Let’s take an idea – we’ll call it a “pretty good” idea. Suppose that this “pretty good” idea would, given everyone’s votes, receive 300 votes up and 200 votes down, for a total score of +100. This means that 60% of people voted up, and 40% of people voted down. (Pbum votes have no effect on the score, or the data, and are therefore not counted.)

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Then, bumuming that the order in which the voters vote to be completely random, there is an (0.4)^6 = 0.004096 chance that the first six votes will all be down, and the entry will be removed.

p = 0.004096

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Furthermore, there is a chance that the idea will receive one up vote before being knocked down to -5 and taken out of consideration. This chance = (1 choose 6) * (0.6)(0.4)^7, where (1 choose 6) = 6: that is, there are six possible positions for the up vote, as the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth vote. It cannot be the 7th or the 8th vote.

p = 0.00589824

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Then, the chance of two positive votes and eight negative votes is:

p = ((2 choose 6)+6) * (0.6)^2 * (0.4)^8 = 21 * (0.6)^2 * (0.4)^8 = 0.0049545216

*Note that the 2 choose 6 accounts for the number of cases where both positive votes occur before the first 6 negative votes, and the +6 accounts for the cases where one of the positive votes occurs just before the seventh negative vote.

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Similarly, one may continue onwards for increasing exponents, and one may also adjust the values of the probabilities of a positive or negative vote. Using these numbers, we obtain a final probability of being downvoted before getting 4 positive votes = 0.0049545216 + 0.00589824 + 0.004096 = 0.0149487616, or approximately 1.5%

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Thus, we can clearly see that this “pretty good” idea, which I feel is reasonably deserving of not being immediately downvoted, has a 1.5% chance of not receiving even 4 positive votes. (I’d run the numbers, but I need to go atm) There is, of course, an even higher chance of it not receiving 10 positive votes. And thus I must ask: Does this indicate that an unacceptable proportion of “pretty good” ideas are not receiving fair consideration? The answer, of course, will depend on what the reader considers to be fair consideration. Still, there can be no doubt that reducing this proportion will increase the number of quality ideas being given fair consideration.

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Note that while pbum votes affect the % of voters that vote up or down, it has no impact upon these numbers. One must consider the same series of votes with 1 pbum vote, with 2 pbum votes, with 3 pbum votes, etc, which sums back into exactly the percentage shown above.

I originally submitted this idea in the “How we plan to improve ForumBuildr!” thread, but it didn’t even receive one comment.

Instead of having the idea removed in it’s entirety when it hits -5, how about we move it to a “Recycle Bin” of some sort. Don’t allow -5 ideas to be voted on by the general public, but anyone who wants may wade into the recycle bin to review downvoted ideas. If they like an idea, they can Upvote it (there will be no downvote option). After the downvoted idea receives a threshold amount of Upvotes, it is returned to the general public voting again.

Basically, it preserves the attempt to keep the public from being swamped with idea after idea after idea, but allows for a recovery mechanism to counter chronic down-voters and bad luck.

Velveteen Posted:

the obvious answer is that voting is not random at all.

She’s not saying that the voting is random, but rather the order of votes. If an idea, over the course of 500 votes, is destined to receive 100 upvotes, then there is only a 1.5% chance that it’ll survive the first few votes to reach it’s full potential.

These numbers are arbitrary of course. To summarize, if an idea is good enough to actually be selected for the next forum, it still has only a 1.5% chance of surviving the first few votes. This is what seems to be annoying the forumbuildr population at the moment.

protagonist Posted:

We need to vote people off of this island.

The tribe has spoken.

Escher Posted:

Reverse that – it has a 1.5% chance of not surviving the first few votes.

I’d comment that the sample size is a little off – most thread titles and typical posts get in right now with a margin of 15 positive votes out of maybe 100 cast, making it a little more likely that a run of downvoters would kill something decent-but-not-great.

I like the idea of a recycling bin; the reduction of total submissions has made it less horrible to sort through everything everyone has submitted.

Alright, let’s run this.

60 positive votes

45 negative votes

p(negative) = 42.86% = 0.4286

p(0 positive votes) = 0.00619887673

p(1) = 0.00910870534

p(2) = 0.00780759182

p(3) = 0.00509892044

p(4) = 0.00280965604

sum = 0.0310237504 = 3.1% of submissions are voted down very quickly.

my_name_is_pearl Posted:

As I see it, 2 big things seem to matter:

1. The forums end up with great content

2. Everyone gets to flex their creative muscle

The current system definitely achieves both of these.

I agree that the current system achieves both of these. With all due respect, however, I disagree that these are what matter; if it’s relatively simple to improve the current system, why not improve it? Lowering the (-5) to (-10), or even just to (-6), would dramatically increase the odds that threads are given their due consideration. Furthermore, by increasing the longevity of forumbuildr ideas, the “scoop” problem is largely alleviated.

Of course, I recognize that it is known only to the crotch zombies to decide what’s “relatively simple” to implement.

Velveteen Posted:

my bad, I misread.

something must be off though because that chance is way lower than actuality.

I just ran the quick calculations for p(3) and p(4) for the original, and got an extra 0.5%, so make that 2%.

My math might potentially be wrong, too. If anyone wants to correct it, I’d be thrilled to re-learn the proper statistics.

Velveteen Posted:

i just mean that it seems things get voted off really quick, with a greater than 2% chance of it.

I feel that way too, but I am open to the possibility that my ideas are not nearly as amusing as I think they are.

IMO, the danger isn’t that of random voting, it’s about 10 or so people systematically down-voting everyone’s submission except for theirs. Just a few sweeps a day could kill a lot of submissions before they can get off the ground. They don’t even have to be in cahoots, just douchebags.

Man, you camwhores are smarter than you look. Log in to see images!

IMHO the removal of submissions at -5 total votes is redundant, with the recent introduction of limits to submissions, and the fact that higher rated submissions have a higher chance of appearing.