Musitant, I told you earlier I would post a longer reply to this when I was able. I deeply regret that I must devote some of this time not to critiquing your work, but to scolding a petulant child.
I suppose I'll start with the scolding first. I won't pretend I'm not angry by what happened today, and Bustos, your actions today are what angered me. When this University was created it was created to be a place where people could post their knowledge without fear of being mocked for it. You disagreed with the content of Musitant's post. That much is clear. You posted your issues with it. I, and I think most Taijituans, have no problems with people posting issues they may have with another person's lecture. This is encouraged.
But to spam the Ecclesia as if you're "keeping score" is a petulant way to act. It shows a disregard for not only Musitant's message, but his intention as well. His intention was sharing knowledge, and to discourage this in any way is to discourage people from using this University as it was intended. To be frank, it also shows how little you value the direct democracy itself - that you would so lightly use it to prove a point.
Disagree with Musitant's message all you want. But do it the way adults act - by debate, and not the way children act - by silly defiance.
I would like to speak now about the topic of this thread.
I would first like to thank Musitant for his time in putting this together. You are right to say it is hard to define influence in a meaningful way - I think that perhaps, to sooth sore egos, an alternative such as "civic activity" may have been more appropriate. But that is neither here nor there. No matter how you name the metric, it is still the same thing.
I think that assigning numeral values to each action taken in the Ecclesia is the most sensible way to go about this. Though, as you said, some of that je ne sais quoi of influence is bound to be lost by converting this to mere numbers, it seems the most practical way to do it.
When looking at the value assigned each action, the main critique I would have is that "starting a thread" may be weighted too heavily. I wouldn't be surprised to learn if Gulliver and I scored so highly only because we started the most threads. In most cases, ideas are briefly discussed in our IRC channel, #taijitu on esper.net, before being put on the forums. These brainstorms are typically a very communal affair, and often Gulliver or myself are the ones who happen to post it in the Ecclesia. It can feel a little unfair to see us scored so highly when really, other than posting topics, I'm far less active in discussion than Delfos (in my opinion, at least).
Despite this, though, I see why one may rank starting a thread so highly. I would probably suggest it remain the highest-scoring option, but to weigh it at perhaps 5, or even 4, instead.
To give my opinion to some of your questions at the end:
I think it would be hard to define which types of discussion get more points, but I would like to see some ideas.
I think a monthly report like this would definitely encourage the less-active among us in the Ecclesia to post more.
I think it serves as a good metric of Ecclesiastical activity, and who is doing most of it, but I would be cautious with making any solid statements about how influential certain Taijituans are with it.
I would love to see more!
