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Hi all, my personal observation in the Image Index is that there is no mechansism to overweight recently acquired images against ten year old data. This will not enable active members to climb the ladder, but keep inactive members who haven't produced any relevant content since months or years in the high rankings. Is there anythting planned/possible to overcome this in my opinion misleading implementation? BR Klaus P.S. I tried to read the code provided by Astrobin, how the Image Index is calculated. But I would appreciate a publication which is readable and understandable by someone who has not studied computer science. |
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Hi Klaus, you can read more about the Image Index here: https://welcome.astrobin.com/features/image-index I don't plan on making changes to it as I prefer to focus on more important aspects of AstroBin, at this time. One day I'd like to remove the Image Index completely because I don't think that it adds a lot of value to AstroBin. It does provide some, but this value is also negated by the negative connotation of having a little number next to your name, which many people perceive as not very healthy. The Image Index was created when AstroBin was very young, and today with 13 years of experience running this community I might make different choices. Hope this helps! Salvatore |
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Hi Salvatore, thanks for your quick reply. If this metrics is out of date, what does you prevent from removing this feature immediately? It can belsimply deleted by one click. BR Klaus |
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Delighted to hear that @Salvatore Iovene is thinking of getting rid of it. Can understand the reasons why it was set-up, bit I don't think it now achieves what it sets out do it i.e. reward most active and most liked. By deleting images in a mistaken attempt to clear space on AB, my AB index changed substantially - so it is clearly manipulatable. @Salvatore Iovene rightly advised me to keep my images on AB (as they are all useful to others). But if I were really concerned about my AB index, I might be tempted not to. Although, since I am still a little hazy as to how my AB index is calculated, I wouldn't actually know how to manipulate my image content to increase my AB index. Like most other indexes, it also struggles with collaborations. There are a number of people with one (or few) image posts as a part of a collabration, that have a Top 500 AB index. All in all, the AB index is now so demonstrably ineffective at what it sets out to do that it doesn't bother me all. If I wanted a peer metric, I can always use likes. But this is a social media site, so any such metrics are only measures "likeability" or "notoriety" not excellence. For me, that is not what this site is about. I can understand why it is a low priority on Salvatore's to-do list. If it weren't for the fact that it appears next to my name on my home page, I wouldn't notice it at all. CS Brian |
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| It is my experience that image index can be cultivated. Meaning, follow and like a lot of people's images and get them to follow you and like your images. It is much more about social interaction and affirmation rather than objective excellence. |
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Arun H is correct. There is a strong social aspect inherent in the Index based on likes, members can choose to follow and be followed and to like and be liked. The more likes the higher the index score, someone with 350 followers will have a higher index number than someone with 35 followers, it's a matter of participation. I wonder if @Salvatore Iovene could institute an "opt out" option for the Index, similar to the opt out for the IOTD process. |
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Arun H is correct. There is a strong social aspect inherent in the Index based on likes, members can choose to follow and be followed and to like and be liked. Yes you can. I have made my index "non-visible" by checking the "I want to be excluded from competition" check box , this hides your index. Should you decide to opt into competitions your index will reappear... Find this in My settings/ Preferences  Check this box to be excluded from competitions and contests, such as the Image of the Day, the Top Picks, other custom contests. This will remove you from the leaderboards and hide your Image Index and Contribution Index. ... Dave |
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While deleting the code would be pretty easy and probably only a few hours of work, it can't just be done like that with no notice. The most difficult thing would the the communicative aspect. I know that many would like to see it gone and that it doesn't achieve its purpose fully, but I'm pretty sure that there will be hundreds of paying customers who would be awfully upset if the index was removed. I would understand that: they'd feel like something was taken away from them that they worked hard to build. So to do things a bit more cautiously I'd have to go be steps: 1. Poll the community to see how they feel about the idea 2. Remove it for new users 3. Offer an opt-out 4. If the community is in favor and people who are against are not so upset that they'd leave AstroBin altogether, encourage to opt-out and have a phase-out period This requires setting up polls, make sure people see them and answer them, sending out newsletter, add new code to allow the opt-out, add conditional logic in lots of places, make sure this logic doesn't break existing caching strategies, etc etc This gives you some insight as to why it's not just about deleting some HTML  Hope this helps! Salvatore |
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Salvatore Iovene: @Salvatore Iovene This is your site, and we subscribe based on the rules you set. FWIW, I would be happy with you making a unilateral decision here. If you poll, you set a precedent. As well as giving yourself and additional workload in an area which is not a priority for AB. And I doubt whether the results will be clear. As they say (at least in English), turkeys don’t vote for Christmas… CS Brian |
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Brian Boyle: True but when making a decision like this (removing a feature) I must consider things like "how many people will leave the site because they are upset by the change" and "how many people will join the site because they will be happy about the change". I can't know that if I don't ask beforehand. |
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| I am pretty much dead set against any changes which are subtractive in nature. Since you can opt out, opt out. |
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andrea tasselli: Yeah, and this is a very common point of view, I think. In the past, I've found changing anything very frustrating, even when arguably changing for the best, because I was faced with criticism from the "I want it back the way I'm used to" crowd. Subtractive change is even worse, from that point of view. I suspect this is why may popular websites are very minimalistic in terms of features: adding something poses the risk of flak should it need to be changed/removed in the future. |
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| I wouldn’t bother to modify it. For me, it is a point of curiosity and nothing more. But I know there are people for whom it does matter. People derive pleasure from this activity in different ways and it is fine to accommodate that. |
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I have never heard the term subtractive change before, but - as a scientist- I would generally welcome subtractive change on the “Occam’s Razor” principle - particularly when the thing being removed is wrong or redundant. I would advocate that most (at least in this thread) would argue that the AB index is redundant. And I would argue that it no longer sets out to “reward the most active and liked members of the community”. Certainly not the most active, since you can get a high AB index by simply having one image, usually courtesy of being part of an increasing number of collaborations. (In itself not a bad thing - merely inconsistent with AB index stated goals). If one doesn’t want to take anything away - how about adding an H-index as an alternative (N images with more than N likes)? It remains in widespread use in the scientific community as a mark of both productivity and quality. While, an H-index is “blind” to collaborations issue, it does incentivise publication (something I understand @Salvatore Iovene is keen to see). Yes it is inflationary, but in practice so is the AB index. It also can’t be manipulated upward (accidentally or otherwise) by editing your image gallery. Don’t know how easy it would be to implement (I don’t write software). Although not a priority, it might incentivise more images to be posted, further increasing the usefulness of this great site. |
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Hi Brian, given that I don't think the Index was a good idea to begin with anymore, I'm not keen on adding yet another metric. |
