Uniquity
by matt - August 21st, 2008
Hi y’all. Wanted to give you a heads up on the new Namethis feature: uniqueness. We’re using some magic special sauce behind the scenes to determine how unique a Namethis suggestion is across the Internet in comparison with the other suggested names on the site. We’re hoping this information leads to more informed investing and better winners.
We’ve had lots of talks, the community and Kluster, about improving the site and rules that can be put in place to make for even better results. One of the unnamed variables in the equation is whether we can be as impactful in our improvements without changing the fundamental rules of the game. This is an attempt to do exactly that, we’ll see how it works out.
Also included in this release are some small fixes around duplicate names. We tried to make the net a little wider to catch more possible dupes (including some of Stacy’s suggestions). There were also some small UI fixes here and there.
Keep tuned in over the next couple of weeks as we bump up the Namethis awesomeness (even more, if it’s possible). We’ve got a lot brewing in our labs that I’m quite confident you guys are gonna like. There’s a certain feature in particular that I imagine is gonna cause a bit of a stir … but I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so I’ll stop short of any more hints.
As always, with love …
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- nicolas Acosta: How can I change my password, I had my mac stolen and it had my password saved!!!!!! I would really appreciate any help as soon
- Brad: 5. The NameThis website is in dire need of a FAQ, and probably a forum as well. I have had a hell of
- Brad: 4. In regards to duplicates, I agree with others that this creates a bit of a problem. If the winners were solely determined
- Brad: 3. I've read a bit about the 'blind submissions' and I'm guessing that this is a feature that has subsequently been removed? Like
- Brad: 2. I think users should be able to make edits to their proposed name if necessary. One option could be to allow the user
Well it didn’t take long to figure out what the “bit of a stir” feature is. Hmmmm….
Duh. P.S. Thanks for listening/changing/trying/growing.
Ummm…your new algo shows “Kareero” as “very unique,” but the same name won a recent previous contest. I understand this cool new feature is actually a magical number (gauging, perhaps, similarity to actual dictionary words?), but I think it may miss the point.
Since I am clearly just full of suggestions (I’m sure you’re tearing your hair out), perhaps you can also add a filter for “appropriateness.” Because I’m already guessing people are going to favor “unique” names, and that statistical uniqueness isn’t actually the best measure of the best name for the client.
Still looking for my unicorn….
(Sneaking back with another comment). Another case in point: NewLeaf. It’s not exactly earth-shattering, but it’s an excellent name for a green portal, and one the client might find quite appealing…except the .com domain is not available. Unique: No, but I’m not sure it matters. Appropriate: Yes. Available: No. Help, Algo, help!
oh …. There’s more coming Stacy. Much more. Stay tuned.
I like the updates… although people maybe influenced to cast their votes depending on the uniqueness, but great idea especially those who will just browse through quickly
I do not really get the purpose of the uniqueness indicator. It seems a bit inconsistent in its rating schema. I can not really imagine that this could be useful for any objective investments.
I like(d) namethis for its clean interface. Hope you will not “overfeature” it.
@martin Just wondering … why would you say it’s inconsistent?
@matthew I think if people want to take uniqueness into account when naming things (which isn’t always appropriate) this tool should help produce better names. If an investor considers uniqueness an important quality, I hope they do cast their vote with it in mind.
@stacy I wouldn’t even know where to start with a computer algorithm that judges appropriateness. We’ve added excluded words. We have a description at the top of the page. You guys are the ones investing and suggesting names … some of its up to a good community and not anything automatic on our end.
@matt , but since uniqueness is the only thing that is currently being taken into account, it may influence them. I know it helps but maybe it could also influence their decisions in subtle way. Maybe another factor could be placed just to have something to compare it by. and I agree with martin that it shouldn’t be overfeatured, it is there to help not influence.
Still great job
@matthew What do you mean “only?” The description is taken into account. The clients excluded words are taken into account. The uniqueness doesn’t do anything but give investors more information about the names. Whether the investors use that information is up to them. If someone wants a name for a product, hopefully the uniqueness will help in encouraging investors to choose original names (since there’s been lots of blog comments about people suggesting previously trademarked or used names). If someone wants a tag line, maybe the uniqueness is less important. It’s not weighed in the algorithm.
There seems to be something weird about the uniqueness rating system, in several cases a same name can change its uniqueness score from very unique to not unique by simply reloading, changing the web navigator or computer. This is particularly notorious on firefox for mac.
I guess I’d like to know more about how you/the algo defines uniqueness. “Giraffe” isn’t a very unique name for a giraffe, but it’s a damn unique name for a lawn mower, and I suspect they’d get the same rating under the current equation.
I agree with Martin that this new feature will influence voting. Which might actually be cool if we knew what “unique” meant. But it would seem that uniqueness is every bit subjective as appropriateness and not something that can be easily quantified.
@stacy It’s brand uniqueness. Giraffe would never be a unique name for a brand, no matter what you were trying to name.
Kluster,
First off, I wanna say that NameThis is absolutely phenomenal/addicting. Since I am such a fan I would like to offer my 2 cents as to how I think it could be improved (mostly just elaborating on what other users have stated).
As other users have suggested there needs to be better features in place regarding the submission of URL names. I am amazed at how many users submit names that clearly violate URL stanards and/or are already registered (not available). Currently, nothing in the system prevents users from submitting these unqualified URL names. In my mind, this only underminds the integrity of the platform Kluster has in place for NameThis and it shortchanges the person who submitted the project of true “world-validated” names. Going along with this I believe there needs to be some checks and balances put in place to prevent unqualified names from being entered. I believe the checks and balances would also raise the quality of URL names submitted by users, as it would force them to put a little more time and effort into coming up with qualified names. Plus, in my mind it doesn’t seem at all fair that an unqualified URL name should win (place 1st-2nd-3rd) for a project, when other users have put in significant time and creativity into meeting the requirements of the posted project.
Another thing, I believe the system doesn’t account for variations in capitalization of the same name. For example, what I mean is that if one user inputs this name: “NameThis” another user can come along and be allowed to input this name: “nAmEtHis”. Clearly, the name is the same despite how the name is capitalized, yet the system doesn’t prevent the second user from inputing their variation of the name. I don’t think this is how the system is meant to work.
Anyways, thanks for listening and keep up the great work. I look forward to future improvements with NameThis. Thanks.
@matt
basically, I think that people maybe tempted to only look at names that are “very unique” and just skip the others. and since this is only there to help the person and that uniqueness is partly subjective, it may cause unfairness to names that are labeled not unique or just unique that would otherwise be great names. I hope the community also looks at the other suggested names, but it is also very tempting to just look at the very unique names to save time.
or we add something like “already used”, and “not used”, where the algorithm will search the net for an existing brand or product name. or maybe this is what uniqueness is ?
I think the new additions are good ones, an improvement definitely. I also agree with the others’ comments on “uniqueness”. For example, I just proposed XQ (which has nothing at all to do with the project, of course) which was judged “not unique. I then followed with XXXQQQ (even more absurd) which was judged “very unique”. I will be utterly mortified if either of them win (but since I’d love to have some watts for investing, I’d accept it).
We’ve been asking about being able to make comments. I think something like that would be a good addition, but I understand about the negatives that could result. How about this? We give each other props for names we consider particularly good. Suppose a little + was added next to a suggestion if it had earned a prop from someone. Yeah, I know that would make others more likely to invest in it, but if you really trust us klUSsterers, would that be a bad thing?
I like klUSterers.
so it is a vote between Klusterbunch and KlUSterers ? xD
It’s looking very good guys! Well done on the updates! I don’t use namethis currently.. I just have WAY TOO MUCH WORK
I look forward to playing around with it more once stuff cools down!
@matthew and stacy - neither?
“Kluster” is not good enough haha?
@ R. Ethan Smith
It is more of what do we call ourselves …the community of kluster xD
Got that mechanism for preventing duplications, or close to them, set up yet? Someone just piggybacked on my Consensus.
@donna yes, but it’s a different name if there are different words involved. I’m sorry if you feel cheated by someone using your base word as a jumping off point, but there is a difference between your name and one that has “Analytics” on the end of it. Investors might feel the second variant is legitimately better (or worse). On top of which, consensus is a common english word. I don’t think you have any exclusivity to using it in a name.
Well, it’s a bit of an unequal contest with no watts on my side and a heavy hitter on the other side. If I imagine myself as an investor choosing between them, based on winning history, I’d choose Troy’s no matter which version I liked better. I’ll chalk it up along with Gold Onion.
And now WebLockHosting on my WebLock. Frustrating, I must say.
@Donna - that is the beauty of crowdsourcing. As a community, we are to build on eachothers ideas. That is clearly what is supposed to happen here. However, due to the fact that there are incentives to winning, we feel cheated if an idea we had was “taken” or rather built upon. I do feel sorry that you feel this way, but I know as a Kluster Community Member that , in the interest of finding and choosing the best name possible, I will not hesitate to build on a name that was suggested by another member.
Peace, Love, and Happy Naming to All.
Since we’re really not able to build on names (which would be excellent, so that each participant in an idea had a stake), it would be nice to have klustetiquette in place so the “base namer” would get kudos, if not watts/$$.
I do understand that. And if you have some watts to invest in that name that’s built on yours, you have a way of taking a stake in it. If you don’t, you just find yourself inspiring the winning names, thus definitely contributing, but not getting any benefits at all for it.
Myself, I will not build on a name that has been suggested unless it is a substantial improvement, and sometimes not even then. For example. on the stationary store, my name Calligraphic Paper Goods was adapted to Calligrafille, adding French for girl. That’s a substantial change, an improvement, and I don’t mind it winning, though I sure would like some kind of credit for it. But there’s an even better adaptation, using the latin fil or phil or phile meaning “lover of”.
However, I refrained from doing that. To my mind, that would be off limits under present rules because there is no way presently for me to pass on most of any watts earned to the proposer of Calligrafille. Could there be a way for the more generous of us to pass on some watts to the originator of the idea on which our names are built?
maybe it’s just luck that I’ve inspired many winners and have yet to have a single winner of my own. Luck or not. It’s dang frustrating!
@ Donna — the weird thing about ideas is that they’re not “clean” — they build on what we have in our brains and what we’ve been exposed to. It’s entirely possible that you thought of calligraphy in the first place because of some of the things others had posted (including my own ideas having to do with medieval manuscripts, or my mention of an inkwell). But that’s how brainstorming (and its online cousin, crowd-sourcing) works, at least here on namethis.
I understand your frustration. My own recent submission, eVoiceChoice.com, got nothing, but a later post, VoiceofChoice.com, won. Since my initial entry didn’t even place, I figure I just missed the mark — good rhyme, but the “e” turned people off, perhaps, or they felt the “of” was a better way of preserving the rhyme within the limits of the .coms that were available. In terms of which was better, I still like mine — and for the record I like your “calligraphy” entry better than the one that placed — but the “voters” did not, so there we have it.
I do know this can leave a bad taste in your mouth. (Let’s not even get into the person who put “.com” on one of my entries and won!) It really feels bad. Which is why I still wish that we had a way of building on word ideas (like taking your word “calligraphy” and starting a thread that played with it). Yet even that would probably have to be on an honor system — a choice to start your own thread or build on an existing one. Otherwise, think of the complications: Beauvais Script to Chancery Hand to Quill to Calligraphy to Calligraphic to Calligraph to Graphite to Graphyte to Phyte to Phytal to PhytalPapers to Vital Papers…hard to quantify. Some people, being fair-minded, would try to stay within threadlines. Others would just start new ones. Still others might have come up with similar ideas all on their own…and should they be penalized because work kept them away from the computer, or they’re on the wrong coast? — when someone else posted something similar? It’s complicated.
The other thing that I think would really help would be run-off votes. Let’s say for example, that the crowd liked “calligraphy” third best as a concept. It would be interesting to know that first, and then to vote on ALL entries that contained the word/concept. But I know the klusterpowerpeople (and here I mean Ben & Co., since it’s never really clear who’s who) have got unicorns in the wings — namethis improvements — and perhaps they will address some of these issues.
Perhaps it would have to be on an honor system, just a method for folks to pass on some benefit to whoever they feel is entitled to it. I’d certainly be more likely to follow up on someone else’s suggestion if I didn’t have to worry about syphoning off watts from what I think is the best idea presently posted or worse yet, stealing their thunder. Scruples are a b….. sometimes.
I second that of Donna, even if it is voluntary
Hi Klusterinos.
Like the idea of the uniqueness - but wondering if it’s possible to have an option in the namethis site to sort the ideas according to uniqueness. Would be nice to be able to run through the more unique names first before deciding on how to invest.
And I have to say, after living with “uniqueness” for awhile, that I agree with Martin.
The uniqueness feature — while truly an innovative and impressive piece of technology — misses the boat sometimes: It is entirely possible that the BEST name for a product is one that is not algorithmically unique. As an example I’d cite “squeeks.com,” the 2nd-place winner for mobile phone wipes, and “BeMe,” the third-place winner for errand-running/personal concierge services. Both we judged “not unique,” but both are just spot-on perfect for the client. Squeeks is fun, edgy, and (while it may not be unique as a “brand” name) totally clever as a name for a phone wipe. It is so visceral that it’ll make people want to buy it just to get that squeaky-clean feel on their phone! And “BeMe” says exactly what it is, and it’s short and sweet and aurally appealing.
KlUSterers voted for both these two names despite the fact that the computer judged them as “not unique,” which I suppose indicates that good names CAN rise to the top regardless. And yet you’ll note that more and more of the winners over the last week are “very unique,” suggesting that this feature has a large impact when it comes to guiding the voting. Wilson’s request only confirms that.
So while I understand that this is a cool tool, I think it’s a broad one, and I would hope you wouldn’t sort the ideas according to uniqueness (sorry for disagreeing, Wilson). The way it is now, we’re still exposed to good names that don’t fit the algorithmic model; let’s not make it easier to ignore them.
And while I’m grandstanding, I’d like to make another bid for blind submissions.
Thanks!
Seconding blind submissions like crazy. I think not having the submitter’s name attached to the submission lends itself to a more controlled experiment with purer voting and results. Besides, it’s not like we won’t know who the creatively-spelled mashup with exhaustive explanation belongs to anyway, right?
Hi Stacy,
No problem. I know that it wouldn’t be good for the list of names to be automatically sorted by uniqueness, as the best names need not be the most unique. However, I think it would be nice if users had the option of sorting the submissions by uniqueness, or by date of submission, or etc. Right now, I have to run through hundreds of submissions when considering who to invest in, so any tool that helps to sort the submissions would be nice.
At the very least, would it be possible to put the “new’ submissions (ie. those highlighted in yellow) at the top of the list? That way, when I revisit the page, it’d be easier to sort through the submissions to find the new ones.
Wilson, I do wish we could flag submissions. I’ve started to do that by investing just one watt in names I think are interesting. Then I research them sometimes (is the .com available? is the name already in use for a similar company?) and compare/sit on them, then I invest a little more.
Thirding the blind submissions suggestion.
@Stacy Thanks for the way of flagging the best for future consideration of further investing. Some day my watts will come, and I’ve got all kinds of ideas what to do with them.
I do agree that a flaging tool would be nice instead of investing 1 watt.
And i agree with Wilson that we should have more tools, though the problem with that is, people can start filtering data which can also filter the good names. So this is something we should think about before applying it. Plus tools make people choose more logically on if they would win rather than investing because it was a good name.
But I do hope that there is some other grade rather than uniqueness because, it seems to influencing a bit too much, though props to the klusterers for choosing good names over the algorithm (I am really glad you brought up your example Stacy)
I suggest a flagging tool to remove a name (but it is only visible to the person who flags it and to the algo, at maybe when enough people flag it, the algo takes it down).
@matthew that’s a pretty cool idea.
@ matthew and matt — ditto
Can I ask how the yellow highlighting works? I assumed all the new submissions since I last visited the page would get a highlight signaling that they’re new, like it says. Not so. I just refreshed the manufacturing productivity page after it had been sitting for about an hour and the only yellow highlights that appeared were submissions by that Troy Tessalone dude. And I know for a fact that other, non-highlighted names were new because the first three or four on the list weren’t there before. What’s the deal? I’ve noticed that guy’s submissions get chosen an awful lot despite how unsuitable or awkward they sometimes are. Maybe because investors see only his as being new and don’t bother checking the complete list? I hope it was just some hiccupy fluke and not the lame, internet crowdsourcing version of insider trading or point shaving.
Justin — I think I can explain what’s going on. They mix up the names each time you log on, so you see them in a different order. As far as the first few names on the refreshed list not being there before, it is possible you just didn’t notice them. I always think I’ve looked at everything carefully, but many times I have missed names that I’ve noted later and thought, “why didn’t I see that one?” Part of it is primacy, I’m sure; the names up at the top might seem, subconsciously, like the “best” ones, especially since our own submissions are up there. The other part I chalk up to pure burn-out. Well, that and rushing off to do something else online and then going back to the page and finding I’ve lost all my wonderful yellow highlights.
As far as seeing the same winning names, that’s why I’m all for blind submissions. It’s tempting to vote for names that have been posted by people who have been “proven winners” in the past. I think that may be happening to some degree. Everybody loves a winner, especially when it can mean $$ in your account! But it does seem to goose the results a bit. I may have benefitted from it my very own self.
Re the Catholic School Mascot. I just noticed that Rafael Santos had already submitted something with Angels in it. Please remove my name suggestion or give any watts gathered by it to Rafael’s suggestion. Thanks.
i really like the ideas regarding flagging names for exclusion and perhaps adding a collapsible comment section for name entries. perhaps even for the flagging names feature the number count for the times a name entry has been flagged should be visible to all, so watts aren’t invested in a name entry that might soon be excluded (disappear). i believe these two features will help help the kluster community users communicate with each other more in/directly. thanks.
@Troy Hmm. The rest of us were talking mainly about flagging the best names for further consideration. If there were a flagging tool for exclusion, it should cover names that are duplicates of previously posted names or ones that do not fulfill the client’s requirements (no .com available, for example, or using a word they excluded). I’m not so sure the negative flags should be visible though, because that would make them usuable as a weapon against competition, to discourage investments even when the negative flagging turned out not to be valid. Invested watts could just be returned when a name was excluded. Comments would be excellent.
@Donna - via a previous post above by Matthew Cua on August 31st, 2008: “I suggest a flagging tool to remove a name (but it is only visible to the person who flags it and to the algo, at maybe when enough people flag it, the algo takes it down).” Anyways, I am still up in the air about whether the negative flags should be visible to all users because you do have valid points that I agree with. Overall, I concur that there is a need for more user-friendly features in NameThis.
I wish there was a date and time stamp on names posted so if there is a dispute of who listed a name first it could be quickly remedied and also an option for the poster to remove a name. This would allow someone to remove thier post if they actually did make the mistake of reposting.