A proposed feature, “Contest Mode,” aims to minimize bias in category-level voting by randomizing topic sorting and hiding votes. This would be useful in time-limited events, such as product idea submissions or competitions, where bandwagoning can occur. Falco suggests this feature could be used with the voting plugin to help reduce biased behavior. codinghorror expressed confusion about the use case, but Falco clarified that it would apply to categories using the voting plugin, where each topic is a complex proposal. thegurjyot and dylanh724 also explained the concept, emphasizing the importance of neutrality in voting. However, Falco notes that this feature was never implemented and is just an idea for now. PetrieTheWild recently revived the topic, seeking a solution to randomize entries per-user in their monthly competitions to reduce bias.
On reddit, when you want to to capture suggestions and wanna minimize bias they provide “Contest Mode”:
this thread is in contest mode - contest mode randomizes comment sorting, hides scores, and collapses replies by default. Source
Different from reddit, we would do this at category level, randomizing topic sorting in a category and hiding votes.
After the contest is over, the admin can revert the order to votes.
What would this be for? It sounds very confusing and I don’t understand the use case?
Mostly trying to reduce:
When discourse-voting is used for a time-limited event, like “submit your new product idea this week” or something like that, bandwagoning can be pretty hard.
Basically it means to hide most of the data (like votes, replies) from users during a contest so that each user can reply or vote as a neutral person. Otherwise there’s a chance that the people will start to participate in that competition and act according to other people’s activity rather than doing what their mind says.
Yea, the Reddit example was probably the best example: If you have a subthread to eliminate biased behavior, bump manipulation, etc.
I think the use of reddit as an ‘example’ confused me – this would only apply to polls, not topics, yes? I think the use of this in a poll is the best example.
Well, the use case a friend of mine described was using the voting plugin, where each topic in the voting is a long and complex proposal.
Everyone can submit a proposal (by creating a topic in the category with the plugin enabled) and vote for a month.
Having “contest mode”, during this month, would help with the bandwagon effect.
After one month, everything is reverted to normal, and the winners and votes are public, as usual.
PS: If this was not clear by the category, this is a proposal for a feature inside the voting plugin.
Is it now possible to revert everything to normal after a specified time or manually?
The feature discussed here was never implemented, this is just an idea for now.
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