The bargraph (idea measuring tool), and what it does


neat swirly colors not included

By Tadau To see the bargraph in action, go to the Stats and interactive voting page. What it does. It's a tool that measures the effectiveness of an idea, showing the ideas' various strengths and weaknesses in real time. There are four aspects that make up the graph, as seen above. It's a visual representation of the idea, read left to right. The values are not static, rather, they change often depending on various factors which influence the numbers positively or negatively. Low numbers are weak, high numbers are strong. The bar graph has a behaviour that you'll get familiar with quickly. If a value in the graph reaches a low number, that indicates it's time to prepare for the next idea. However, high values indicate strengths of the idea which should become obvious by other ideas people have spawned from the original, or by users building upon the existing idea. Any one of the values will eventually drop to zero, as the idea burns out. This means a new idea will be introduced almost immediately upon burnout. The previous idea is wrapped up and archived. Sounds like it all happens pretty quickly, but for an idea to burn out, it may easily take days, more than a week...or a mediocre idea could be ousted in a day. It all depends upon what people do with the idea, the originallity of the idea, and how the creator sees the idea based on the everchanging environment that surrounds it. The home page consists of two such instinces of the bar graph. The graph directly above the feature idea (center column main page) is heavily influenced by the admin (me), the other which is located in the Flack column is completely influenced by everyone BUT the admin. This process creates the best visual estimate of the ideas' quality and content, along with an instant representation of the idea to whomever is viewing the site. The same idea that you've read about yesterday may have been taken in a totally different direction today by someone else, causing the numbers to shift radically. These changes could provide very interesting new possibilities which I encourage you to check out. How it works. You need to know what the different parts of the graph do individually, what they mean, and what affects them. Potential: Foreseen possibilites. How far can the idea go? How useful is the idea? Lots of potential means that this idea is incredibly useful, paving a path for other ideas like it. Not a lot of potential says the idea drags it's feet in the useful department and is ready to bury it's head. Little comes from an idea with low potential. Value: What's the idea worth? Is it practical? Lots of value indicates a high quality idea. A well forged idea is treasureable. Low value indicates the idea is worth little more than the paper it's printed on. Value can be depleted as flaws appear. Popularity: How favorable is the idea? Is there a call for more ideas like this? Lots pf popularity means people want to follow the idea, listen to it's meaning, become friendly with it. The idea has what people want, and shows the ability to deliver the goods. Low popularity means people aren't accepting the idea, the idea is losing or has lost it's face value. It may also mean the idea is not favorable, or causes unrest. Epoch: The idea's state of freshness and originallity. Has it been around for a while? Did someone already think this up, or is this idea a variant of another? A high epoch value means the idea was just released, found to be very original, it will be sticking around for a while. A low epoch value indicates that the idea is becoming stale, old, running low on originallity.