Knowledge is not being rewarded.

Are receiving likes the reason for the green snot on the corner of my avatar? That would be my only reason for not liking likes.

 

@moonjump - no, that indicates that you are online

 

So... If I swing by the booth at GDC, can I spend my "likes" on unity shirts and stuff?

 

No but you can probably redeem it for free hugs.

We do have swag though

 

Free hugs? I'm a big spender.

 

I'm not really sure what the point of `liking` posts is anyway... it has no effect on which posts show first or any kind of trending of topics or anything like that.

 

Likes are powerful! Each one generates an Alert, and that draws attention to that behavior. Slowly, over time, it shapes what people do and don't post. Likes are tied to the science of the 5-1 rule (coaching, parenting, leadership) making it one of THE most effective tools for shaping behavior.

I use liberally (and unashamedly) to help promote a positive, helpful, and focused community (see the Game Design Forum for an example of its effectiveness).

PS - Expanding this to Karma may be both excessive and ineffective. Definitely a waste of resources.

Gigi

 

People are liking my dumbest posts. Not a great trend

 

I do think it is part of the economics of human nature to try to feel deserving of the things that they really need, while showing a lot of outward positive affect for certain things that they don't really, but make them feel good. You won't find ordinary people discussing how praiseworthy the engineers that designed and built their car are, but any half-a$$ed celebrity will get thousands of followers (and millions of likes). So if you want praise and reverence, don't give people what they really need, give them what makes them feel good

 

Narcotics?

 

As long as they never actually need it...

 

I get what you are saying in that if someone has asked for help and the OP and others find a reply particularly helpful it seems reasonable those people would Like it or say "Thanks!" For the most part this seems to be what is happening.

If someone makes a smartass reply and it gets 5 times as many likes well that is just human nature. Generally speaking people like comedy. They don't like being "so serious all of the time" and they are probably liking the smartass reply because they were thinking the same thing and / or got a laugh from reading it. When you look at it that way their Liking that reply is every bit as logical as the few people who liked the post that actually answered the question.

I suppose there may be a few people posting just to get likes recognition. The majority of us post to try to help someone or to get help or to share some interesting news or be a smartass and spread some cheer.

 

I've always thought it would be great if posts with over 3 (or some other number) likes were changed to a subtle background color of green or something different. That way when you're skimming through a thread you can just stop to read the posts that you know other people found to be helpful or funny or whatever.

 

Green snot means you're online lol

 

I only liked this post because you edited it.

 

Hang around here for a few months and you'll realise snide posts get the likes. In general no one is being mean, just trying to direct users to the learn section or google or the docs first. There are only so many ways to say this. So a clever way will often get likes.

When I post something like "you have no understanding of the fundamentals if programming. Go back and watch every video in the learn section" I'm not being nasty. I'm giving the best advice I can. The users that have followed this advice go on to become contributing members of the community. The ones that whine "but you know the answer, just tell me" or "I don't have time to watch videos" invariably never go on to be contributing members of the community.

Speaking of the learn section, would it be relevant to put up a video in the learn section on how to get more likes?

 

After the video on finding the Learn section, yes.

 

To be honest, I think this is getting a bit much lately to the point where some people are being mean.

A couple of days ago I saw a thread where someone asked a question and got something like a dozen responses just pointing them towards the learn section, doing so in increasingly... creative manners.

If you were a newbie and got a response like that what would you think of the community who did it?

And what did most of those posters think they were adding to the thread by joining in with their own link and competing for attention?

 

Why do you need a reward for contributing to a thread? Is not the reward all the other threads that you might not have contributed to? Every time I read something interesting or useful, or someone helps me solve a problem I've been having then that is effectively my reward for the occasional help I might give others. If you really have the need to be rewarded just think of it as a deferred reward system. Personally I never need thanks, I neither need nor want it. I like to leave my vanity for other aspects of my life, like remembering to wear clothes when I go out in public.

 

I do kind of agree. I also think this has been a case where a few have ruined it for the many. The handful who have shown up, posted entitled demanding posts "I am noob, give me stuff/scripts/tutorials and hold my hand" then subsequent threads that are asking for help at each step. While in the minority, they are the most memorable. When see a noob thread, I tend to just ignore it, under the assumption that as soon as they find out games are hard and no one is going to make it for them or hold their hand, they'll give up and go away. This isn't a good thing.

It would be great if the uber noob questions where just replied to with a friendly "welcome to the forums check out these resources..." And then locked. I agree they should not be chided (until they deserve it) from an inital post. By the same token, game dev is hard, and requires resourcefulness. If you can't figure out how to find answers or even bother to, you are already doomed to fail. The piling on and the mockery is funny to us because it is an ongoing thing. A new person won't get that and just think the place is full of dicks.

 

If the newbie actually went to the learn section and watched the videos there, they would come back able to start making real contributions. Most threads start with fairly gentle prompts to check out the learn section, as the newbs fail to comply the veterans get more and more irritated and sarcastic.

Spoiler: Recent example

Newb: I need some assets and a tutorial for my game
Veteran: Check out the learn section, there is a complete project there you can use. Look at the asset store too.
Newb: There is no tutorial for exactly what I want to make
Veteran: Did you try YouTube?
Veteran: Here is a link to a similar tutorial
Newb: That makes a game that looks different from the one I want to make
Veteran: Try google
Veteran: Here are a few steps to adapt it to your project
Newb: I still can't find the tutorial
Veteran: Do another search
Veteran: Heard of google?
Veteran: Shares lmgtfy link
Veteran: Stop being lazy
Veteran: General advice on learning
Newb: Fine, I'll do it on my own
Veteran: Try starting with a small project
Veteran: Stop wasting time and go do a search

Between the first post directing the newb to try the learn section and the user coming back and saying it didn't help was fifteen minutes. You can't tell me you can do even a cursory glance at the content in the learn section in this time. At a guess there is twenty plus hours of material there for a user to get started. This is required learning to understand the fundamentals. And without decent fundamentals you are screwed.

Come tell me you are still having issues after you've tried the learn section and I'll gladly help. But I really don't see why should I rewrite all of that information out in the learn section for every newbie that comes. As a community we don't have twenty hours to give each newbie the fundamentals of programming and game development. Any user that believes they can learn enough to make a large scale game after a fifteen minutes is doomed to fail anyway. If we can scare a few off with our threats of hard work then so much the better.

 

To me it's really not funny, though. It's negative for all involved. The newbie thinks game devs are a pack of jerks because of the bad experience, other newbies might see the threads and get turned off or away by them, and a bunch of people who have better use for their time wasted it getting cheap laughs at the expense of a community they should be helping rather than hindering.

Plus, we've no idea if someone's a kid who knows no better, an entitled doofus who genuinely expects others to do work for them, or (most likely) something in the middle. If they're on the former end of the scale then this could be the early interactions of someone who will grow to be a positive contributor not only here, but potentially to game dev at large. Sure, chances are slim, but slim is better than the nil it can all too easily be turned into.

Good question!

I for one didn't build up a decade of development experience so I could go and earn likes on a forum by giving it to others. I like giving it to others partly because it's rewarding in and of itself, and partly because I learned a lot from others and like to help others in return.

I also contributed a lot before there were likes (here or anywhere), so it's not even an influencing factor. I admit that in post, though, I do get mild warm fuzzies when I see that someone I respect has liked something I've written.

 

To be clear, I'm not talking about "threats of hard work", pointing people towards the documentation, or telling them to search for things they can reasonably be expected to find themselves. As I've said elsewhere on the forums, often an experienced developer will give genuinely good and well meant advice that could easily feel to a newbie like something else. I have no issue with that, and have given plenty of it myself (though I do try to mitigate potential negative interpretations).

Edit: Ok, I went and found the thread that caused this particular itch and, thankfully, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I remembered.

 

I'm definitely guilty of not taking into consideration that it could be a 13 year old on the other end of a silly question or comment. But I find a lot of newbie questions insulting. Whether that's just my hang up or not, I dunno. But I get the feeling that the title of programmer just isn't respected at all anymore. You don't see people saying, "Hey, I just bought this scalpel, can someone tell me how to do brain surgery" or "Hey I just bought Finale or Sibelius, can someone tell me how to compose a symphony like Beethoven's fifth?"

I'm not saying that programming is brain surgery, lest I offend any brain surgeons, but the point is that programming seems to be the only skilled field where people expect that having a tool is enough to make you a master right out of the gate. Unity makes game programming easier, like Sibelius makes music composition easier. But it doesn't make it easy, it doesn't remove the need for skill or hard earned knowledge.

It doesn't help that when you do try to be helpful, you often get resistance from the person you are trying to help. People don't seem to want your experience, they want you to tell them what they want to hear.

 

I thought it was for special members. Like mods or users with 1,000 posts

 

What if likes in the technical areas of the forum had a higher 'like' value so a scripting like gives you +3 a shaders like +10?

Also just for fun we should have a dislike button, which can be used to show that people don't like a post but also allow people to have like wars on the leaderboard!

 

I know this is the modern way of doing things nowadays with likes, karma, up voting etc, but it's all so childish, maybe I'm showing my age but this all sounds way to much like the way teacher used to issue stars when I was 6 years old. It just goes to show there really is no such thing as alturism.

 

But aren't nearly all games about levelling up or gaining a higher score and isn't life about gaining more money and/or status!

As long as it's fun and engaging then it works as a gamification, when it stops being fun and engaging it fails. The same way stars in class for children can work as a motivation depending on how they are implemented or a pay review system in a job.

 

Only if you're not at all worried about getting some sort of fulfillment.

Well, clothes have a purpose beyond vanity; staying warm and protected.. Sorry, I'm a pedant.

As for the topic, I believe that knowledge is a reward in itself. Getting a "like" is no reward. It's nice to be validated by other people, of course, but it has no value apart from that validation.

Like other posters have alluded to, the greatest reward of sharing your knowledge is the act of sharing your knowledge. There's a few reasons for this, the most practical one is that the best way to learn something is to teach it. Then there's the self-validation of knowing you are able to help someone, that someone is interested in something you know about, and so on. I believe this is also why teachers accept being paid such S***ty wages: Their job is highly satisfying.

 

Disagree with this. If I don't get some kind of reward (even if it's just stroking my shallow ego) I don't see why I should bother. Of course, there are many kinds of rewards besides 'like' validation, sometimes I just happen to enjoy seeing something (like a person and their script) function properly, but the point is that I get something from it personally. Not every pleasure has to be compatible with the monastic programmer ideal, or derived from the completion of some duty to the universe, sometimes I'm just a simple wordly human being who likes receiving gratitude from random people (well maybe you don't have to be worldly for that).

Sometimes it can be somewhat fun to (subtly) beat someone over the head with the answer, especially if the question was pretty ambiguous and you had to read it multiple times and spend 10 minutes guessing what the hell was the point of what they were trying to do .

 

Then you shouldn't bother, I guess, but that's your loss.

--Eric

 

Then you don't really disagree, because ego-stroking is definitely something that can come from the act of sharing your knowledge. Unless you mean that the ego-stroking must come from the person you helped, in which case, good luck with your issues, I guess.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like helping people who have the right attitude, and when I'm helped by other people I always make a point of thanking them or liking their posts or whatever. The point is that one doesn't have to take the currency of gratitude and courtesy too seriously to see how well it can grease the mechanisms of social interactions. I know very well that people can say thanks or hit a like button and it doesn't really cost them anything but it shows me that at least I helped someone who had the character to do something to show that they valued what I gave.

I once had a conversation with someone who I think should have known better, about my point of view that entrepreneurs tend to take all the public credit for the hard work of engineers and scientists. This person said that said engineers and scientists get all the pleasure they want or need from their work and they 'don't want' any public recognition. I couldn't believe it (on further argument this person conceded that maybe they wanted a bit of recognition 'in academic circles').

This is the view I think that a lot of people have toward programmers, engineers and scientists in general, that they are sort of damaged, introverted souls who just need a basement and the means to do their work and couldn't care less if anyone comes along and uses what they've made. It is ridiculous to presume this or hold it against anyone for wanting a return anywhere up to the value of what they have done. And if I'm trying to make a point about society, I think there are clearer and more effective ways of doing so than working for free for random people ... when there is an opportunity people can find it hard to take in the message that you're trying to give them.

 

Well maybe we do agree, don't we?

Jeez, since when did a simple act of gratitude become so devalued? Is it so embarrassing to admit that we like to hear it from people that we help? If you ever say 'thanks' to someone for helping you, maybe you should check yourself because you might end up 'stroking their ego' and worsening their 'issues'.

 

Everyone one feels this way. Every single person on the planet. But many like to delude themselves into thinking otherwise. If you are helping someone because it makes you feel good, then you aren't being altruistic. If you don't really want to help, but do so because it would make you feel worse not to, then you aren't being altruistic. Altruism doesn't exist. We help because it is in our own self interest to do so. Whether we are "good" people, who act because we see doing so as its own reward, or "bad" people, who do it for the recognition of others isn't really relevant to me. The end result is the same. But often, the "good" people like to have this feeling of superiority over the "bad" people. Which, ultimately, makes them "bad" people too because their motives are demonstrably less noble than they perceive them to be. They are helping because it gives them a feeling of superiority over someone else, not simply because it gives them satisfaction.

 

They should rename the "likes" to "hugs", because who's gonna complain about hugs?

 

Exactly.

Something that I personally put a lot of value into is the effect of what I do, the infuence it has and the perception of what I'm doing. When I am by myself, I can do only what I think is right, but when other people are involved, it is important that not only do I do what's right but that what I do has the intended effect. So even if, hypothetically, validation by other people is ultimately worthless to me, I still want people to give me credit because it is against my principles for hard work to be taken advantage of. I think the world would be a much better place if people paid more attention to the effect of their behaviour on society and not just whether the behaviour itself was right or wrong, especially when it comes to acts of 'altruism', concession or compromise.

 

I bet we're going to find out when they do

 

People complain about everything.

--Eric

 

Humans are social animals and being a member of a community is a value in itself. If I answer a question and that isn't acknowledged then I feel to some extent excluded from the community, as my participation is not recognized (which is what community is about) so I feel less inclined to respond to further questions.

 

You guys don't realize how good we have it. On the Unreal forums, Epic actually takes 5% of your likes after the first 3000 likes. Over time, that adds up to a lot of lost likes.

 

Some of our community fit this:

I would certainly object to hugs from random strangers on the internet. Likes are fairly distant and generic. Hugs are very close and personal.

 

I don't care the like, karma or another rewarding button. I read, post or reply whenever I want for nothing. I do it for fun, learning and helping others. I've been in Blender's Community for years and the reason... besides learning it was all about social and community. The Blender forum was like Facebook is today. Share knowledge, discuss, post cool images and videos, blog in form of topics and chat on the irc.freenode.net servers

 

That's one way to look at it. I've always accepted that nobody ever does anything without motivation and a reward mechanism, but to me that doesn't rule out the existence of altruism. To me, altruism is doing good things from internal motivation rather than external motivation. So if someone does something because it makes them feel good, I see that as altruism because the motivation and reward are internal. Nobody told them to do it, there's no extrinsic reward, there's no cost to others, there's no downside to them of not doing it... that's as altruistic as you can be in my books.

Is there some internal, chemical process inside our brain that determines how altruistic we are by emitting a happy hit every time we do certain things? Probably, but that doesn't lessen it as far as I'm concerned. What makes someone altruistic as opposed to otherwise is that they get their happy hits from those things instead of other things.

 

Not sure I understand exactly what you mean by this. If anything, I thought altruism, if it existed, would be more externally motivated if it isn't a selfish act. In my own experience I've never been able to pinpoint exactly what it means even in a theoretical sense. From a purely logical standpoint perhaps the only true form of altruism is pure coercion

 

Internal motivation is stuff like feeling good about doing something, or a sense of satisfaction from a job well done. External motivation is stuff like others validating you, getting paid or materially rewarded, etc.

 

A quote from a podcast comes to mind:
"Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and validate us in life."

 

I don't really disagree with you. I like to watch Undercover Boss because I always get choked up when the boss gives the employees something that makes a huge difference in their life. I wish I had the money to do the same. Because right now I can barely get by in my own life. I know what those things mean to the employees, and I can't imagine a better way to spend money than making someone that happy. Does that make me a good person? Maybe. I like to think so. But does it make me a better person than someone who doesn't feel that way? I don't think so. I would give money that I had to make other's lives better, but I don't hang around the scripting forum helping people because that doesn't give me that same emotional hit. Giving money is in my self-interest because doing so would make me happy. That's the Adam Smith definition of self-interest. The other definition of self-interest, the one that Smith's critics use, would describe someone who doesn't do anything for the benefit of others. I don't think such a person exists, anymore than I think a purely altruistic person exists. Some of us give money, some of us give time, some of us answer questions, some of us do any number of other things. As humans, I think we all derive pleasure from helping others in some way. Putting our own way forth as some sort of uber-noble path while ignoring the ways that others help out is wrong headed to me. If I ever get to the point where I'm not in danger of losing everything, I'll gladly give a significant portion of money to help make sure that others don't have to face that danger. But I'm not going to put myself on a pedestal ahead of people who give money so they can call a press conference and tell the world what a good person they are. Why should I? The people got helped regardless. And if I'm really altruistic, if I really want people's lives to be better, that's all that should really matter to me.

 

I'm not putting any particular form of altruism ahead of any other. All I'm saying is that if you're doing something - anything - that benefits others for reasons other than rewards you get from the outside world then that's what I consider to be altruism. I don't care if you're giving money to those in need, spending time helping others to learn, volunteering at a soup kitchen or whatever, to me all of those things are "altruistic" to some degree.

Nailed it.

 

There is a difference there but I would argue that neither is altruistic because both are selfish pleasures. Just because someone else doesn't directly give you your pleasure doesn't make it a selfless one. Someone might hypothetically move through the world feeling nothing for anyone but doing 'good' things out of some sort of self-contained reward mechanism and I doubt anyone would say they are truly altruistic.

For me (as far as I can tell), rather than having a rigid idea of doing 'good' and 'bad' things, I feel good when I see something functioning properly, and I feel bad when I see something failing, damaged or out of place. In terms of communities I think they function best when there are clear checks and balances for behaviours. Otherwise you just have to end up dealing with a lot of tension and anxiety in the community that causes disfunction, makes social interactions more ambiguous and difficult and leads to individual opportunism. I'm a very open-minded person but I don't feel the need to chuck out simple rules that work, they help you and everyone else quickly connect, work better and focus on more important things.

I've always tended to behave in a way that some people might perceive as selfless, but isn't so (even empathy is not really selfless). And because of that, it can be easily misread that I don't care how people behave as a result of what I've done, and that particularly annoys me. So I think it makes sense to approach things as if you expect full reward and then shuck it if you want to.