Need your advice for step 2) of ATARNotes.com expansion: Tutor Listing + Review

[enwiabe]

Look it's probably worth giving a try, but at the moment there aren't enough VN members who are tutored by other VN members, nor is there a huge demand for private tutors on our website (compared to lectures etc.)

Though respect is a decent way of sorting (I shouldn't be complaining because I would probably be listed around #1), it doesn't really capture our total contribution to the forum. I don't mind endorsements from other VN members (even if they haven't been tutored) because I think it often encapsulates exactly how much a member has contributed to the forum. Respect can often fail in that respect because I can easily get respect by cracking funny posts, whereas when I help someone out with their maths/physics/chem on the forums I will rarely get more than +2 (which doesn't count due to the nature of the system).

In all honesty, I think the current thread system should stay, perhaps with an added "rating" function as opposed to the current poll options.

On the other hand, I think this idea will function well if it is used to rate services which are marketed to moderate/medium size groups of students.

Perhaps disabling respect on certain forums wouldn't be such a bad idea.

And the winner of the best idea of the day goes to... The guy who usually has the best ideas! Yeah, sounds good. Going out now, I'll think about which boards later (though obviously all the Water Cooler boards).

[pi]

Going out now, I'll think about which boards later (though obviously all the Water Cooler boards).

Other boards:
- Anything in 'Administration' (in VCE, HSC, etc, boards)
- General VCE Discussion
- General Educational Discussion
- Tuition and Educational Service (I say this as the bulk of respect come from people +1'ing the first post of a tuition thread, usually on the basis of who the member is rather than rate of service -although this is not always the case)
- VCAL (although, I don't think there has ever been a vote here )
- VCE VET
- Buy/Sell
- Any post-exam and results discussion threads too (again, usually member based +1'ing by their score, usually no substantial question asked here either)

Although with those boards, -1'ing should still be allowed. Because if someone is just being a general douche, then they deserve to get -1'd and have less respect overall.

Although voting should be allowed in the 'Admissions tests' board (Nat Forum), mainly because people actually do get help there.

[taiga]

Gen VCE, VCAL, VCE VET, Gen Educational, should all definitely stay with respect, heaps of questions are asked (and if they aren't being asked, no one is giving respect). Keeping it in administration isn't bad in my opinion, it's good to see how many thumbs up a suggestion is getting, but mods and admins often just get +10 after announcing something or simply locking a thread

[Russ]

Respect from the general VCE discussion isn't really relevant to the purpose it'll be used for though

[taiga]

In my opinion getting your questions answered on here is beneficial, but the type of help that people give in Gen VCE definitely does contribute positively to users in general.

[enwiabe]

You've all made great points about individual tutors. Very valid and very concerning for me because I don't want members to get short-changed on this. To that end, I think we'll have a freeze on individual tutoring reviews until we sort out the best way to do this. I want to keep the discussion going until we hit on something that's workable. Here's a solution I thought of (make sure to follow it till the end, it does sound a bit dubious at first).

1) A tutor nominates members they're tutoring to review him/her.
2) These members must have at least 20 posts and have been members for at least 3 months prior to nomination.
3) AFTER 3 months have passed from the time of nomination, these members may review the tutor using the standard questionnaire. This review will remain anonymous (no listing of pros and cons like with individual companies).
4) Only after at least 3 members have reviewed a tutor will their ratings become available.

This works on many levels. One, it will weed out people stacking the vote of their tutoring services. With such a large time lapse, we'll be able to weed out suspicious activity (people trying to rig the system etc.). Secondly, the anonymity of the tutoring reviews (only posting the average scores of all the review questionnaires and not individual reviews) will ensure members aren't afraid to be truthful about the tutor due to intimidation.

Does this sound like a good happy medium to everybody? Please post thoughts and feedback. I'd like to get this resolved ASAP so we can get a fair system going for individual tutor reviews

[enwiabe]

Re: Respect, something that strikes me is that respect is comprised of multiple things. You get respect for helping people in threads. You also get it for having a good sense of humour when posting, and also posting thoughtful posts that won't necessarily be something you'd find in a tutor setting, but just contribute to the general esteem in which people hold you. That is, a high respect generally means that you are helpful as well as a decent person who people like and communicate well with. Isn't that precisely what people look for in a tutor? $0.02

[burbs]

I don't think this really adequately solves the issues. This kind of means everyone's students have to be members, but just makes it harder for people to get reviews. What if we kept the current system and just asked people to only endorse people if they have seen that person tutor?

[shinny]

Does this sound like a good happy medium to everybody? Please post thoughts and feedback. I'd like to get this resolved ASAP so we can get a fair system going for individual tutor reviews

Considering taiga's point that the majority of most of our tutors' students aren't actually from VN itself, it seems insanely difficult to find three students who have had at least 20 posts and have been members for 3 months. A lot won't be members at all, and given that they have to sign up and then wait six months to do the questionnaire, most will probably forget to follow it up. It seems to be an overly complicated and tedious process which will probably lead to the majority of tutors unable to even get a single review up. The anonymity thing doesn't really seem to work. I think most tutors will easily figure out which reviews are from who, unless they have heaps of students. There's probably more problems but before I bother thinking further into it, perhaps re-draft it because I'm quite certain this isn't going to work.

[shinny]

Re: Respect, something that strikes me is that respect is comprised of multiple things. You get respect for helping people in threads. You also get it for having a good sense of humour when posting, and also posting thoughtful posts that won't necessarily be something you'd find in a tutor setting, but just contribute to the general esteem in which people hold you. That is, a high respect generally means that you are helpful as well as a decent person who people like and communicate well with. Isn't that precisely what people look for in a tutor? $0.02

Problem is that it's rewarding almost exclusively funny posts. I've rarely ever gotten respect from an actually helpful post, even quality ones. The reason for this is because helpful posts are generally in response to a question, and generally only the person who asked the question will up-vote it. On the other hand, funny posts apply to everyone and it's not uncommon to hit a +6 or +9 or so from a single funny post. It really isn't the best indicator of who's a good tutor IMO.

[enwiabe]

I don't think this really adequately solves the issues. This kind of means everyone's students have to be members, but just makes it harder for people to get reviews. What if we kept the current system and just asked people to only endorse people if they have seen that person tutor?

Hmm instead of tutors nominating. How about we have a button on a tutor's listing page, where members who are being tutored by a VN listed tutor can click that to say they'ree being tutored by that tutor, and then the tutor can confirm yes or no if they are tutoring them? That way, it'll be harder for the tutor to stack their reviews with only members who will give them positive reviews?

[enwiabe]

Arghghg. I'm thinking this is going to be too difficult to have tutor ratings. Instead, how about instead of a rating that people can get sorted by, we have just a comments section where people with more than 20 posts can post small reviews about the tutor? No ratings, no ranking, just informative stuff about the tutor. One word 'ENDORSED! xD' will get deleted?

[taiga]

Arghghg. I'm thinking this is going to be too difficult to have tutor ratings. Instead, how about instead of a rating that people can get sorted by, we have just a comments section where people with more than 20 posts can post small reviews about the tutor? No ratings, no ranking, just informative stuff about the tutor. One word 'ENDORSED! xD' will get deleted?

http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/board,34.0.html

[shinny]

Arghghg. I'm thinking this is going to be too difficult to have tutor ratings. Instead, how about instead of a rating that people can get sorted by, we have just a comments section where people with more than 20 posts can post small reviews about the tutor? No ratings, no ranking, just informative stuff about the tutor. One word 'ENDORSED! xD' will get deleted?

That sounds good. What I was going to say before is that at the end of the day, any online rating system is gimmicky and any attempt to create an accurate rating is pretty pointless, especially when we're working at such small numbers. The accuracy of these sorts of things is acceptable when there's a largely volume of voters, but considering most tutors are probably working on just one or two reviewers, a numerical system isn't going to have much meaning. So yeh, some sort of qualitative comment would be good. Perhaps give a pro-forma as we mentioned before with either certain questions to be answered (leaning towards this), or simply just pros and cons. If you don't ask people for what was bad, then they generally won't say it. But yeh, no numbers. Numbers are baaaaad.

[enwiabe]

Arghghg. I'm thinking this is going to be too difficult to have tutor ratings. Instead, how about instead of a rating that people can get sorted by, we have just a comments section where people with more than 20 posts can post small reviews about the tutor? No ratings, no ranking, just informative stuff about the tutor. One word 'ENDORSED! xD' will get deleted?

http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/board,34.0.html

Yeah, the problem with that is that it's not easily searchable. This will formalise all the tutors in a list, and then I guess you're right, will function as the ad board for individual tutors. I think this system has worked well for a reason, and formalising it in a proper listing will make it more accessible to thousands of other victorians searching for tutors?