Hide Rank Until Support Given (None Canonizer Algorithm)

[sajid315]

Mechanism to prevent information cascade where participates of surveys behavior is influenced by the known results of the survey before contributing to it. Add a Boolean data field to topic record that when enabled prevents camp's score being displayed on the consensus tree or in the support area of the camp page.

Areas of discussion

• Should this be topic wide or camp specific with inheritance like the fields for disable sub-camp?
• Should the supporter list still be visible?
• How would camps be sorted on the tree without scores?
• What would this feature potentially break if implemented?

Result of discussion

• Topic wide only
• List will not populate
• By database query (not explicitly sorted)
• No

This feature would be implemented by creating "None" as a Canonizer Algorithm that does not count supporters, the dropdown will be defaulted to this value and disabled for any user who has not supported or delegated support to a camp in the topic.

[sajid315]

As per the understandings of the above requirement, we need to do following:

1. Create a new algorithm named as "None", that will ignore the support count for a topic/tree.
2. We will create a new field in topic record of type boolean that can help to enable or disable the "Hide Rank" on a topic.
3. Topic having that "Hide Rank" field enabled will be default selected to "None" algorithm for a user, until the user is the supporter/delegator for a camp in this topic.
4. We also need to hide the support tree for a user who is not the supporter for any camp in topic.

Few Questions:

1. For all public/non-logged-In users, all topics having "Hide Rank" key enabled will be default on algorithm "None" ?
2. Do we have to show the total score of a tree on browse page even the "Hide Rank" for that topic is enabled ?
3. Anyone can submit a change for "Hide Rank" enable/disable in the topic record ?
4. We need to check only single direct/delegate support existence of a user in a topic ?
5. Do we need to completely hide the support tree or make it blur for the non-supporter ?

[BrentAllsop]

Brent's thinking

1. It will not be possible to use any other algorithm besides none, unless the user is logged in AND supporting a camp in the topic.
2. No score will ever be displayed for the entire topic, until the above conditions are met.
3. Yes, anyone can submit a "hide rank" change and it must be unanimously accepted (not objected) to go live like any other topic change.
4. Yes, a delegated supporter will also be able to see the score.
5. This is a good question. Let us discuss the pros and cons (user can manually determine score if he sees the support tree). I think we need to hide the entire support tree of all camps till number 1 conditions are met.

[sajid315]

As discussed with whole team on Scrum of 28 Nov, we need to do following:

1. Add the hide-rank feature independent to a topic record.
2. We don't need to add "None" Canonizer algorithm.
3. Topic having hide-rank enabled will hide the scores for each user unless the user is supporter of any camp or delegator in this topic.
4. We need to hide the support tree and provide some kind of information/direction for the user to add support or add delegate.
5. In UI the tree hierarchy will be available but without score until the user having any kind of support.

@BrentAllsop Can you please describe below point ?

Yes, anyone can submit a "hide rank" change and it must be unanimously accepted (not objected) to go live like any other topic change.

What does it means by (not objected) in this change ?