We hear you… and we are listening. Really. We are. Promise.
by ben - October 23rd, 2008
We read these threads daily, and as much as I’d love us to be able to respond to every feature request, comment, and complaint… we simply cant. We are a team of just a few people grinding away not just to create an exciting, compelling, and monetarily fruitful user experience for our users, but a kick-ass and efficient product for our clients, and well… a business for our investors.
As for what we’ve been up to… we’ve sold the kluster decision making platform into a couple of large companies and are building out custom klusters for them to engage their customers, along with our community(via your very same kluster account), to aid in product development marketing, etc. This is great for us (monetarily) and great for you guys as you’ll be able to interface with huge companies and influence them, as per our original, and never-dying kluster corporate vision. (as explained in my “powered by kluster video”, back in april)
So admittedly, our small team’s focus right now is on getting those up and running . That being said, there is absolutely no excuse to leave namethis dark while we crank through these other things. Personally, I’m pretty happy about where namethis is as a product. more rewards are being put up for grabs through the site than ever, meaning more money up for grabs for you guys… and traffic / participation have been increasing steadily.
On the issue of client moderation/participation in the process…. we’ve resisted it for a long time, mainly my fault: well, fully my fault… 20man/Lacy/You all, have been in support of it from almost day one, and i’ve felt that you guys as a community could figure it out and follow directions / speak as a group, but i’ve realized that that is just part of the picture. To unveil our master plan even more, and not leave any secrets we have two things in the works:
First, We will be relaunching Public Kluster projects by the end of the year: What does this mean? Well, this is basically namethis for anything.. Any project that people would like to reach out and get the community to have a say in/reward cash. (the original kluster.com we launched in February, this time done right with all the lessons we’ve learned)… as part of this we will be including client moderation, along with a bunch of other fun goodies.
Second, we have a confession to make: The dandelions and unicorns we spoke of in the new namethis did not make the namethis relaunch. The Unicorn was our code-name for instant domain name registration/selection and transfers as part of the namethis system. It was literally a day away from completion when our registrar partners systems were not ready, and we had to launch as you guys/we guys were getting antsy and couldnt wait anymore….. shortly thereafter we moved over to building the two custom klusters that are going to be launching for corporate clients in the next 2 weeks. So, the unicorn is alive and well.. .and just needs a little more loving, which it will get very shortly. Domain name projects on namethis, are going to be truly awesome.
There is a three, and a four, and a five… and a four hundred thirty seven.. but again, we are grinding on a daily, nightly, weekend nightly, and a holidayily basis. We hear you all, and love the fact that you are so dedicated. and we assure you the way for all of your comments/dreams to come true is to continue to be as vocal, and as participatory as you are, and stick with this thing.
Lastly, as for the payment issues, we’re on it still, and doing the best we can. I will be honest though, i do not see the $200 limit going away for some more time. (probably, january 2009). i know i said a couple of weeks, well… a couple of weeks ago… and i apologize if you find this misleading, but i thought it would go quicker than it has. There are only about 30-or-so people effected by the limit currently, and that vs the thousands we pay a monthly basis just make it not worth it for us to dedicate time ti it right now. What makes lifting the limit fully tough right now is we are dealing with international users (we have to withhold taxes dep on country of origins), United States tax compliance) … its complex stuff, and its my day, every day. That being said, i remain dedicated to finding a solution as quickly and swiftly as possible. And i will do my very best to update you more often, as I feel that has been my weakness here.
Hang in there, and keep talking… ’cause we be a listenin’,
Ben
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@Ben, Thanks for the update!
@ Ben Thanks for the update really really appreciate it ! I believe the whole community appreciates it as well.
We can’t wait for the Unicorn although slightly saddened by the payment (It seems I won’t be able to get the trend report now
)
Still more power to you guys over there are Kluster HQ
Thanks for the update, Kluster!
@Kluster, I know I already posted this in the comments section of a project: “how come it says the total rewards is $74.25, yet when you do the math ($29.70 + $19.80 + $9.90) it only equals $58.50?” and Ben responded with: “it outlines the 3 placers… the rest goes to the people who voted/invested/influenced…. $15.75!”. so i say why not, to avoid further confusion, put another line item with the $ amount that goes to those who voted or maybe in () next to 1st, 2nd, 3rd the $ amount that goes to those who voted?! these would be simple calculations to make happen. thoughts anyone…
As one of those 30 or so people affected by the $200 limit I have to express my disappointment. The couple of grand being “held” for me was earmarked as starting capital for my new online venture (www.secretwomensbusinessnetwork.com … I think I DESERVE a free plug
) Times are tough and I understand Kluster has to be fiscally responsible etc etc so I do kind of forgive you - but it still hurts *sob* Imaginary Christmas for the kids this year…. 
I suppose I no longer care about the payment hold. My last bundle is coming up and since I told myself I wouldn’t continue to participate if Kluster wasn’t going to uphold their end of the bargain it seems I will take my $ and split. I won’t work for or with anyone that isn’t straight forward about compensation and I think that a definitive answer after six months doesn’t cut it for me.
Thanks but no thanks, I’ll stick to those that pay me in full, on time, and without false promises for more later.
@Troy
I think the winnings for the community could be expressed as well
makes the people vote more
@ Allison
I am too disappointed since I was looking forward to getting a trendreport >.< …I still do hope the Kluster would give us a gift for Christmas though
Good luck in your website though
Too bad is a female/women business thing xD
Cool. Congrats on the monetary fruitfulness. I very much appreciate all the work that’s gone into namethis. When that contest for 1000 watts was going on, I even took a lovely picture of my first “winnings” purchase: a sack of groceries from Trader Joe’s. (Although, never did submit it.) So, even though I was probably one of the more outspoken skeptics of NameThis at first, I’m now probably one of the more outspoken advocates. I think if people want to leave because of perturbations over money issues, that is okay. Usually, people and organizations succeed not because they’re trying to make money, but because they’re doing something useful and beneficial. That’s why, despite annoyances of the occasional crap names winning while my awesome names get ignored, I will stick around indefinitely for the fun of it. In terms of experience points, I think I’m about third, and that just will not do.
People and organizations succeed by providing what they say they will. Kluster keeps such lovely records that I could include a laundry list of promises about payment, over the course of 9 months now, that haven’t been fulfilled.
Dear Team Kluster,
What about raising the payment limit, if you can’t lift it completely for the time being?
Evidence of multiple accounts? Found. Probably. I almost hesitate to bring this up, but since the honesty of other players affects my ability to earn money for food and kitty food from namethis, I shall. Something about the quality of winning names has been very *very* off since about project #1061, the last time a Mr James Lacerenza (user #7537 with 2659 experience points) placed. Some time after that project, a Mr Jim Lacerenza appeared in the namethis scene (user #14456 who currently has 1399 experience points) and started “winning” at an alarmingly frequent rate. Since project #1061, Jim Lacerenza has placed in contest numbers: 1077, 1081, 1090, 1093, 1095, 1102, 1107, and 1127. Although I’m not a Kluster insider and cannot check IP addresses or other indicators of the two user account info, intuition is telling me that Jim and James are most likely indeed the same person. Alas, we have a problem with the 30 votes-per-user per project voting system which does indeed create incentive to use multiple accounts. This really sucks for the rest of us who have been honestly putting forth our best efforts. Seriously. . . “Fruitfulles” ?? (Reminds me of Fruit Flies) I think there’s also another fairly new user who has placed at an alarmingly frequent rate, but I won’t mention a name just yet. Kluster, I know you’re still in Beta and all that, and players gaming your system certainly isn’t your fault, but small preventative measures (yeah, moderators) could probably make a good difference. Finally (yes, there’s a disclaimer) if. . . IF I’m wrong about user 7537 being the same person as user 14456, I apologize. I am an INTP, so I do tend to notice patterns and all that more than a normal person . . . but even if I’m wrong (to quote Monk “Which, you know, I’m not”) think that this issue brings up a valid point nonetheless in favor of moderating.
P.S. And, if it *is* the case that u7537 = u14456, this would be a good point for having the card $ withdrawl limit, whereas the contest results might have to be re-calculated without the multiple-account dishonest votes.
Wow….Shawnee…. I am a bit speechless xD
I guess there is away to find out evidence of possible without the algorithm. I must stop thinking that it is impossible. I do hope that the kluster team looks into this, and clear it up fast ; if mr James Lacerenza is clear or not because I don’t want to see another long bashing like what happened to troy who was in fact innocent.
The Klusterbunch must stand together to defeat gamers !
That was what I was talking about and much more…
OK, here we go, guys. I am James. My father is Jim. I thought there would be nothing wrong in letting my father get in on this. So essentially, Shawnee, you’re telling me that just because we have the same last name, we are the same person? I would be more than glad to prove that my father and I are two different people. When we registered for the card, we used separate social security numbers. If you want me to be painstakingly honest, yes, we vote for each other’s names because we’re confident in them. To think, my dad is undergoing the recession like everyone else, and is a single father who works as a realtor, and he can’t get his money just because I helped. It’s a shame.
well so, im goin to register whole my family, but take it seriously cuz Im Bulgarian and our families are….. imagine: “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” x 3 and then will vote only on my names. and because we are Bulgarians we all are poor and underunderundergoin the recession from …. cant remember. looong time. shame on you!!!
I personally think that it is no shame to vote on names from a person you know and have a certain relationship to. It is normal.
If you are considering to vote on names of others too or generally not should be up to you. Namethis/Kluster encourages social communication on its online platform. It is obvious that this does not exclude social actions apart from the online world.
With a system like that you will have to live with the fact that it is possible to take advantage of existing contacts/friendships/relationships.
James’ and Jim’s case is in my opinion very different from what Georgi stated as both are actively contributing on namethis and not just exchanging voting points on each others names.
Friends:
Effective immediately, until further notice, I am quitting NameThis. Not because I’m jealous; I am depressed and this has blown way out of proportion. You guys played by the rules and should get your money. I should never have signed up my father or my friend and managed their accounts. If Kluster wants me back, they know how to reach me. Until then, it is unfair for you guys to be “screwed” by me. It’s my fault, and I’m going to take it like a man.
Thank you all. I will miss you and hope to work with you in the future,
James
@james
Thank you, for raising your hands up. Inviting your friends and family is okay, but managing their accounts to vote for your names isn’t.
It would be up to you if you would want to return to kluster and namethis.com
We are all working hard to give names, doing research and voting the best names (for some of us, painful as the community already developed a sub culture making some names although good nearly impossible in winning, and with that we lose money).
Play Fair,
Because the Internet is also made up of real people.
Dear Klusterbunch,
Since I come from a large family as well, I feel compelled to speak up.
Back in the Knewsroom days (may they return!), all of my family was on as well. I’m the oldest of five kids, and all four of my siblings and Mom signed up. We all voted separately for the articles we felt were the best, but I cannot say we were completely unbiased. How can I? With a resident family member posting articles, we were going to vote in the family. I did the best I could with fact-gathering and writing, and my family members felt they were voting for quality pieces of journalism. (My brother wrote and posted two of his own articles as well a few days before Knewsroom shut down, and I voted for both of them. Both were published.)
But still, we are family. You can’t take that element out of the equation completely: It’s nearly impossible.
My family and I haven’t gotten involved with NameThis so much: I come up with names for some things, but Troy is far better at it than I’ll ever be. My family members are each busy with their own endeavors (my brothers are computer programmers, my sister designs costumes for Tonner dolls, etc), so they haven’t had time to vote for names in NameThis either. My sister did come on briefly to vote for one of Troy’s very patriotic names in the contest to name Sarah Palin’s next baby, and that name made it to third place. I have voted here and there, and submitted handfuls of names when inspired to do so, but I’ve never had a single one of those names place.
Point remaining: I was blessed with a big family. That put me at something of an unfair advantage - something we all discussed here at home. We hoped that we were still fair in our voting, at least, and I made sure we were well within the rules.
I don’t think it’s fair to come down so hard on James Lacerenza for having his father and a friend vote for him. He’s well within the rules to do so. Managing their accounts is stretching those rules a bit, but tell me: Do you think his father and his friend would vote very differently? Why are they here on NameThis in the first place? …Probably to vote for James.
That’s one of the major drawbacks to a democratic voting system: You run the risk of turning it into a who-knows-who popularity contest rather than a true determination of the best names. I’m at a loss for suggestions, as far as how to counterbalance votes from friends and family. If you have ideas, I’m all ears - or eyes, as the case may be. But it might be one of those things that simply goes with the territory.
In that case, make more friends and invite them to Kluster.
Regardless, James Lacerenza didn’t break any rules that I can see. I asked questions about this very issue a long time ago, back in the Knewsroom days, and I was assured by members of the Kluster team that it was alright to have family members voting for you. So don’t unjustly condemn James Lacerenza: He has family; he has friends. Shouldn’t we all? But most importantly, he didn’t break any rules.
My two cents’ worth,
Christina
Namethis is not Knewsroom. Nobody paid money with the expectation of unbiased data in the Knewsroom experiment. Namethis is different because companies are shelling out dollars, hoping to receive tried and true, tested results that have been measured against the “wisdom of a crowd” for potentially popular or improved company names, products, brands, taglines, etc. Our work as namethis participants is to come up with and vote for the best names. Since the inception of votes-per-user, it has kinda stopped working. When users come in and taint the process by “managing” friend, family member accounts, the dollars spent by the company become essentially worthless. I’m sorry but “breakthroughmarketingfirm.com” is not a place I’d check out when I’m looking for some savvy “creative professionals” and I’d never order something reminiscent of Fruit Flies for breakfast. What Lacerenza & Co. did is highly unethical and despicable, in my opinion, and I really hope that Kluster re-tallies the votes and rewards the honest ones of us for all of those projects where there has been blatant disregard for the interests of their paying customers. There are at least 14,000 users signed up thus far. Seeing the same people win contest after contest (especially newcomers, aka u14456 & u14153) raises a red flag in my mind that something just isn’t working correctly.
Possible solution: a combination watts + votes system where newcomers’ votes are weighted less and brand new account holders can’t conspire to “steal the election”
Shawnee,
You make a lot of great points - and I agree with all of it.
In my humble opinion, James Lacerenza and family didn’t break any rules. But there is a weak point in the system, and - again, in my humble opinion - that’s what we should be working together to solve.
I don’t believe James Lacerenza ever had any intention of gaming the system. Again, just my opinion, but that is my point.
@Christina
James Lacerenza did not break any rules by inviting his family in, and making their accounts for them. What he did break is trust and honesty rule of our community when he started managing their accounts to further his own names. I can’t tell for sure how deep he went though, we maybe a bit harsh but we need to protect namethis.
That is the failure of any democratic system, the system can only goes so much, the rest of the way the community has to carry it and I am happy that the kluster community is very active.
Agree with Matthew…. “gaming” and “managing an account” depends on [our] generous interpretation. Hence the study of ethics in places you would think there is no argument… like medicine.
I have zero tolerance for any of those kind of shenanigans and maintain the integrity to only vote for what I deem is quality, even if it is one of my friend’s stuff, if it is crap it gets ignored.
Pragmatically we know that where there is cash there are those that will game to get it (and “game” is just a nice word for scam). Ahhh well…. I still dream of unicorns (which is meant to be something terribly sexual if I remember rightly) and puppy dogs, but both of them do excrete … and probably in the woods.
There are many problems with NameThis I would say…
(I am a fan, it is fun and I enjoy my email pats-on-the-back for my names)
BUT
Once more people start coming in there will be not enough money to make voting in any way worthwhile.
The coffee one now has 245 names and counting! Number of votes is going up on average each name.
A small explosion of noobies with badly thought out names taking up my mental bandwidth.
(If you are going to put a bad name… At least make it funny)
If everyone voted without any collusion on “piling-on” (based on who won last time, who my friend/family is etc)
I think we would find virtually random names winning.
Merely different voting styles would lead to different winners depending on who gets around to voting!
Do you vote for the 30 best names? The best name with 30 votes? Vote on your own!?
A different approach to ranking is required!
I sent email yesterday with outline of a new system I’ve been designing, to the team at Kluster.
(They didn’t ask me too! And they will probably ignore it, but hey I am trying and hoping)
It would better reward ALL reasonable names according to ranked value.
It would reward ALL people who vote “honestly”.
It would reduce options for gaming the system (probably reduce to zero options).
It would reduce the effectiveness and increase cost of gaming the system.
It would reduce domain name stealing.
I guarantee it would produce a better ranking of the names than current method.
The main drawback is that it would not be as social.
There is $75+ per naming available. That is enough to pay the required number of people enough
to keep them amused and interested. If we all shared nicely!
Perhaps we can get NameThis to setup a virtual Cafe for us Klusterites to chat about stuff.
And leave the “business” of naming to our “professional” time to produce a serious
reliable result, that will in turn increase the value of NameThis, and increase the number of names
available each day?
It would be nice to be proud of every name that we, as a group, highly rank.
And feel some certainty that one of the highest ranked names will actually be used by the business.
Otherwise this is just some kind of pointless game for loose change.
BTW @ Shawnee said “There are at least 14,000 users signed up thus far.”
That may well be, but it is not relevant.
There are only about 72 people voting in the latest and biggest naming,
each averaging about 3 names tries and 30 votes.
ie. “racing themed restaurant - 243 names suggested // 2,165 total votes”
This is a very small community. Newbies are likely to be active.
They just signed up they want to do something!
Most will soon get bored and leave to be replaced by new newbies.
Back in the old days, when votes were as little as 158names/795 votes for a naming
(ie only 26 people!), when you talked to 2 or 3 of your buddies and agreed on a best name, 90 votes would easily get you 1st place! I guess you were rigging it?
795 votes spread evenly between the names would only be 5 votes per name!
Say about 80% of the names would be obviously not that good, the rest would get a fair share
of the vote (assuming all was fair!) ie Average 25 votes.
You could easily argue 90 votes ie 3 people voting all 30 votes could “rig” the system.
(This could not happen under my above mentioned new system)
@richard can you explain the new system ?
Sure, that only a few dozen are active in Namethis.com but remember not everyone is active in each project. I am only active when I have a chance to, and I believe so are many more people. But yes I agree that having 2-3 people agreeing on a name could swing the voting. But then again only Kluster’s Analytics could determine what is happening, and if ever there is a pattern emerging, I am pretty sure they detected it and working things out. I am kinda sure they watch the analytics when they are bored with a cup of a drink…I dunno what the Kluster team drinks xDD
Hmm. I’ve been testing out the new system for a while now, and prefer it somewhat to the old one, particularly having 30 votes to distribute on each project. But I have to comment on the latest one. I simply cannot see how any of the winning names, ComeTalkToMe, BlaBlaBla, or Lexotel, give any clue whatsoever to the user that more than one language might be used on the site, and isn’t that the central reason for going there?
Somethings badly off with the algorithm!
Ben, are you guys sure you’re reading this blog?
@James. Regarding your “excuse” for your actions: I’m so sorry to hear that your dad, Jim Lacerenza, is a “struggling Realtor,” Would he happen to be the guy with $21,846,000 worth of real estate listings in Greenwich, CT at the sothebyshomes website? I’ve always suspected that Realtors are the most morally corrupt people on the planet, and this further proves it. Seriously, Jim/James, don’t you guys have better things to do than hang out here and steal from those of us who are truly struggling? I certainly hope news of his (and your) unethical behavior trickles over into both of your business and professional lives and that all of his and your colleagues and associates and potential clients hear all about it. Are you guys Republicans, too? I bet you’re Republicans; most Realtors are. My “excuse” could be that my mother died last month (which she did, at age 60), but I don’t go around making excuses because in my mind there’s NO EXCUSE for unethical behavior.
I think it’s very strange and “lucky” that Lacerenza wins the projects.
For example: I post 5 names and i don’t win; Lacerenza post ONLY 1 name and arrive 1st.
Also he gain 100 experience points (and undeserved dollars)for the 1st place and others 100 points (and dollars… ) because he invests his budget for his name.
After this “wise” action, his father, his uncle and his pet invest 30 points on the UNIQUE name that Lacerenza “proposed”.
Are you make fun of us? If your father wants to vote, he should do it ALONE and without interfere with your “great and shame mind”.
Everybody wants to make money easily… but you can cheat in a community. This is Namethis, not FAMILYTHIS.
I propose again the blind vote and if possible a kind of moderator. It’s sure by me you will not have a single vote.
Never.
Do you have problem? Are you poor? Do you need money? Try to find a remunerative and honest job…out of internet.
And let win the great names, invented from honest people.
PS: Smart names, not smart people.
Shawnee…Go ahead, kick a man when he’s down. I guess your wishing ill on my family shows your true colors. Guess what? I lost my mom to cancer two years ago, and we’re still hurting from the medical bills - even in Fairfield County, we’re feeling the pinch. And about it seeping into our personal and professional lives…again, that’s cold-hearted. My dad is a realtor, yes, but he’s also a loving, caring father, who happens to be the parent of a special needs child who, for your information has raised over $46,000 for children with Muscular Dystrophy since 2005, not to mention the smaller good deeds he does for people every day of his life. I don’t mean to sound pompous, but Shawnee, your comments really hurt when you don’t know the man you’re dealing with.
Alessio: I have a physical disability. I can’t walk. I haven’t held a job of any kind since 2005. I didn’t intend for Namethis to be the answer to my prayers, I just wanted to earn some money for myself. I will admit that the decision I made of bringing my father and a friend on board and managing their accounts was wrong. But for you to just say, well, I’m never going to vote for someone after they’ve admitted they’ve done wrong, that’s not fair either. I feel embarrassed and ashamed by the whole situation. They’ve suspended my account, my dad’s account and my friend’s account, but I’m not crying over it because I know what I did was wrong, I’d like to take my punishment, and if they would like me back, I’m just going to have one account and play by the rules. If they say they don’t need me, that’s OK.
Bottom line: I’m not going to let anyone’s ill will get in the way of my dignity. At least I stood up and admitted what I did was wrong. And now, I’m paying for it dearly. So, I’ll say it one more time - don’t kick a man when he’s down.
Having just participated in a crowdsourcing for a logo for my new business I have to say that leaving it to the requestor to pick what they like as the last choice, rather than the crowd, while not innovative, would seem to slam the door shut on people with questionable morals.
I can’t see how just by technical means this kind of human nature can be thwarted.
The old “judge’s decision is final” clause is respected by all. Maybe a “people’s choice” that pays a consolation prize for the winning choice form voters. They both could be the same thing….
*sigh*
Life would be so much easier if people were all puppy dogs
James, we all have difficulties in life. Perhaps I was a bit harsh, but I’m not cold-hearted; contrarily, I simply cannot stand to see good, honest people (those who aren’t cheating Kluster, Namethis clients or its participants) taken advantage of by people or a group of people who think they’re just soo clever or even people who think they’re more deserving than anybody else. Say whatever you want about my “true colors,” I think if you take a closer look, you’ll see (in both my online life and offline life) that I’m simply an advocate of transparency.
Morally corrupt people hate transparency because when they’re forced to look at their actions the way everybody else can see them, they usually have to attempt to rationalize or excuse their way out of the consequences of their actions. I wasn’t attacking your family, I was simply backing up my statements with facts that anyone could check and verify (i.e. your “struggling Realtor” plea). Dishonest people don’t like transparency because, essentially, transparency can show everybody else just how lame and pathetic they really are. I think the fact that your little cohort continued to play Namethis, even after it had been brought to public attention that you were cheating, made me write with a little more of the pointed sword than normal. So, yes, I was harsh, but I’m not cold-hearted. I always stand up for the little people, so long as the little people are honest.
BTW, this will be the last I write about this here. . . I have no desire whatsoever to engage in a sob-story exchange. Thanks for reading this blog, Team Kluster!
Guys,
Keep it clean here on the blog. I really dont want to have to turn off comments.
Shawnee, take it easy please… James is a good honest guy who made a mistake, and was punished for that. He’s admitted it, taken the consequences like a man and moved on. Continued attacks are worthless. He has moved on, kluster has moved on, and so should you.
Please keep this a happy place. Speaking of which, happy halloween.
Ben
I accept your explanation. No hard feelings, okay?
Whoops, forgot to say that was directed towards Shawnee. Sometimes you get trigger-happy on the keyboard, lol.
@Shawnee
Wtf does him being a Republican have anything to do with it? If this site was run the way Democrats want to run this country I would get lots of your money even though I don’t do anything.
I came to this page because I was thinking about joining namethis, but, after seeing how things are run here, forget about it. Even without all the Obama propaganda, I could tell this business was headed by Democrats. You punish the most successful few merely because they are the minority. This country can’t afford to be run the same way. It’s too bad because I was really excited about this idea.
I’m new here and found the site to be interesting and fun.
I have some feedback / suggestions based on my limited usage so far:
1. It would be useful to allow users to edit the explanations for their own name suggestions. Sometimes, you want to add an explanation or tagline.
2. There should be a feedback section where users can make feature requests or give feedback. (Like this post, which doesn’t really belong here).
Sorry if these requests have already been made. If #2 existed, I would be able to find out easier.
Wow it seems a lot has happened here O.O
@Henry
you can send emails to the kluster team. You can see their email in the bottom page of your dashboard if I remember correctly .
I agree with ben can we move on and dream of unicorns again ?
@jen & @shawnee & @Greg: this is not a forum for you to air political views or differences, and it is certainly not a place to cast aspersions upon people based upon their political affiliations. Please find another forum to express yourselves politically. Lets keep this a fun place to share ideas.
@Kluster/all, I’d like to propose a new NameThis structure. Seeing that everyone has their ideas of what would make Kluster better/work best I am going to offer my own 2 cents on this running conversation. I think that there should be 2 rounds. the first round would be 24 hours of just users submitting names for a project. the second round would be 24 hours of just users voting on projects, be it with 30 votes (as is the current system) or watts (as was the old system) or a new voting system. this would still stay within the current 48 hour time limit for a project. what this structure allows for is the separation of task: submitting names and voting for names. all to often under the current naming & voting structure is that names that are submitted at the very end before a project completes have virtually no chance of getting noticed or getting votes to place. i assume that most people don’t check back frequently (due to business, etc.) during the 48 hours of a project to review and vote on the newly submitted names. for example if someone comes to a project with 47 hours remaining and submits 10 names then they are likely only to have about a few handful of names including their own to vote for, then this user is likely to be satisfied and leave. this means that this user’s 10 names will be able to be voted on for about 47 hours by other users who come after this user. whereas if a user comes to a project with 5 hours remaining and submits 10 names then they are likely to have 100+ names to vote for including their own before becoming satisfied and choosing to leave. but what this means is that it is unlikely that those users who previously submitted names will return to vote on names that are submitted long after they submitted names early on in the project’s existence. as you can see this creates an imbalanced structure where names submitted earlier rather than later are way more likely to place due to the fact that they are exposed to all users who come to submit names or vote for a longer period of time. plus for those users who do return later to vote on names run across the challenge of having to redistribute their 30 votes, or as was the case in the past system users were unable to redistribute their watts that were already invested in names. what this does is creates a system very subject to chance (basically a system that relies on the luck of timing) instead of control. i’d be interested to see a stat that shows how many names submitted after 24 hours that actually place. anyways under the new 2 round structure that i propose there would be much more equality and control rather than inequality and chance. as long as names are submitted within the first round (first 24 hours) they will move on to the voting round (last 24 hours). this means that the chance of a name placing won’t correlate/depend on when it was submitted. this will also help out the users who can in the first round just focus on submitting quality/qualified names and in the second round just focus on voting for the best/most qualified names instead of having competing interests at play. whether or not the 30 votes per user per project or watts or another voting system is best is another debatable issue, but nonetheless this new structure will bring about better results simply by virtue of the structure and i think do away with many of the complaints that continually arise amongst us users. i hope everyone understand the logic and benefits behind this proposed structure. well, thanks for reading. let me know your thoughts Kluster/community. name on!
woah dude… wall of text!
I agree with Troy!
To quote myself from a couple of weeks ago.
# Richard on October 19th, 2008:
If I ran the circus…
1) 24 hours for company naming. No people’s names showing. Ability to edit our descriptions.
No one/two letter changes to other people’s names (community policed?).
2) Future name owner would delete all the “bad names” they’ll never use for whatever reason.
ie they asked for a .com and no .com is available.
3) 24 hours for the voting on the select few. No votes for your own names.
I realise this has it’s vague points. But it would be better than current set up I think? Fairer.
And bound to leave the new owner with a better name. And reward the creator of the name.
And payment would be a share of the $ for passing the cut. ie Step 2 above.
And a bigger amount for names voted into top spots.
And a preferential voting system! Each voter chooses their top three names in order.
Although I have improved upon the voting system substantially in my (top secret) proposal to Team Kluster (as yet unreplied too). Just getting the 24hr section in place would be a step in the right direction.
I always try to get a few names in in the first couple of hours to improve my odds.
I think the 24/24 system would be worth a try!
@Troy….If possible next time make some paragraphs …It is hard to read @_@
But I think the 24/24 thing has been in the works since namethis.com started and I think that is nice to happen or at least try. But it depends on the analytics of Kluster whether such a thing is possible. Why not have 1 or 2 beta test projects.
@Richard
I can’t say if your new system would work >.< since I don’t know much about it. but with your 3 points, I can’t agree with 2 and 3. For number 2, we already discussed it before, since having the owner delete names kinda disrupts the creativity. and 3, actually on the latter part. We should be able to vote on our own names, if we do what you are proposing, we risk people not voting (psychology) in order to win.
A community police although very enticing is a dangerous thing and can backfire. A comments facilitator though….I prefer that.
And the maybe you can get 5mins for you to edit the name and /or description.
As I told you before, the 24/24 system would be much better than the current.
Also I’m with Mathew, you should allow to edit the name/description, editing through the comments’ section is just not working for me.
I’ve also said this before, but, could you allow to view the comments on the same page as the names? There’s really important information going to the comments, and I guess most of us simply forget to visit it every once in a while (plus the system won’t tell you if there’s a new comment as it does when there is a new name.)