August 23, 2008

• In Defense of Recommendations

  Now *some* people who shall remain nameless have decided to criticize
  the recommend system. Now I’m not saying anything bad about *those*
  people cuz I just wrote a whole post about how everyone should feel
  fine about criticizing any aspect of Xanga they want in any language
  they want.
  
  
  
  But even though I’m definitely not criticizing you, and I totally
  respect your opinion to say whatever you want, I will say this:
  
  
  

  If you don’t like Recommends you are a nutcase!
  

  (joking)
  

  
  
  But really, I think the recommend system is awesome. Sheer awesomeness.
  It is the best system Xanga has come up with yet for evaluating the
  quality of a post. I think it could be made even better but I wouldn’t
  get rid of it for the world.
  
  
  
  Now there are two regularly given criticisms of the recommend system. They are:
  
  
  
  1. People Recommend STUPID stuff that pisses *me* off
  
  2. Recommends cause fights over what gets recommended
  
  
  
  The people recommend stupid stuff critique is fascinating in that although it highlights a proposed flaw in the system, it is rarely
  explicitly leveled at the system itself. Rather it is leveled at the
  people doing the supposedly “bad” recommending. The posters say things
  like “What the heck is wrong with people recommending me all this
  crap?” And then they go into great detail explaining exactly what
  should be recommended and what should *not* be recommended according to
  their own brilliant evaluation system.
  
  
  
  Or else they just say vaguely ” only recommend me stuff that is good!” 
  Of course completely forgetting the simple and obvious fact that not
  everybody thinks the same things ARE good.
  
  
  
  The second critique is more serious. Here we are saying posts like the
  above, and comments, and arguments over what gets recommends has a
  destructive impact on the community. It raises tensions and lowers the
  level of dialogue. People stop talking about content and focus on the
  crazy fight over what is and is not recommendation worthy. And
  ultimately people end up de-friending and unsubscribing one another in
  a fit of rage or disgust over some recommendation whoha.
  
  
  
  Now the interesting thing about both of these criticisms are, they are
  actually describing precisely how the system was designed to work!
  
  
  
  “What huh?”
  
  
  
  You see, recommendations were created to fit a specific evaluation gap
  based on the idea of accountability of evaluation and visibility of
  evaluation. The star system was seen as flawed because it was too
  anonymous. The eProp system didn’t work because it was too
  insignificant and invisible. So they decided they wanted a system that
  would be the exact opposite, a highly visible system that created heavy
  accountability. There would be a *cost* associated with saying
  something is good and abuse of said system would be to your detriment.
  You’d lose subscribers and you’d lose friends if you didn’t recommend
  wisely since nobody wants to get spammed with recommendations they
  aren’t interested in.
  
  
  
  So actually it can be said that the recommendation system was from the
  get go supposed to result in people writing warning posts saying stuff
  like “stop recommending me stupid shit!” And then when people still
  recommend stupid stuff it would result in un-subscriptions and de-friending,
  in effect people would “vote with their feet” and congregate on the
  blogs that have the best content AND select the best content to be
  recommend worthy. As a result, recommends of a like kind would cluster
  around people with like interests bringing closer community bindings.
  People who love comedic blogs would subscribe to other comedic blogs
  and recommend other comedic blogs and so on. And if those same people
  hate emotional blogs, they’d unsubscribe to those who post emotional
  blogs and recommend emotional blogs. 
  
  
  
  And the general interest blogs, the blogs that have broad ranging
  appeal would get recommends from everyone. And nobody would complain
  about them or unsubscribe because they were recommended. We could
  expect them to bubble up to the top and then ultimately they’d get
  accolades and get featured and whatnot.
  
  
  
  And when you really think about all that, it’s actually pretty damn clever system isn’t it?
  
  
  
  But the fundamental aspect of this is that it changes the way Xanga
  works on a more fundamental level than eprops or stars ever did. Now
  recommendations have a huge impact on what gets read and by whom and
  when. You never had to *see* a five star entry unless you specifically
  chose too look up things by star rating. Likewise with high eprops or
  comment count entries. Recommends are different. Recommends are in your
  face getting delivered to you universal inbox day after day.
  
  
  
  Recommends have no rules or guidelines to them. Some people annoyed
  with the system try to impose guidelines on others to say what they
  should or should not recommend, but these meta declarations are
  non-binding. People can recommend solely based on a singular internal
  principal: “Do I want others to read or take note of this post or not?”
  
  
  
  So no wonder some people find this disconcerting. It’s a very
  democratic and open system. It grows and evolves based on how it is used. But like other open systems, like email, and the internet itself it can sometimes
  seem like an overly chaotic system. It empowers undesirable uses just as much as it does the good.

  Does this lower the level of
  dialogue? Maybe for some. But on the large scale it radically increases
  exposure to high quality content. It enables people to more effectively
  get their thoughts and ideas out and to find those same high quality thoughts and ideas. It shrinks the scale of Xanga (flattens the world in a sense) making
  Xanga feel like a smaller more close knit community.
  
  
  
  And in a sense even the meta-dialogue *about* recommends is a very good
  thing for the community even it gets a little heated at times. It gets
  people talking about what counts as good blogging? What do Xangans
  value in their blogs? What makes a blog popular and what gets us to
  read something? It’s a very important discussion to be having I think,
  since Xanga does position itself as a community rather than just a
  random collection of web pages. And communities naturally evolve to
  develop values and traditions. These values are only just and
  representative when they arise through open communication and
  discussion by the Xangans themselves.
  
  
  
  So I *like* recommends. I have a number of suggestions for how I would
  make recommends even better but I’ll leave those for another post. But
  as it stands I think recommends are a great system and I really REALLY
  hope Xanga never scraps it or if they do that they replace it with
  something very similar.
  
  
  
  That being said… I’m a bit of a hypocrite, as I don’t particularly
  like having my own stuff recommended all the time. Too much attention
  produces too much stress and I’m not fond of it, especially when it is
  attention placed on an entry that might have been a little personal and
  I didn’t particularly expect to have public appeal. But sometimes I do
  like it when my stuff gets recommended. When it is stuff that I *want*
  more people to read. So I guess I’m a little conflicted. Anyway this is
  an entry I don’t mind getting recommended, I want others to read this and discuss it. Same goes with all the
  disagreeing entries I’m going to post today. So if you think I’m not
  spouting absolute nonsense and feel the urge to recommend by all means
  do so. I shall be forever grateful.

  
  
  

  • 4:56 pm
  • 3 Comments