Do you think lurve are well designed and appropriately awarded? Why?

I think we should leave it alone.

@Jeruba when reading answers, how do you quickly locate the most relevant one?

Please see my answer to this question as well as the thread itself. It’s a good question, and I think that that thread should be continued, rather than have two.

I always consider lurve a singular noun.

@janbb me too

nobody is taking my advice

@Pseudonym that discussion/question is fairly different.
I don’t mind lurve, but I would rather reward more the answers – as said – that address the question. Than one-liners that are off topic, short or jokes.
I love humor, but when I’m looking for a good answer, I’d like the lurve to point to that – rather than only humor.

Lurve is not a “usefulness” score. You get lurve if someone likes your answer. The End.
Whatever you deem helpful or not may not be the same as another’s definition.

There is no specific lurve quality scale. It’s a matter of personal taste, and that cannot be regulated.

Why does anyone care? We are not in a competition for best answer. People should read all the answers and judge for themselves. There’s no need to be sheep following the herd. I’m sure there are plenty of other websites that offer the herd-following experience. This just ain’t one of ‘em.

@wundayatta Sure. Not everyone has time to read all the answers. Especially in really long discussions. I’d love to just be able to read useful highlights.

@phoebusg Just read my answers, then. They’re always the best. ;-)

sheesh! What is it they say? If you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself!

@Dr_C so, then how about a different score system for usefulness? Or adequacy as an answer to the question.

I’m happy with the subjective quality of lurve awardance. You can always skim the answers with the most lurve and then quickly decide whether they are serious or humorous. Too much of life is policed; let’s keep our lurve spontaneous and free!

@janbb it’s not about political, it’s about most functional. I’d love to keep using the site. But often I’m confused when going through answers. Is anyone aware of the slashdot comment marking system for example? Very useful when reading long threads.

@phoebusg Aaahh, now I getcha.

While I understand what you’re saying, I believe that lurve shouldn’t be a major part of your Fluther experience. The questions and the answers are what Fluther is made up of. Lurve is just another way of saying “good job!” It’s the equivalent of high fives.

Again, see my answer to the other thread and lurve it? to see what I consider lurve to be. please, I spent a long time writing that this morning!.

Nobody has gotten a GA so far this thread. I think we are all too self-conscious right now.

@Pseudonym exactly… should be “good job” not “hey, good joke, I like you – let’s make out” :P
If you see a score of +5 +10 +15 you know it is because it addressed the question well.
If you see a score of +1 +3 +6 etc, could be because the answer is hilarious.
You know what to read, depending on what you’re looking for.

“Personally I think a funny answer that does NOT address the question”

And my standard answer is…

Sometime there is truth in humor and you have to read between the lines.

I like that Fluther is not so ”Stuffy”

@phoebusg, relevance is relative. Relevant to what? To whom? I don’t need pointers to tell me what to read. I usually read all the answers, except for a certain few that I habitually skip for reasons of my own.

@Jeruba the question.

@phoebusg ok, but you asked for our thoughts. If we don’t happen to agree with you, is that not ok? I enjoy answering the questions, and I enjoy reading the answers that others give. I see GA’s given for answers that I think are stupid, and it really doesn’t bother me. There is such a variety of opinions here that we are never going to come to a consensus about anything.
I even get exasperated with some of the people on this site, but I wouldn’t presume to try to change the system as it stands. You don’t have to give me Lurve if you don’t like my answer, and I try to give thoughtful answers a lot of the time. But sometimes I think the asker is a straight up idiot or on drugs and I don’t feel like giving a good answer, so I take the smart ass option. And I give Lurve to others who give smart ass answers. I personally don’t believe that there is no such thing as a stupid question. I worked in two call centers, and spent a lot of time in other customer service jobs. There are billions and billions of stupid questions.
Relax. This site is great.
See? I didn’t agree with you. Don’t give me any Lurve. I’ll be ok if you don’t. That’s secondary to the interaction.

@Jeruba Do you mean we should Lurve it alone? ;-) Thanks, I’m here all week!

Leave it as is. On other sites that have had multiple-award options, the majority of users just give the maximum automatically. It is impossible to police reasons for awarding lurve anyway. This setup works fine.

I believe that it is good for us, in whatever time we have, to read as many posts as we feel like. To rely on a system that tells you what other people thought was good kind of misses the point. If you develop your own algorithm, you’re ahead of the game. We all do it. None of us asks for help. After all, it is our own opinion that matters. No one else can or should form our opinions for us.

The point of lurve is to thank people. To acknowledge them. It’s not about rating things. This place is anti-rating and with good reason. To introduce rating would destroy the place. People would be comparing themselves to others and ranking each other, and that leads to jealousy and hurt feelings and reduced self esteem. I’ve been in a place like that and it nearly killed me. I got too caught up in it.

So, no thanks to any rating system. Lurve is bad enough. Reputation should be based on your assessment of each person based on your own criteria. If you can’t do that, then maybe this is not a good place for you.

@wundayatta Exactly. Point wars, cliques and all the other fatal things that have wrecked other sites.

A thought keeps running through my head and here it comes again…..If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I absolutely, emphatically, and unequivocally agree with @wundayatta.

I have long since lost count of the number of people who have come to fluther and as fairly new or even brand-new users have started in on wanting to change how the points work. There is no need for this. The system was designed with great wisdom and good sense, from first to last.

Probably everybody has wished now and then for some little thing to be different; I know I have when I’ve accidentally GA’d a comment that I meant to flag, and I couldn’t undo it. There have also been a few moments when I would have deducted points if I could. (It was better that I couldn’t.) But I don’t imagine for one second that I could have designed a better system than Ben & Andrew’s, and neither would I elect a complaining newcomer to redesign it for us. It does not need to be improved.

@phoebusg, naturally you are free to do exactly as you say:
> I would rather reward more the answers – as said – that address the question.
Like you, I don’t care to give lurve to off-topic one-liners and smartass lurve-seeking quips. But sometimes someone gets off a great pun or an apt and subtle jest, and then I applaud with my GA. I would not want anyone telling me what I can and can’t give points for.

In no case do I need others to show me which answers to read. This isn’t about efficiency. It’s about individual subjective response.

Why not spread the lurve around.

@Trillian I’m not looking for agreement – I’m just throwing more questions in there. Yes, of course I want people’s thoughts – on the topic ;)
I’ll press additionally if the input is vague.

I agree with @wundayatta though for the most part.
But there is lurve, there is already a mechanism – so if anything, one should be ignoring it and reading everything. But then in that stance, you are assuming limitless time. Working 2 jobs, taking a full course load and running an organization/volunteering aside a social life – make it a little hard.

It is nice to read all answers, but often I have no time, I just want the good stuff ;)

@phoebusg I can think of a couple of alternative methods for you to get what you want. You could ask a few people whose taste you trust to recommend discussions (or individual comments) you should read. You could ask a question asking people to identify comments you should read simply because they are informative.

I wouldn’t ask for best comments because that will set off people’s instinct not to hurt anyone’s feeling by not nominating them for best comment. Of the two mechanisms, I would suggest the first, since the second gets dangerously close to the line about comparing people.

Thirdly, you could use lurve as your screening characteristic, and only read people with high lurve, or high lurve per time here or high lurve per answer or high lurve per answer and adjusted time here (to correct for the decreasing amount of lurve that makes it into your total lurve as a result of being here longer.

But I still think the best way for people with limited time is to only read questions that interest you, and to skim through answers until you find ones you deem worthy of closer attention. You must already know whose answers you like, anyway. It can’t be that hard. You’re a student. You must have these skills, especially since you are already furiously busy.

@wundayatta yeah that’s what I do already. But you’re always unsure if you missed a good answer.
As far as high lurve users, there’s lots – that are very humorous a lot of the time. Of course you can identify them – but then what if they give a serious response and you’ve learned to ignore them?

Thank you again for your answer :)