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New Super Challenge Discussion thread2014

  Tags: Super Challenge
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4907 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 353 of 766
02 June 2014 at 12:44pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
Also, seems like books/movies until the next star are only displayed when
you already have one.


I think it displays when you have 10 or less items to the next star.
1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4907 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 354 of 766
02 June 2014 at 5:38pm | IP Logged 
I downloaded a bunch of free French books for Kindle yesterday. I haven't read any of them yet, but they look pretty good:

Coin coin le vilain petit canard 10 short stories by different authors (100 pages).

50 Micronouvelles 50 microstories by 50 authors. Each story has a maximum of 140 characters. Some are bilingual.

Orageuse passion (Azur) A harlequin novel. Didn't someone say the trashier the better? Trashy + free = even better! If you look at the "customers also bought" section, you can find dozens of Harlequin romances in French for free. But I really don't know if I want to go down that dark road.....

Au coeur du danger (Black Rose) Another Harlequin novel, this one also involving a mystery.

3 Arsène Lupin short stories (they are about 15 pages each):
Arsène Lupin, L'Homme à la peau de bique
Arsène Lupin, Le Cabochon d'émeraude
Le Pardessus d'Arsène Lupin

Some free Kindle books aren't free forever, so snap them up while you can!
1 person has voted this message useful



hjordis
Senior Member
United States
snapshotsoftheworld.
Joined 5184 days ago

209 posts - 264 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 355 of 766
03 June 2014 at 12:26am | IP Logged 
I don't think we should cap it at 100. There's still a semi-official double challenge
option that some people are going for.

I gave in and posted my reading so far in Harry Potter in French. I don't see myself
finishing soon as I've switched to other books for the moment. It's quite challenging,
since I'm so used to the writing style and vocabulary used in the Harry Potter books, so
I'd recommend anybody using some sort of series they're familiar with as a first book to
make sure you diversify when you're ready. I'm not really surprised it's a little
challenging, but part of me didn't expect it to be so much so. May be the book I picked
too.

Edited by hjordis on 03 June 2014 at 12:28am

1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6595 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 356 of 766
03 June 2014 at 1:05am | IP Logged 
Then how do you suggest balancing it out? We can no longer sort by challenge type/scale down those who are doing the advanced challenge.
Also, the right column would/will still sort on items done/stars earned per language
1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4887 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 357 of 766
03 June 2014 at 2:10am | IP Logged 
The main reason I like a 'cap' (at least in the rankings) is that it balances out those
who might do, say 300 movies and zero books. I haven't followed the discussion on how
books and films are weighted now, but I don't know if it's that important. In the end
the two will even themselves out as people approach 100 in each.   

But it will never even out without the cap.

I'd still like to see the amounts listed for those who go over the top! I'm not
arguing to freeze the counting, just to not count the extra for how folks are listed.
Mostly I'm thinking it would give people who are on the slow and steady route a change
to feel that they can catch up to those of us on the double route.

Maybe we could have a separate 'winners' box for those who've finished?

But since I know nothing about how to code a twitter bot I have no idea if this is a
practical suggestion or not.   
1 person has voted this message useful



hjordis
Senior Member
United States
snapshotsoftheworld.
Joined 5184 days ago

209 posts - 264 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 358 of 766
03 June 2014 at 7:30am | IP Logged 
I see your point, and it's tricky getting it all even and fair! Well I don't really care
much, so I guess I'll leave it to you people who actually follow the rankings closely to
sort out. :)
1 person has voted this message useful



surrealix
Diglot
Groupie
New Zealand
languagechallenge.su
Joined 4602 days ago

66 posts - 152 votes 
Speaks: English*, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 359 of 766
03 June 2014 at 8:45am | IP Logged 
Wow, I leave for a weekend and my inbox explodes again.

I *do* read and consider every bit of feedback I get, but ultimately the final
implementation comes down to whether it's going to improve the challenge for the
majority of users. At last count there were about 150 who were active, and most of them
aren't participating in this thread. So that said, here are some answers and my
thoughts about why I am/aren't going to implement various things:


Serpent wrote:
-are the badges supposed to be colour-coded only in the ranking table,
but not the user page?
-does editing an older entry count or not? it would make sense to count it, but only if
you add more pages/minutes, not just edit the title. maybe it's too much of a hassle
though - I think editing is used mostly to fix errors, not to actually add more book
pages a week or more after submitting.
-would it be possible to have some sort of sign denoting that you've posted an update
during the current week? like a check-mark or similar. i'm used to weeks starting at
midnight on monday, not around midday on sunday;) I'm not asking to change that, and I
think any setting will be arbitrary for some people. but it would be good to know
whether you'll lose your badge if you don't update before the end of the week.


- Yes, the badges are only colour-coded in the ranking table.
- Because you can't edit the date of a tweet, it shouldn't change anything to do with
your streaks. In your example where you add pages, the initial tweet would already have
counted towards your streak, and so adding more makes no difference.

Serpent wrote:
would it be possible to have some sort of sign denoting that you've
posted an update during the current week?


Yes! I've been meaning to add something like this ever since the discussion about when
weeks started and ended. It'll probably be a small check mark next to the badge on your
user page.

Serpent wrote:

[...] 2 week badge would be very encouraging and fits the spirit of the idea with the
daily streak. it would be attainable over a weekend) I sure hope that if someone
studies for like 52 weeks (1 year) or even every week of the challenge, they'll be
rewarded somehow too :)


I considered these when I was implmenting the badges, and there's a reason I didn't
(and won't be) implementing them:

- In a way, the "junior" badge is already present, in that the daily streak only
appears on your profile page if you've studied two weeks in a row. I didn't want to
clutter the front page (or detract from the achievement of a 5/10 week streak) by
putting a badge next to everyone's name. It's the same reason the first star is at 50,
and not when you register your first book or movie.

- As Komma mentions, having a badge for every week of the challenge simply isn't fair,
as the majority of people joined after the first week and this becomes unattainable for
them. If you have a badge for "every week after you register", then you could register
two weeks before the challenge ends and receive one. A yearly streak has similar
problems for people who join afterwards.

- There are various other issues, such as the fact that longer badges increase the
pressure to report every week, simply for the sake of reporting - and this is something
I strongly want to *discourage*. Longer streaks are also harder to maintain with
holidays or travel - I'm from New Zealand, and there are patches of the country that
don't have any cellphone reception, let alone internet coverage. The badge is supposed
to be motivating, not stressful.

- Finally, the number of weeks in your streak can be seen on both your profile page and
the front page (by hovering the mouse over it). If you want to aim for 87 consecutive
weeks (or 52, or whatever other number), then there's nothing stopping you. You just
won't get a different coloured badge for it.


Whew, time to quote someone else :

RMM wrote:
Surrealix, do you think that you could put an explanation of how the
participants column is ranked on the twitter bot results page?


Maybe.

Given the sheer amount of debate and technical details covered in this thread, I wanted
to keep the twitter bot page simple and straightforward. I agree that it's a good idea
to make it clear that you can choose rankings by clicking on the titles, and maybe a
brief explaination about the fact the ranking is weighted, but I'm a bit hesitant to
put up technical details or exact formulas. I suspect the average language learner is
more interested simply using the bot, and those who really want to understand the how
and why can find the information here, as you did.

That said, if enough people are confused I'll look at putting something more detailed
up.

kanewai wrote:
Even though I'm personally aiming higher than 100 in some areas, I
really hope that the
the ranking still gets capped at 100 (e.g. that 150 books won't rank any higher than
100).


At the moment the front page will report and rank based on the actual number of books
and movies you've studied, and I don't think this is going to change.

However, for the sake of argument, if 150 books shouldn't rank higher than 100, where
does it rank?
- They can't be in order, or 150 would rank higher than 100.
- I can't put equal entries side-by-side because there simply isn't enough room.
- If entries start dropping down the list again when you get over 100, that's going to
make things *really* confusing.
- Another option would be to randomly shuffle entries over 100, but this makes it hard
to just glance at the list and see your statistics because your entry will be in a
different place each time.

I might just be confused about what you're asking for, but when you talk about
"capping", what do you envisage the page looking like?

kanewai wrote:
The main reason I like a 'cap' (at least in the rankings) is that it
balances out those
who might do, say 300 movies and zero books.


People who complete a challenge (even a half challenge) will always rank higher than
those who don't, if you sort by the stars column.

kanewai wrote:

Maybe we could have a separate 'winners' box for those who've finished?


Again, the problem is how to define "finished". Some people may be aiming for a half
challenge, others for a full or double. The stars system mostly covers this - you're
"finished" when you a star beside your name that you're happy with.

Serpent wrote:
Well I meant the amount of material covered. two of these entries are
under 10 pages.


No, there's no minimum amount for the streaks.

Jeffers wrote:
I think it displays when you have 10 or less items to the next star.


Yes :).


3 persons have voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4887 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 360 of 766
03 June 2014 at 9:10am | IP Logged 
People who complete a challenge (even a half challenge) will always rank higher than
those who don't, if you sort by the stars column.


ok, cool, that was more my concern.

Wow, I leave for a weekend and my inbox explodes again.

That's because we wait until you're gone to act up. Cat's away, mice will play.




2 persons have voted this message useful



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