I would hope that there are no differences between how Maplesoft & non-Maplesoft employees use MaplePrimes.  If you see something you like, vote it up.  If you see something you don't like, or think is inaccurate, vote it down.  It's also a good idea to provide some clarification as to why you voted a certain way.  For example, if you voted down someone's post, let them know why.  However, this is not required, nor do I think it should be.

As for rules of behaviour (again, regardless of whether you are a Maplesoft employee or not), I suggest that everyone take a look at the MaplePrimes Community Guidelines as it covers off many of the things that Alec mentioned in his post above.

Bryon

A 'reputation' system is important for any social media site, and I strongly believe that the new concept is a significant upgrade to what we were doing with MaplePoints.  As the new site is only about a week old, it's safe to say that we are still in 'learning' mode, but from what we've seen so far, it does appear to be working as we hoped.  That said, it can always be tweaked to make it better going forward -- as can anything else on the site for that matter. For example, OptimusPrime had some interesting ideas about other metrics that can be used for calculating someone's reputation on a site.

When it comes to the calculations for back-reputation, we had three choices:

1. Start everyone off at zero
2. Start everyone with a value taken directly from MaplePrimes v1
3. Start everyone with a calculated value based on some good guesses about past content.

Obviously, we chose option 3.  Starting people at 0 made no sense because it ignored the last 5 years of history.  And we decided not to start people with their MaplePoints value because it didn't take into account the reputation 'rules' of new Primes.  To calculate the new values, we went through multiple cycles of calculating and then tweaking before we came to the values that you saw on launch day.

In retrospect, perhaps our decision to calculate reputation based on historical behaviour was too ambitious and we should have started everyone off at their MaplePoints value.  Not to mention that I think we underestimated how everyone valued their rankings on the old MaplePrimes.

There is nothing preventing us from re-calculating the historical portion of your reputation scores.  If this is something that the community would like us to do, we will do so.  Please note that a change like this would significantly alter reputation scores, so it is something that we can only do once.

Regards,

Bryon

@acer That is correct.  We have been adding tags and/or otherwise re-categorizing old posts as we find them.  And when edited, they get seen by the system as having had some recent activity. This is primarily "launch noise" and quiet down soon.

Bryon

Thanks for reporting that, Alec.  We will take care of the issue shortly.

Bryon

Those are excellent suggestions.  I will record all three for a future update to the Application Center.

Thanks!

The Application Center is one of the most popular sections on our web site, generating many thousands of downloads each month from new and experienced users alike.  End-users use it to find content that they can incorporate into their work, while contributors use it as a vehicle to publish their work.  We have a few contributors, in fact, who use the Application Center as part of their CV.

We accept contributions from a very wide range of users, some who are new to Maple and MapleSim, and others who are experienced users going back many years.  And while we review each contribution before we post, we do so primarily to make sure that the content "works" in the stated version of Maple.  We do not test for compatibility with prior versions, nor to we test every algorithm and formula to ensure that they are mathematically correct.  If there are any obvious errors or issues with formatting that can be improved, we will work with the author to improve it prior to release.

So while there is absolutely variance in quality of the materials available, the Application Center has been designed so that the community can provide feedback to the author and the rest of the community about its quality.  The Application Center will then look at this feedback when determining where to include certain content.  The best stuff will bubble up to the top, while the content deemed of poorer quality will sink down.  We call this system 'popularity'.  If you're interested in learning more about how we calculate popularity (or even better -- if you have some suggestions to improve it), make sure to check out a blog post written by Will Spaetzel that describes how the popularity system works.

The ratings slider is the easiest way to contribute your quality score for an application, but you can also leave opinions, questions or suggestions by using the comment section.  Or if you'd prefer, you can even contact the author directly.

The Application Center also has an Editor's Choice section, which is content that has been handpicked by Maplesoft as the 'best of the best', and is usually a great place to start if you're looking for some good examples.

When it comes to comments, they are moderated, just as comments in our corporate blogs are.  This is to prevent inappropriate language or spam from being displayed.  We try to be as open as possible and have never, and would never, block comments that are legitimate opinions, corrections or questions regarding a particular application.

With regards to the Online Help System, there are no public comments available for that section and any comments that you provide, while greatly appreciated and read, are only used internally.

I hope this answers some of the questions/issues raised about the Application Center.

Regards,
Bryon

Thanks for the suggestion, but that was unlikely the cause.   The problems seem to be related to the server, and we were witnessing some very strange behaviour shortly after launch.

As a fan of the Maple Leafs, I am unable to find any joy whatsoever in the current run the Habs are on.

No Habs No!

I recall the scenario that Alec is describing, and I was the one that removed the message.  The specific message in question was posted as part of a thread that was going well off-topic for anything that could be considered a 'normal' Primes conversation, and was moving into inflammatory territory that I felt clearly violated our Community Guidelines.  As Alec mentioned, I sent him a message stating my specific reasons for the action.

Please note that this is the only time that I ever removed a message, and it is something that happens very rarely -- less than 5 times in the 4+ years (and over 20,000 messages) that Primes has been up and running. I also want to make it clear that we have never removed or changed messages that are critical of Maplesoft or our products.

Alec, we genuinely appreciate your contributions to MaplePrimes, and I hate to think that we are going to miss out on your input in the future. You are certainly always welcome here!

Bryon

We are not planning on having the old version of MaplePrimes stay as a pubicly available site.  However, it will be maintained internally as a reference site for our developers.

Nedeco is the company that we used to help set up the telecommunications systems of the new office, and they are coincidentally located in the same building as Scientific Computers in Aachen.

The address of the new Maplesoft office is:

Auf der Hüls 198
52068 Aachen, DE

The "track message" feature is indeed included in the new version.  And in addition to e-mail, you can also choose to track content via RSS feeds.  Somewhat related, we have also added features for sharing content via your Twitter or Facebook accounts.

The collaborative books feature did not make it across.  They do not get used a whole lot, but you raise a good point.  There is some really good information in them, so we will come up with a way to migrate the content to the new site.

Thanks for the suggestion. 

There are no specific mechanisms available to flag an individual account, and that is not something that has been built into the new version that we are working on.  However, in the new version you will be able to flag a message as 'spam' and that will then help us administrators make appropriate decisions at the account-level.  Hopefully that will provide you with the capabilities you are looking for.

You can also always feel free to directly contact a MaplePrimes administrator with any issue or concern you have.

Regards,

Bryon

The best place to ask for help to specific math, Maple or MapleSim questions is MaplePrimes, which is the community site for Maple & MapleSim users.

Prof. Ogilvie: Thank you for your comments.  I have forwarded your suggestions on to the Maplesoft  development team.