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I rated opinions by 500 strangers; waited to see how many reciprocatedJun 09 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Overall, we don't pay nearly enough attention to the people who have actually taken the trouble to read and rate our opinions for the first time.
Some of you will recall another essay I wrote about a month ago, describing how I had rated opinions by 100 "strangers" in a two-day period and then waited a week to see how many of them noticed my name on the lists of those who rated them, and returned the favor by rating at least one of my opinions. I gave exhaustive details on the rules I set for myself in running that experiment, and you can find them all set forth at http://www.epinions.com/content_1501405316/tk_~CB003.1.38 if you want to review them. When I published my first results, I noted that I was still keeping a log of each "stranger" I read and rated, including the date I did so, how many opinions (never more than 2), what ratings I gave, and one or two other little details, such as whether or not I wanted to consider coming back and reading more of that person's work later with an eye toward the possibility of trusting them. Well, last week I finally hit the 500 mark. That was how many "strangers" I had rated opinions for during the previous month, and today I went through my last couple of dozen opinions, checking for any ratings that had come from anyone on the list of 500 names, which I sorted alphabetically to make comparisons easier. Out of 500 Epinionators who received ratings from me when they hadn't previously had any regular contact with me, an incredible 67 noticed it and were sufficiently interested to click on my name, find one of my opinions, and rate it in return. That gives us a reciprocation of 13.4%. Please note that the first one hundred strangers I rated have had all the time from May 7 until today to reciprocate if they were so inclined, and the next hundred have had all the time since May 14, and so forth, with even the last handful having had at least one calendar week. In addition to reciprocating by reading and rating at least one of my opinions, 10 Epinionators who were on my list of strangers rated have actually taken the trouble to add me to their Webs of Trust. Now, at first glance you would tend to assume that all ten of those people would also be numbered among the 67 who rated something of mine, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong! In nine cases they apparently examined at least a little of my work first, sometimes a great deal of it, but in one case I rated two of someone's opinions on one day, and discovered the next day that he had "Trusted" me - except that this occurred over a week ago, and I still can't find his name on the lists of people who have ever rated any of my last couple of dozen opinions, before or after the day he "trusted" me. I am forced to the conclusion that he Trusted me simply because I had rated him, hoping that this would so impress me that I would be moved to rush back and rate another dozen or so of his opinions in quick succession, and perhaps even add him to my own Web of Trust for future reference! If that was what he had in mind, he's going to be waiting a looooooooooong time. Reading lots of his opinions, or adding him to my WOT to keep his name on the list of my favorites, is not something I feel inclined to do if all he intends to do for me is to click on "Trust" and assume that that's all he ever has to contribute to the relationship. Another interesting point. Feeling sorry for the total newcomers who are trying to build up a following from scratch, and wondering how well they would do in taking advantage of such opportunities as came along, I made a note of "(1st)" at the end of the appropriate log entry each time I found myself rating someone's very first opinion. According to my notes, I did that 27 times and 1 of those 27 people has been kind enough to return the favor by looking at one of mine. That suggests that a mere 3.7% of our newcomers have quickly grasped the idea that people who rate you once are far likelier to fall into the habit of giving you repeat visits in the future if they notice your name popping up on the lists of those who have rated their own little flights of genius recently. Of course, some of the other 26 may have given up on Epinions very quickly, but if they had just taken the time to reciprocate what few ratings they received on the first pass they might find themselves feeling much better integrated into the community by now. Now to clear up a few points that apparently were misunderstood when I did my first essay on this subject a month ago. I am not insisting that every time I visit someone's profile page for the first time and read and rate a couple of his pieces, that he is iummediately placed under any sort of moral "obligation" to give me the reciprocal ratings to which I am "obviously entitled." I mention this because some of the people who left comments on my previous essay used such terminology, apparently thinking that I had meant to say that, and therefore they felt it necessary to tell me I was wrong. I went back and reread my essay when I saw those comments, but I couldn't find any place where I had used such loaded terms as "entitled," "obligated," "the only courteous thing to do," or anything of that nature. I had become curious about how much reciprocation I was getting for all the ratings I handed out, and I decided to attack the problem scientifically and measure the results. It also occurred to me that my fellow Epinionators might be interested in seeing what results I had come up with, good or bad. That's all. I have never made any effort to make anyone feel "guilty" for not paying more attention to me than they actually do. (Of course, I personally would love to see zillions of people reading and rating every opinion I have to offer, so I could become filthy rich, but I have never claimed that any of my fellow human beings are automatically required to cooperate with my personal fantasies, just as I'm not required to cooperate with any of theirs. Especially if you're one of those perverts who fantasizes about - um, never mind. I think I'm digressing. Besides, children might be reading this and I don't want to put any twisted ideas into their innocent little heads. Movies and television are doing an excellent job of that already, without needing my help!) *Ahem* Getting back to the main point, I'm not talking to you about reciprocation just because it would result in my making more money. That would be very nice from my point of view, but there's no reason you should care about the size of my bank account one way or the other. I'm trying to point out that there are mutual benefits to this sort of thing, and very pragmatic reasons to carefully scan the lists of people who rated each of your recent opinions, looking for "strangers" who aren't already receiving periodic visits from you or vice versa. The people who rated your last opinion can be divided up into at least three categories. People who already have you on their WOT, people who don't have you on it but have read your work before and like it enough that they keep coming back, and people who just happened to wander in off the street and are looking you over doubtfully, wondering if you're really worth the trouble of coming back sometime. In this last category I include both people who happened to spot your opinion in "Just In" or followed some other link to your profile, and people who are reciprocating your recent rating of their work, prior to which time they had never really noticed you before. It is this last category I think of as "strangers." If someone has you on their Web of Trust, they're probably going to be checking up on you at regular intervals to see what you've written lately, whether or not they remember seeing you rating their stuff within the last week or so. At least, that's the way it works for anyone who has been added to my Web of Trust. I don't feel it necessary to keep written records tracking what they do for me (if anything) and how often they do it; I have them on the WOT because I really want to read their opinions, regardless of how they may feel about mine. I drop in on all of them at regular intervals, usually at least once a week if I can, and read and rate anything that looks interesting. If someone has not put you on their WOT, but has still established a regular habit of dropping in on you every now and then, that's great too. Of course, every once in a while it would behoove you to return the favor and go rate some of their stuff so they know you're not ignoring them, but the details are up to you. But if a "stranger" suddenly pops up on the list of people who rated your latest opinion, a bell should ring in your head saying, "Alert! Alert! Potential new fan here! Handle with care! Demonstrate some reciprocation and hope for the best!" I try to constantly keep an eye out for the visits of people I haven't noticed before, so I can reciprocate. If I do so, it means that the next time the "stranger" is glancing at the list of names who rated his last couple of opinions, my name will be plainly visible among the others, and there is chance that he will click on me again, and rate a couple more of my pieces, and I'll eventually notice that and check out his most recent works, and eventually we end up with a mututally beneficial arrangement, assuming that we each find the other person's writing style (and choice of products to review, and so forth) reasonably entertaining and informative. But if someone reads my work for the first time and never gets anything in return, I suspect the odds of his bothering to come back a couple of weeks from now to check out what I've added since his first visit drop dramatically. As a result, when I'm looking at the ratings on one of my new opinions a few days after I posted it, I tend to give "strangers" top priority and let my "regulars" wait awhile. They'll still be there whenever I get around to them again. I cannot swear that I have always managed to give quick reciprocation to a total "stranger" who suddenly rates me, but I have always tried to keep an eye out for such things, and I am quite sure that my performance in that area has been far, far higher than the 13.4% which seems to be the average rate of reciprocation in response to a rating from a total stranger. So: if you're new here and wondering how to get more hits on your next opinion (or if you're old here and wondering the same thing), just let me point out to you all the benefits of remembering to encourage all the people who took the time to read and rate your previous opinions! If they notice that this behavior on their parts was rewarded, they are likelier to repeat the behavior in the future, assuming that they find your writing to be reasonably interesting to them and that you continue to return their visits from time to time. It's called Pavlovian conditioning :) The present rate of reciprocation suggests to me that we could all be seeing far more benefits from our activities here than we presently are, if we all pulled together and paid more attention to such people as are already helping us get those benefits so they'd stay with us for the long haul. Thank you for listening to all that. I'll just get off my soapbox now and go check up on those 67 people who actually reciprocated surprise visits from a total stranger during the weeks of this experiment, and see what I can do for them and some of their opinions that I haven't read yet!  |
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