Penguin Watch Talk

Encouragement

  • dgkindy by dgkindy

    An idea to keep people searching, you could add a feature like badges for finding seals, various birds, checking x number of pictures. Ranking on how users are doing for the day or month.... how many pictures have been viewed, how many penguins have been counted.

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  • AvastMH by AvastMH moderator

    On Old Weather we can advance from cadet to lieutenant to captain of the ship we are transcribing...so I agree with you dgkindy.

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  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator

    Hi guys,

    Personally I think that identifying penguins is cool enough without added incentives (badges etc). I have an uncomfortable feeling that turning it all into a sort of contest might make people work faster but less accurately. I would much rather have genuine seals, because it's cool to find them, than perhaps a lot of false seals in a race for badges. After all, this is a science project, where accuracy is of great importance. I'll share your ideas with the scientists anyway.

    Regards,

    Yshish

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  • Nickypeng by Nickypeng moderator

    I agree with Yshish, competition would likely compromise accuracy. Besides, you've got hundreds of thousands of penguins to look at - what more could you possibly want?

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  • PenguinHila by PenguinHila scientist, translator

    Thanks for your inputs. We will take these ideas into consideration. We plan on having some incentives in terms of our social media presence and volunteer outreach. You can follow us on twitter and facebook as we start to bring online some contests that will involve real prizes!

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  • dgkindy by dgkindy

    Having taken some courses on motivation, not everyone responds the same way. So to Yshish and AcastMH, you enjoy the activity for just being the activity, others on the other had need something else to keep them engaged. Doing so does not need to necessarily be about competition, It could be about reporting out how many Penguins as a group we have identified, how many pictures have been removed from the list, how many seals have been identified this year.

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    Motivation is definitely something that we talk about a lot here at the Zooniverse, too. 😃 We did a study and found out that the plurality of people listed "contributing to science" as their biggest motivation, so we try to keep that strongly in mind. But it's definitely something that I'm interested in seeing if we could play around with as we go forward. Worm Watch Lab, for instance, has a "points" system. But we want to be very careful and never compromise the science goals!

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  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator in response to DZM's comment.

    I'm pretty interested in motivation too, since it is big part of my job. Hmm, personally, I don't think that the Worm Watch Lab points system works very well:( There are too many false egg classifications, perhaps mostly just for getting the points? (Just guessing.) It seems to be more a competition than a science to me. I don't see it very beneficial/valuable for the research. The motivation should keep the priority on the accuracy, not in fast clicking anywhere for getting some benefits.

    I'd be very happy if the motivation was through the science - with emphasis on the fact that science is cool itself. (Hope you know what I mean. I can't explain it much better.)

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  • dgkindy by dgkindy

    Agreed that we want the numbers to be accurate and truthful but if people are not counting then it is all for not. In my courses, we do discuss the ideas that motivation can cause problems just as indicated so the items need to be thought thru as you can get unexpected results otherwise. Two additional points, as for the counting and people just clicking for the sake of getting a high number, if you look at some of the postings, people are already reporting that they have made 200 plus clicks on a picture so by reporting it in some sort of formal way. It also identifies that people are taking the time to count all animals which is a benefit to the program, or at least I think it would be. If people are just clicking, they will not stay involved because they are cheating and so offers no real reward. As for people just clicking on rocks to call out eggs, I have to admit that I have seen some things that I could not 100% say that it was an egg, the back end of a grey chick or a rock but by comparing it to the other people that have looked at the image, you could gain a some certainty that people are actually counting and not just clicking.

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