I understand, mathematically.

So, should I take it that I am too not trusted because of this behavior!?

PS: I never did it for rating someone negative. In fact, my negative ratings, in all my time here, can be counted on fingers.

Excellent question, Kamran! I was wondering the same thing, and for the very same reason.

Thank you for posing this question.

Crash is not going to answer a question inside of a question.

Thank you ladyluna, it did bother me actually and if so, which I hope is not the case, it would appear that reputation can be damaged by bullies but can NOT be enhanced by friends!


you are right Adoniah, but I thought that as Crash has responded to a relevant question within a question (just above this question), so it might work.

I would think that Crash would welcome the opportunity to set the record straight on this issue. Particularly since the responsible use of the ratings system is not only a liberty granted by the MyLot Administration, but has been identified as a component of the earnings algorithm, and is a part of the necessary stewardship function for this Community.

I think the rating system is just fine the way it is, I don't understand what all the whining is about.

All he said is that a serial negativist will get caught never mind someone that gives minus in that discussion and asks friends to do the same, unless you know a way to know how have you been rated and by who.

I'm just glad that we are all being monitored here. It just means that mylot is A LOT more...Good luck to all of us guys! Let's all enjoy being here...;)

myLot.com is owned and operated by myLot, LLC based in the great state of Kansas. I am certainly a key part of myLot, but we have a lot of talented people who've worked hard to create and maintain this community.

This is going to sound corny, but you guys are the true "people behind myLot". Without the countless contributions from our members, our neat little website would be just a bunch of neat computer code we wrote.

I don't see us hiring people from a different country in the near future. We do, however, outsource various tasks from time-to-time, and some of those relationships have been with foreign entities. But mainly, it's just us here in Kansas for now.

Thank you very much for answering my questions... i love mylot very much and i intend to stay for a very long time...

If in case you need non-americans for like survey or something... i would be glad to help out...

KUDOS TO MYLOT!!!

grins, it is a bit corny. thks, it is nice to know the 'faces' behind this great prog.

Great answer! I am wondering if you shouldn't change your avatar to an elephant, Crash ('The corn is as high as a elephant's eye ...')!

Kansas huh, well hello there neighbor. You are giving mylot a face, a personality of it's own, with this Q and A discussion. It is very helpful to know that this is not just a computer program someone wrote going wild. LOL

I agree with others who have said that your willingness to answer questions and disclose more about who is involved on your team does add a personal touch to Mylot. It is a good site and you are all doing an excellent job.

Anybody internally at myLot is an Administrator. We all have full moderating power, as well as the power to do anything else on myLot (I could turn the logo orange if I wanted too!).

There are a handful of moderators, and I expect this number to grow in the future.

For the most part, we feel it's important to separate the role of moderator and myLot member, which is why we don't publicize who the moderators are.

I believe that the moderators should remain anomynous for obvious reasons but also a couple of trained users to have access to mods/admin to be able to help answer valid questions, similar to what you are doing now.

I whole heartedly agree that the mod/Admin should not be known. What do the Moderators do? Yes we are self administrating because we report and or rate, but what are the functions? Do they just maintain for abusers? Delete discussions and figure out who/what are quality responses? Do they decide who is banned?

Ok so you all say that mods should not be revealed!!
fair enough but what if you were to find out that the mods are actually members here who are on our friends list?
I think they are,the mods to you & i appear as just members,but they have been given admin rights,deleting banning etc..blah blah blah

Pammid, you're right that the moderators ARE members, but if they have the right to delete and ban...that was my question too. I guess I don't see that as being objective when relationships are formed between admin/mod and members.

Well really i would want to know if someone on my friends list is actually the one whos been deleting our posts or banning people without reason,we know thats happened.
That aint no friend,creeping about in the background lol
Aww i dunno Ljegbers.

Pammid, from what I understand the Mod's can't ban people, but they hold a lot of influance (sometimes incorrectly so) with admin according to what gets through the cracks and what doesn't.

I've heard all about self monitoring system and I don't think that's true. I've seen and followed innocent dicsussions and they've been deleted...where as others are reported and can continue to function on mylot and discussions don't get deleted.

It really is favortism and what group of people you know. It's a social network....sucks, but it still all comes down to who you know.

I was not online during the 48 hours. I think if there are hidden moderators appearing as users among us, it would be nice to know what your rules of professional conduct are for the mods.

Just because someone reports your discussion, doesn't mean it will automatically be deleted. In fact, a large portion of reported discussions are not deleted.

Discussions, comments, and responses are deleted when they're in violation of the myLot community guidelines.

I'd like to see more feedback given to myLot users in the future to explain exactly which guideline was violated, but as of right now, no such feedback system exists.

Ok. Thank you for answering me. It would be very nice to know the violations so we do not waste time doing it again.

Thanks.

Yes, this is also something that i'm interested in. But how about the posts without any responses? How long will it be before you delete it. Thank you so much for explainations.
Have a nice day!

Hello Crash, I would like to know something on this subjest too. It seemed some of my discussions were deleted, I was never told why just that they contained violations. After that I reread the guidelines and posted again making quite sure that there were no violations but those were deleted as well. Why? I also noticed that my discussions were deleted when other discussions with violations were left compleatly alone. Im thinking that there was a myloter who had it in for me and was reporting me no matter what I posted. I know you cant tell me who it is but can you at least tell me that my suspicion is founded or unfounded?
Thanks!

Crash,
I think a feedback system would be excellent. It would help members to understand why a dicussion and/or comment was deleted and thus learn as we earn.

The feedback idea sounds like a good idea. There have been numerous discussions lately about members complaining because discussion pertaining to the abuses of animals are considered left up while seemingly innocent discussions are deleted. Clarifying things for members could improve the quality of posts overall...and it that could continue to make things better for all concerned.

I would like to know this too
i dont think they should be hidden either
I would like to feel like if there is a problem I can go find a mod and resolve the issue quickly and fairly

it would sure beat waiting for days (and sometimes forever) for an answer or for help!

Thanks for the suggestion. Right now we feel it's best to keep those identities hidden. This could change in the future though.

When I handle abuse reports, I really like it when myLot members have done a ton of research and make it easy for us to identify members who repeatedly violate guidelines. Those users are more likely to get addressed quickly.

None of us like tattle-tails though. Make sure the member is actually violating guidelines. We're not going to ban someone just because of a disagreement. In fact, banning is the absolute last resort.

"In fact, banning is the absolute last resort"

I am very curious to see the answer to my question now that you said that

It would be nice to have a generic moderator username, that each of you at myLot (in Kansas) can keep up. This way, you are still technically anonymous in the myLot user aspect, while still "being there" to perform moderator functions for the rest of us. Just saying...

Am with you crush because am learning more from you since am just new here .
Have been waiting for long to get a discussion like this where you ask question with accurate answer.
Thanks once again for your answer.

Interesting compromise lisaviews

Personally I think it's not in the best interest of us members that are voted on by other members,we should not be given that burden, it should be solely on the Mylot team to rate us.Members will abuse just for the fun of doing it,that's way too much power being given us.

I would like to know how the mylot system validate their rating system.

I would like more money please.
Thanks.

I know someone who has been last resorted a lot,lol