5 Stars of Contribution

[tcawe]

Announced on our blog - you can comment there

About 5 days ago we've finally moved to a 5-star contribution system instead of the previous system of 3 stars. The main reason is that as Colnect grows and more members become dedicated helpers, we should find a way to note that. Also, as we had only 3 stars, many ongoing contributors had been left with only 2 stars for a long time as it was very hard to receive the third star.

The system has started with granting 5 stars to the following amazing people of Colnect:

oferwald - my brother, without whom Colnect would have likely never come to life He's still helping Colnect a lot on a daily basis on many decisions and issue you are all likely unaware of

Vadym Sulimenko [Dravec] - he has enormously helped Colnect since I started making Colnect happen and has been the first coordinator on Colnect. Vadym is now helping a lot in many categories and is the coordinator of the postcards category.

Ignacio F López Vico [iflvico] - is our community manager and effectively the person responsible for all coordinators. He has provided Colnect with invaluable help and eased the way of many new coordinators in.

Jens Bruno Wittek [BrunosapiJens] - in addition to being our translations manager and helping Colnect become available in 61 languages, Jens has tremendously helped Colnect in many other subjects over the last years.

Vadym, Ignacio and Jens will now be able to grant the 4th and 5th stars to members.

[tcawe]

More 5 star members have been nominated:

Angelo Parla [angelo13] has been granted with his 5th star as he's been a tremendous help to Colnect being our main coin coordinator for nearly 3 years

Carine De Pauw [crookscarine] - effectively the creator and maintainer of our tea bags catalog. It's an amazing feat to see how a category that had no standard catalogs now has an incredibly professional catalog available to tea bag collectors worldwide

Jim Chen [Rubycored] has been granted with his 4th star. He has assumed many important roles on Colnect including our security officer, forum moderator, coin editor and coin coordinator Probably won't be too long before he gets his 5th star

[krakus52]

Hello

I wonder how they are managing to get the stars.

Who decides to allocate the star.

I have only one to have contributed to the catalog of telephone cards and last year I have worked with the catalog of stamps, but do not know when I will get the second star.

I think we should explain how and when you get the first star, the second and so on.

Thank you for your attention

Rene (krakus52)

[boule02de]

Hi guys!

Very nice.

Please publish rules as to when the second, third, fourth, fifth star is awarded.

What work must a member do? Explain the incentive!

With kind regards

Peter

Bitte veröffentliche Regeln, wann der zweite, dritte, vierte, fünfte Stern vergeben wird. Welche Arbeit muss ein Mitglied leisten? Erläutere den Anreiz!

Viele Grüße

Peter

[boule02de]

Sorting by name is possible. But how could we sort our members list be stars?

Greetings

Peter

[tcawe]

Collectors with Sorting by stars

Also on the Collectors page you can focus only on people with specific amount of stars.

Recommendations for stars come from the coordinators so if you contribute a lot in a category, don't hesitate to let the coordinator know it may be time for your star

If you're an editor, your activity is monitored by the coordinators and managers and its quality is estimated.

Stars are given by our community manager iflvicoand by our translations manager BrunosapiJens.

About exact guidelines - it's a little hard to define as it's not very easy to estimate the assistance given. One member may add 100 items but with little information and another may add 10 items with excellent details. Another collector may be submitting hundreds of comments to fix existing problems in items. Another collector is constantly translating. Many collectors do bits of different things.

The general guidelines for the 3 stars were based on an estimate of how many hours the collector gave in helping Colnect (or how many hours the coordinator would estimate the contribution to be worth):

1 star > 5 hours

2 stars > 50

3 stars > 200

but as there were only 3 levels, many stars were delayed. Perhaps now would be a good time to award more stars

Please see the HALL OF FAME post on the forum which details who got what and why.

If you believe you have earned another star but didn't get it, please contact the relevant coordinator and detail where you've contributed.

The 4 and 5 star levels are kept for members who are doing independent extensive contribution. That means that if you keep submitting NIFs that have to be checked and fixed by a coordinator you won't get the 4th star. You have to eventually request and get coordinator rights which mean you're now responsible for the additions you're making. An estimate of > 500 hours is required (but may not be sufficient) for 4 stars.

The 5th star has so far been given only to members who helped with so much dedication over YEARS. The minimum there would be one year as a main coordinator of a category. However, that's up to the 5 star members (as iflvico and myself) to decide.

Do mind that stars and permissions are different concepts. We have coordinators who so far have only 2 stars as they're relatively new and we hope to award them more stars with time.

I hope I helped clarify this a bit.

[Dravec]

Hello

I wonder how they are managing to get the stars.

Who decides to allocate the star.

I have only one to have contributed to the catalog of telephone cards and last year I have worked with the catalog of stamps, but do not know when I will get the second star.

I think we should explain how and when you get the first star, the second and so on.

Thank you for your attention

Rene (krakus52)

Dear Rene,

in case you have feeling that your contribution was underestimated - do not hesitate to contact corresponding coordinators... especially in case if you have contributed in more fields (phonecards, stamps). My personal experience shows that in some situation coordinator could simply forget to award contributor... it's life.

It's not good idea to push coordinator, but it's OK to remember about yourselves... coordinators are busy people and cannot keep in mind everything

[angelo13]

To overcome these problems of neglect, there is the possibility of assigning the Stars, automatically, according to the contribution made​​?

Any work performed, is confirmed by email, you could use this?

Is only a proposal

[tcawe]

To overcome these problems of neglect, there is the possibility of assigning the Stars, automatically, according to the contribution made​​?

Any work performed, is confirmed by email, you could use this?

Is only a proposal

While to some extent it might be possible, I will not do that. The contribution is not about an absolute number of items or edits, but about actual content of contribution. That's why the coordinator should make this decision. Any coordinator should have all the import reports in his email box and so it's very easy to check the items added by searching "import username" there. The edits and translations are shown at the backend.

[tcawe]

Announced on our blog - you can comment there

[venezuelanphonecards]

Amir,

One recommendation

The explanation of how each star is allocated could be added to "Contributions to Colnect" so Contributors/Editors can be aware of it by reading the Help Section

[Corvax]

Hi,

I think the issue of stars awards, in the level of today's existence is complicated enough and still not clear. As i understand it by reading this post, my opinion is that the system of calculating the "quality & quantity of work" is completely subjective and should be changed.

I don't know about you but personally i don't like and im not supposed to ask from someone

to be awarded even is a fact that i deserve it. Maybe it's selfishness but thinking of a scenario with which i believe, scopes of progress do exist, i'll prefer suggest that. Something else more objective and based to specific calculations with which coordinators will be overrided and not asked by collectors weather they deserve a star or not.

My suggestions about who and following which way someone can help Colnect and can be awarded with a star are:

About filling The NIF files..

He/She must fill the most important parts of the file (Submitted by (IMPORTANT), Country name (IMPORTANT), Company Name (if we know - better asking collectors in discussion forums before sending the file), Catalogue name (IMPORTANT), Currency (if we know), Catalog Code (IMPORTANT), Name (if there are no letters on the item, descibe the pic with words), Date Issued (if we have info), Expiry Date (if we have info), Face Value (if we have info),

Print Run (if we have info), Card System (if we have info), Front pic (ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT AND ONLY PROVIDING RESPONSIBILITY TO THE UPLOADER), Back pic (IMPORTANT FOR SIMILAR ITEMS AND ONLY RESPONSIBILITY.... ), Description (IMPORTANT if items have been imported with ANY of the missing info-fields by asking for help from collectors about them). In case items in a NIF do not have Catalogue name and Catalogue code SHOULD be rejected by the coordinator followed by him with a short reply with relevant explanation about the specific fields (reply-message only for the first time he/she faces it with a specific collector). After first time, rejection without explanations.

That way of contributing could a collector be awarded with a first star about, i don't know 200-300 items. About the rest of stars keeping this motivo for more items.

About translations..

Translators should be at least 2 who know the same language. One for translating the country's language and one who will supervise him about the QUALITY and TIMING (the rythm of working per load of job to do) of translating with a scale of 10 points and give him/her the appropriate points. In 5000 points maybe he/she could receive a star and after that in an analogic scale for the rest (Maybe ratio of points/number of words). in Languages which are difficult to be translated and relevant 2 translators (providing same work) hardly can be found should get the maximum of points.

About Editors..

The editors i believe should get a first star about counting 7000 clicks-changes on ANY items

in ANY changes of it. (currency, system, printrun etc). Same way for the rest of stars in an analogic scale.

About collector's contributors who do bits of helping over here, over there, should also have

scales of points. Providing.. tirage = 9 points, Card system info = 10 points, face value = 6 points, providing front or back pics = 10 points,

Date of issue = 8 points, providing an unknown but correct info on description = 10 points and so on for the rest fields of the NIF but less that 7 stars for them. With these type of points

a collector could maybe awarded with a star at 6000 points for example.

About the rest 4-5 stars? Obviously i don't have any state to make because they are indeed

busy enough and they help with lots of extensive contributions.

Regarding to the "counter-calculator" of all points above MUST be counted by an independent

responsible person only for that reason. Actually all my thoughts-suggestions above are based on that and based to the fact that every single point of each collector who help, SHOULD BE WRITTEN in a type of file (not neccesarily published on Colnect) BUT definately being kept to that person's PC and an info should be given as a proof when it is asked by a contributor OR when an argument has to be solved. The last person must be always informed by the supervisors or people who have the ability to check someones work for reunion-calculation of a contributors points in order the procedure to be clear.

**All the number of points and scales are completely subjective and should be discussed further, mostly in case this "scenario" is argueable

markos

[tcawe]

Thank you very much for your suggestions and opinions. The challenges in making star decisions are not simple. The problem, IMHO, when trying to automate this system and have fixed set criteria is that some contributors would focus more on getting their next star rather than the bettering of Colnect. The stars are a sort of appreciation of contribution saying the member has done something of importance to help on Colnect. If we start saying "after X edits you get the next star" we might get people over enthusiastic about editing and re-editing. For example: making minor changes to the description just for having a new edit there. If we say "after X items you get the next star" contributors might become happier to add more minor variants or even the same items just to get the counter up higher. That's the reason that I believe it's best to appreciate the quality of help offered and that can be done well only by the relevant coordinator. Yes, the current system has the flaw that coordinators often communicate with many contributors and don't always remember what each one has done until they are reminded of it. For this reason it's okay to ask whether you should get a star.

In any case, I'm open to suggestions on improving the system. If members here reach a consensus that is different than the current state it'll be changed appropriately.

[Blahake]

Thank you very much for your suggestions and opinions. The challenges in making star decisions are not simple. The problem, IMHO, when trying to automate this system and have fixed set criteria is that some contributors would focus more on getting their next star rather than the bettering of Colnect. The stars are a sort of appreciation of contribution saying the member has done something of importance to help on Colnect. If we start saying "after X edits you get the next star" we might get people over enthusiastic about editing and re-editing. For example: making minor changes to the description just for having a new edit there. If we say "after X items you get the next star" contributors might become happier to add more minor variants or even the same items just to get the counter up higher. That's the reason that I believe it's best to appreciate the quality of help offered and that can be done well only by the relevant coordinator. Yes, the current system has the flaw that coordinators often communicate with many contributors and don't always remember what each one has done until they are reminded of it. For this reason it's okay to ask whether you should get a star.

In any case, I'm open to suggestions on improving the system. If members here reach a consensus that is different than the current state it'll be changed appropriately.

If members here reach a consensus that is different than the current state it'll be changed appropriately.

[fagalvisch]

Considero que las estrellas son estímulos intangibles, ya que no conozco beneficios adicionales a tener 1 o 3 o 5 estrellas. Estoy satisfecho con mis 3 estrellas pero considero que debería existir algún estimulo tangible que diferencie tener una determinada cantidad de estrellas y motive a obtener una nueva estrella.

I believe that the stars are intangible stimuli, since I know of additional benefits to having 1 or 3 or 5 stars. I am satisfied with my 3 stars but I think there should be some tangible encouragement to differentiate have a certain amount of stars and motivated to get a new star.

Fernando