As promised, I’ve launched the new Member Directory – you can get to it any time by clicking on that new “Members” tab in the global navigation. With the Member Directory, there’s a few ways to find a member – alphabetically by username, username search, and a new and interesting method, a “faceted search” by profile stats. This method allow you to locate members by location, areas of specialty and/or interest, and industry status. Note that only members who have filled out some or all of their public profile can be located using the faceted profile search. So, if you want people to be able to find you based on your profile criteria, you’ll need to fill out your public profile asap.
The other new feature is a way to view Top Contributors to Swaylock’s based on points. There are two views: top contributors for the last week and top contributors all time. This system is our way of recognizing members who
contribute the most to the community. It’s not a perfect system, but
our hope is that it will give a reasonable representation of top
contributors. We will be modifying this formula as we go depending on
how the community evolves.
I agree w/ Reverb, it seems that points are given for quantity not quality of contributions. People who like to argue over everything and people who respond to every thread without saying much aren’t at the top of my list of good contributors.
Thanks for the feedback. I see your point – however, with all due respect, your list of “good” contributors is pretty subjective, no?
Look, sure, some of the folks you describe will make it to the top of the list, but so will members who contribute less frequent, high quality content – at least that’s what the goal of the system is. That’s why I have 5 points for getting a compliment (“prop”) and only one for making a forum reply. If you think someone needs more recognition for a “good” post, give them a prop or two. If you have other ideas of how good contributors could also percolate to the top of the list, please let me know.
As I said, it’s not a perfect system – nor will it ever be because of the subjectivity thing – but the system will evolve with new ways of getting points, different valuations, etc. Coming down the pike? High points for submitting a glossary entry. High points for submitting videos…etc etc.