Posted by Chris on April 19, 1999 at 15:41:29:
Hank and I are co-workers and I have been helping him from time to time to come up with new ideas for the Where's George site. A few weeks ago, Hank asked me to work on a new way to rank the Where's George users. I've heard that some users are confused and others upset about the new ranking system. Hank asked me to post to the forum to explain why I chose the ranking formula as I did. Hank may have additional comments that he would like to post as well.
I came up with the following formula to determine each user's point total:
((hit ratio)*100) * (number of hits) * (inactivity multiplier)
The hit ratio was multiplied by 100 to bring the point total number into a more user-friendly range (1000 pts vs 10 pts). The inactivity multiplier is currently:
1 - ((user's consecutive days of inactivity)/90)
While developing the point formula, I wanted to:
A) Give more credit to users with higher hit ratios
(e.g. if two users each had 30 hits, the user with the higher hit ratio should be ranked higher) This led to my including the hit ratio (multiplied by 100) in the point formula.
B) Give credit to users who has more bills entered.
(e.g. if two users each had a hit ratio of 3%, the user who had entered more bills should be ranked higher) This led to my including the number of hits (user with more bills entered would obviously have more hits) in the point formula.
C) Bring an element of chance into the ranking system
It is up to chance whether or not a user's bill is reentered at the Where's George site.
D) Discourage users from cheating to gain a spot in the Where's George top 10. No single easily calculated statistic on this site could be used to rank users without encouraging people to cheat to gain entry into the elite spots in the rankings.
E) Encourage users to continue to enter bills at Where's George. If a user stops entering bills, their 'days of inactivity' number will increase and their point total will drop. They can return to the site and enter another bill and their points will be returned to them (i.e. their multiplier goes back up to 1). This also prevents any one user from gaining the top spot (say, by entering 100,000 bills) and then quitting, leaving the other users to get discouraged and quit as well. While this has not been implemented yet, I would eventually like to see a Where's George Hall of fame page that would list the users whom, had they remained active, would have been in the top 10 of all time.
F) Allow fluctuation in the daily rankings.
As users enter more bills, become inactive, and get more hits, the daily rankings should start to fluctuate. A user entering new bills will see their point total go down temporarily, but seeing as most everyone's hit ratio remains constant, that user should get more hits and their point total should go up, to a total even higher than their previous total.
G) Align the ranking system with the true nature of the site. As we all know, Where's George was designed to track bills and see where they go. The old ranking system encouraged people to enter bills but did not support the 'hits' side of the game.
It is true that a user's rank could go up if they just stop entering bills and wait for the hits to roll in, but with the inactivity multiplier, that user should slowly drop down in points as they stay inactive.
To respond to those who were upset about the change in the ranking system: please remember that it is still possible to go to the top 10 users page and sort based on the different statistics presented there. By clicking on total bills entered, you can see the rankings based on the old system. Also keep in mind that many of the users who were in the original top 10 remained in the new top 10.
Give the new ranking system a little time. There may be some inactive users currently in the top 10. These users should slowly slip out and will be replaced by active users.
I welcome any feedback, comments or suggestions. I will respond to email, but I must warm you that I will be out of the country for two weeks starting this Wednesday (the 21st). I will respond to any emails received while I am away when I return.
Chris