Help: Frequently Asked Questions
We just launched Grupthink (beta) in April of 2006! For more press and development news, check out the Grupthink Blog.Let us know if you still have any questions after reading our answers below.
- What is Grūpthink?
- What makes Grūpthink special?
- What kind of topics can I post?
- I lost my password.
- How are answers ranked?
- How does Grupthink find people that are similar (or dissimilar) to me?
- I don't agree with the similarity rankings. How do I make them more accurate?
- What are "grups" (or "grūps")?
- What does it mean if an answer is "Leader"?
- What are Grupie Points and how do I earn them?
- What are tags?
- What are MegaTags?
- What RSS Feeds are available?
- Why do I have to register?
- When will you add [new feature]?
- Why do you want new topics and answers to be unique?
- Can I create a private topic?
- Why is content being hidden?
- How do you determine the quality of content on Grupthink?
- What are reaction points?
- What is my grupie cred?
- How do I report alleged copyright infringement?
- My question isn't listed here.
A.
Short answer: Grūpthink can harness collective insights through it's unique free-form discussion format.Longer answer: Grūpthink is a new way to ask and explore open-ended questions with the rest of the world. Anyone can ask a question or post a topic at Grūpthink, and everyone can respond. Here's where it gets even more interesting: Anyone can respond with new answers, and those answers can be voted on by everyone else.
Grūpthink makes it possible to explore interesting questions that weren't feasible before, such as:
- What are your favorite tv shows?
- What new features do you want to see in the next version of Madden NFL?
- Who is the greatest athlete of all time?
- What is the meaning of life?
We launched the Grupthink beta in April, 2006.
A.
Aw shucks, we thought you'd never ask! Grūpthink is special because it allows you to ask interesting, open-ended questions of a group and collect and aggregate their answers. We think it's pretty spiffy.Here are a few things that make Grūpthink unique:
- Anyone can post a topic/question.
- Anyone can add new answers to questions.
- You can vote on multiple answers to every question.
- Rank counts! Everyone can rank their votes for a question.
- Answer Images: Upload images for new answers.
- "People like you." Find like-minded individuals, based on your interests and votes
A.
Any kind you like. Grupthink is designed to handle questions where there is an undefined number of possible answers, such as "What's the most romantic restaurant in New York City?""True/False" and "Yes/No" questions work fine, too. Just be prepared to see additional responses, like "Who cares!" or "I don't know."
A.
No problem. Just request a new one. We'll send you an email to confirm your request.A.
Every answer at Grupthink has a score based on:- How many votes the answer has received
- How highly each voter ranked the answer in his/her ballot
The more points an answer receives, the higher it will place on the topic page.
For example, when you vote for an answer in a Grupthink topic, it receives a score (between 20 and 1) based on where you ranked that answer in your ballot. Your top-ranked answer will receive 20 points. Your second-place vote will give that answer 19 points. Each subsequent vote will receive one less point. 20th-place votes, and all lower-ranked votes will receive 1 point.
A.
Grupthink looks at many factors when determining similarity, including:- What topics you've participated in
- What answers you voted on
- How highly you ranked individual answers
The more of these you have in common with the another grupie, the higher your similarity score will be!
You must have at least 20 topics in common with another grupie for a similarity score to be calculated. Similarity scores are not negatively affected when two grupies participate in separate topics.
A.
The best way to get more accurate results from the similarity rankings is to participate in many topics. Here's what we suggest:- Create new topics that are important to you.
- Vote on more than just your favorite answers (if you support more than one of the answers)
- Rank your answers! Pay close attention to how you rank your answers in each topic ballot and put your favorite answers first. That alone could be the difference between someone being ranked similar or dissimilar to you!
- Add new answers! You might be surprised how many people didn't think to add the answer before (or were just too lazy to do it themselves)
A.
"Grups" are simply groups of grupies!. Anyone can create a grup and invite others to join. To form a grup, go to: Your Page > Your Grups > Form a New Grup. Once your grup is created, you can invite people by nickname or email address (you can also invite non-Grupthink members by email address). you can also find existing grups to join by searching for grups or browsing grupie profiles."Why would I create a grup?"
- Discuss private topics (currently, all grup topics are private)
- Ask more focused questions that are relevant only to your grup members, such as "Where should we go for Sarah's birthday?"
- Pose a topic to your employees or customers, such as "How can we improve our service?"
- Semi-private topics: Pose questions to a group of esteemed or expert grupies, but make the results public. For example, a dental hygienist grup could discuss "Best toothpaste"or "Best teeth-whitening solutions". The results of this kind of topic would be of interest to everyone, but should only be discussed/decided by professionals.
)?A.
The "Top Dog" answer has received the most points, overall. An answer gets a certain (hidden) number of points when someone votes for it. The number of points the answer receives is based on how highly it was ranked in the voter's ballot.Ranking counts at Grupthink, so remember to sort your votes!
) and how do I earn them?A.
Grupie Points are a measure of your level of participation in the social mindscape. As we build more cool features, your Grupie Points may become more important.You can get Grupie Points for lots of things:
- Filling out details in your profile (some are worth more than others!)
- Voting
- Getting votes for answers you've posted
- Getting votes on topics you've posted
- Inviting friends who vote
Grupie Levels:
Wondering what that funny symbol
next to our name is? That's your rank! After you've
earned enough Grupie Points, you 'll get promoted to a new Grupie level. Here is the current point breakdown with the required number of points listed next to the icon:
0 GP's
50 GP's
250 GP's
500 GP's
1000 GP's
5000 GP's
25000 GP's
100000 GP's
500000 GP's
1000000 GP's
You can see a report showing your total Grupie Points (and how you earned them) in your personal page.
A.
Tags are keywords that help visitors to understand, search, and explore Grupthink. You can also assign tags to your own profile to let the world know what you're all about. We'll also use those tags soon to help you find people and topics that interest you.A.
MegaTags are the most common and broad tags in the Grupthink mindscape, such as "Life", "Humor", and "Video Games". When you add a topic, you can select one or more MegaTags. Mega tags make it easier for people to find topics that interest them, by standardizing the most common tag words.For example, when you post a topic related to video games, you wont have to add redundant tags, such as "games, gaming, video games, and videogames". By selecting the "Video Games" MegTag, you can be sure that you selected the most appropriate spelling.
In addition, we have synonyms built-in to our database. So, for example, a tag like "funny" will be synonymous with "humor", and "video games" will be synonymous with "gaming".
We still allow (and encourage) you to fine-tine your topic with custom tags to further define your topic.
A.
There are RSS feeds for all topics, or for any one tag and topic.A.
We require registration to vote, add a comment, add a topic, and add answers, because we want the information at Grupthink to be as valuable as possible to visitors. By requiring registration, we make 'vote stacking' non-trivial and enable the meaning to emerge from the network of members, votes, questions, and tags.A.
First you should check out our Development Blog and consider letting us know about your great ideas. We're committed to a relatively quick development cycle and will definitely consider your ideas for future deployment!A.
If you try to create a new topic or add an answer that is substantially similar to a topic or answer that's already been asked or added, Grupthink will suggest that you use the existing one instead. Keeping topics and answers unique in this way is helpful to visitors because they don't have to decide which "What are the coolest sports cars of all time?" topic to answer, and don't have more than one "Lamborghini Countach Quattrovalvole" to vote for. ;)A.
Yes! Just create a Grup and invite the people you want to have included. With Grups, you can create topics that are:- Completely Private: These topics are only viewable by Grup members
- Semi-Private: Outsiders can view the topic and results, but cannot participate directly.
- Custom: Outsiders can view the topic and do one or more of the following:
- Vote
- Add new answers
- Comment on the topics and answers
A.
Our goal is to highlight quality content and hide unwanted content. If enough Grupthinks think that something is unhelpful or not relevant to the topic, it may be hidden. Also, for people who have adult content filtering turned on, some content may be hidden if it has been marked as "x-rated" or "r-rated".A.
Simple answer? We don't. The grupies do. Based on the reactions from the grupies and some complicated (and secret) algorithms, Grupthink will let you know the quality of different pieces of content based upon what you, the grupies think.There are exciting things in store for this new feature; so stay tuned!
A.
Reaction points represent the different ratings that the grupies have given particular content. Think a comment is lame? You can now mark it as such. Eventually, if the content receives enough negative ratings, it will be hidden from view.How many ratings will that take? Top secret. Just know that several factors determine whether content is visible or not. No single grupie's ratings will hide content, but if enough grupies speak up, the smack will be laid down.
A.
'Cred.' Short for 'credibility.' Grupthink tracks what others think about your contributions. Based on other's ratings, your credibility will go up or down. One of your contributions could be rated as 'funny' or 'lame,' one moment and your cred could be +1.845. After a few days of providing quality content to Grupthink, you will notice that how you rate contributions changes your cred. Then, through combining your ratings and the opinions of others, your cred will increase. Be careful, though. If you start producing poor content, or become less active, your cred will diminish.Beware: simply rating material, posting bogus answers, or otherwise trying to cheat the system will not help. Not only is it unhelpful, but other users may start to rate your content as poor and it could, in fact, be detrimental. So, keep the good content coming!
