You want to use these scores in the background but pretend like you’re not? So you can tell people you’re not objectifying them even when that’s exactly what you’re doing?
Discussion
sorting and filtering, not ranking
You sort and filter based on numbers which you’re using as a proxy for trust. The act of calculating and using personalized PageRank means you are ranking.
I am talking design and UX.
It’s easy for us to underestimate how much work it takes for devs to integrate these scores into their clients. Sure, a dev could roll out a new feature using the scores to sort content. But step 1 is simply to import the scores, make sure they’re being imported correctly, and educate the end user that this new tool is available, here is what it is, here is how it works.
The whole point of sovereignty is to put you in charge of your user experience. Which means putting you in charge of the algos that sort your content. Which means users need to be aware what algos are available and how they work. If we just sort content and say “trust me bro, we’re sorting it in the best way possible, please don’t examine the numbers or ask for details about how it works or look under the hood” — that’s the opposite of what we want to achieve.
Also: there are use cases that go beyond filtering and sorting in the background.
Suppose someone you don’t follow DMs you. How do you know whether this DM is worth your time and attention? One method is just to hide the DM if the WoT score is below some cutoff. But what should be the cutoff? There will never be one right answer. So a better method is to show the WoT score next to the author, obtained from Trusted Assertions as the 0-100 rank metric, like Amethyst is doing. The end user can decide whether a score of 10 or 50 or 95 is worth looking at. Maybe I have a lot of free time today, so I’ll read the message if rank is above 10. But tomorrow I’m busier so it’ll have to be 90 to catch my eye. And in the case of personalized GrapeRank, a 50 for me may not be a 50 for you, because you and I may have selected different GrapeRank parameters. My “rigor” parameter may be set to a low value (by my choice), so when I see a score of 50 on amethyst, it means “this user is followed/trusted by 5 moderately trusted users”, whereas your “rigor” may be set to a high value, so when you see the same score of 50 on amethyst it carries more weight, bc it means “this user is followed/trusted by 100 highly trusted users”.
We can’t give users control over their user experience if our philosophy is to hide the number crunching and make all the decisions for them.
At the same time, we ALSO need to make it super easy for the end user. If they don’t want to look under the hood, they don’t have to. Which is why GrapeRank comes with default preset parameters. But showing turn numbers, like I described here and like amethyst is doing, will oftentimes be better than simply filtering and sorting under the hood.
The DM example IS filtering.
If you do it manually every time, based on the score you see on the screen, one could send you 1M DMs...
What I am saying is that we can hide the numbers from the head of people, and place a threshold selection in settings and teach how to use it.
I feel like our discussions too often fall into the following pattern:
Me: we’re building a new thing called an automobile. It will get you from city A to city B. It’s awesome.
You: The bicycles I sell are great for getting around town. No one needs automobiles.
Me: ok. Let’s have both. Bikes for short distances, automobiles for long distances. It’s not either-or, it’s both-and.
You: For the specific use case that I’m focused on, getting around town, bikes are awesome. Therefore automobiles have zero use cases. No one will need them, ever, for anything.
🤷🏻♂️
Mate, you are misreading what I am saying, again. I haven't even mentioned Vertex, because it's not relevant in any way to this conversation. The provider is totally and absolutely irrelevant.
I am talking about HOW to display these ranks. I don't like the idea of displaying them, whether they come from Vertex, or Brainstorm, or whatever.
Design discussion.
That’s my point.
Me: there are times when you don’t want to display the scores and times when you do want to display the scores.
You: I can think of a use case where you don’t need to display the scores. Therefore nobody should display the scores, for any use case, ever.
Me: I think it's bad to display the scores in general. The default IMO should be not to display them
You (quote): You want to use these scores in the background but pretend like you’re not?
I’m not saying the default should be to display ALL the scores ALL the time. I’m saying sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. No sense in showering the user with a deluge of confusing numbers for no purpose.
But you’re saying we should never ever display raw trust scores. We should ALWAYS by default hide them under the hood. There are ZERO use cases for showing a 0-100 Trust Score next to a user profile.
Am I misunderstanding your position? Is there at least one use case you can think of where you think we SHOULD show a raw Trust Score by default?
Re read my previous message. I am saying default, not always
Upon rereading your previous message, it seems to me you’re saying the default should ALWAYS be: don’t display them.
Unless you have an exception in mind? If so, what is it?
I’m trying to pin you down bc you advocate for a very generic, very widely-encompassing rule and when I ask WHY this is your stance, you just walk through one specific use case where you don’t show trust scores. And then you extrapolate from the specific case to the general rule (never show scores by default) without justification. I suspect your true motivation is that users will tell you “you can’t put a number to trust.” Which is not true — we can and we do. Still, it’s an understandable (albeit vaguely defined) sentiment, one that MANY users will have, and we should respect our users. So your solution is to tell them “I agree, we can’t put a number to trust, we would never do that! Look, no numbers!!” And yet, putting numbers to trust is *exactly* what we’re doing. It is dishonest to pretend we’re not — hence disrespectful at a very deep level to our users — and many users will sense the dishonesty.
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