Mahalo Feature Request: Family Feature. What do you guys think?

I must say that @matt1 is a very honest and ethical person. My respect to you.. My humble opinions: 1. €œto prevent ….. from violating unspoken rulesâ€?

It’s difficult in the sense that besides family, there are other ties that can cause this too, for e.g. Relatives, classmates, colleagues, closed friends…It’s hard to draw a line and to implement. Nobody will know whether someone tip a person due to quality of answers alone or ties/friendship. 2.

€œdon't answer the same question that a family member answered (especially AotD)â€? I think you and your family members don’t have to restrict yourselves on these. Family members can have their own and different views, answers and votes.

Just let the community “decides� The best.. 3. For choosing best answer among answers in which one of them is submitted by family member, this maybe a problem.

To be ethical, you can decide based on consensus but sometimes you may have different views with consensus especially when consensus is limited (1 or 2 vote) and sometimes your family member indeed gives the best answer, though not favoured by consensus.. Mahalo has a check-and-balance on this too: daily limit to number of questions. But even so, there are some $ to be made. Black 4th belt: 40 question x 0.5 = M$20 per day.

4. Mahalo has a check-and-balance for tipping to gain ranks : “Cap for Points from Giving and Getting Tips at different belt level�.5. I think we don’t have to look too deeply on the belt level. Belt level can gain respects but in reality it only gives you extra daily limits, more pages that you can manage etc.. This in a way is beneficial to Mahalo community too for increasing its activities.

So don’t have to worry.. 6. I truly think a less stressful way will be don’t know your family member id and don’t track. A parent may give too much pressure to kids for e.g. Asking “why you think in this way?

€? , “why you ask this kind of questions? €?

Etc.. This may turn them off in asking questions here and they will ask elsewhere.

I must say that @matt1 is a very honest and ethical person. My respect to you.. My humble opinions: 1. €œto prevent ….. from violating unspoken rulesâ€?

It’s difficult in the sense that besides family, there are other ties that can cause this too, for e.g. Relatives, classmates, colleagues, closed friends…It’s hard to draw a line and to implement. Nobody will know whether someone tip a person due to quality of answers alone or ties/friendship. 2.

€œdon't answer the same question that a family member answered (especially AotD)â€? I think you and your family members don’t have to restrict yourselves on these. Family members can have their own and different views, answers and votes.

Just let the community “decides� The best.. 3. For choosing best answer among answers in which one of them is submitted by family member, this maybe a problem.

To be ethical, you can decide based on consensus but sometimes you may have different views with consensus especially when consensus is limited (1 or 2 vote) and sometimes your family member indeed gives the best answer, though not favoured by consensus.. Mahalo has a check-and-balance on this too: daily limit to number of questions. But even so, there are some $ to be made. Black 4th belt: 40 question x 0.5 = M$20 per day.

4. Mahalo has a check-and-balance for tipping to gain ranks : “Cap for Points from Giving and Getting Tips at different belt level�.5. I think we don’t have to look too deeply on the belt level. Belt level can gain respects but in reality it only gives you extra daily limits, more pages that you can manage etc.. This in a way is beneficial to Mahalo community too for increasing its activities.

So don’t have to worry.. 6. I truly think a less stressful way will be don’t know your family member id and don’t track. A parent may give too much pressure to kids for e.g. Asking “why you think in this way?

€? , “why you ask this kind of questions? €?

Etc.. This may turn them off in asking questions here and they will ask elsewhere..

Actually, you don't have to worry about accidentally breaking the rules. The system tells us when there are patterns and we look at each case individually. If someone is in a family situation we know and already act accordingly.

You should not vote or participate in other family members questions on an ethical basis--not technical. It is unfair to the other members to suspect that you would give an answer to someone in your family over you. There are plenty of questions in the system to be answered--there is no need to answer your family members.... also, you can discuss those questions with them over dinner anyway.

:-) As such, there is no reason to build this feature... plus we have limited resources and have to focus on Answers 2.0/personalization, as well as advertising right now. :-).

A couple of weeks back, I did ask this question mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-commun... What are the rules for having more than one Mahalo account in a household?. And I am still looking for clarity regarding voting when the user's name is shown. At the same time, I agree with @twinpairs on this "If cheating like this is going to happen, it could just as well happen between friends in different parts of the world!".

There is a chance of favoritism even with the current system. And if someone is gaming the system, it will be obvious and will be reported by the community.So I would just leave it as is today.

I get your concerns, however, I do not like the Family Feature idea. Heres why: You wrote, "don't vote on your family member's question, don't vote interesting on a family member's question, don't answer the same question that a family member answered (especially AotD) etc". Taking away family member privileges would be punitive without a wrong having been committed.

Also, if family members wanted to cheat, they just would not sign up as members! Suppose I find my father's question interesting, my sister's answer outstanding, I also want to compete in the AotD contest, I have what I consider a better answer to my son's answer, etc... If cheating like this is going to happen, it could just as well happen between friends in different parts of the world! As to your comment, "It will get very difficult (and annoying) to track what my other family members are doing.

I want Mahalo to do that part for me...". You have my sympathies here, but really, is that Mahalo's job? I think not!

If anyone cheats the system in these ways, it seems to me they would become obvious to other Mahaloians and official complaints would be made. Those situations could be dealt with officially behind the scenes. Thus, keeping this a family friendly place.

I hope I did not come off as combative. I really don't like writing in the negative. I just see difficulties with this feature.

Sorry, but for me, my vote is.

A very interesting idea... I would like to see a 'family friendly' site...but I don't think the tips and all should be shared by family. Naturally there are those out there that will continually manipulate the system for revenue.

It's an interesting question about the issue of different people on different accounts using the same computer. I think this can be done, but you have to be very careful not to be biased towards the other shared users otherwise it will appear that you are gaming the system by using more than 1 account for the same person. I don't know that Mahalo will set up something specifically for this cause because I don't think it is a big problem, but it is something to think about as Mahalo becomes more popular and more than 1 person per household starts using the site.

Sounds like more trouble than it's worth from a development perspective. If developing features were easy there would be a lot more, faster. How many families who all want to be on Mahalo could there be?

Kids aren't even supposed to be on Mahalo, and how many older teens are so family oriented? I'd put it at the bottom of the list, personally.

In the Interests of transparency, I'd say that the feature should be set up to a) prevent family members from voting on each others questions and b) prevent family members from sharing tips This would prevent any 'advantage' from anyone setting up a spoof family, and would still allow families to play in mahalo without anyone being accused of gaming the system.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.