[GET-dev] web hits ranking

[Kimberly Robasky]

Hi Guys,

Sasha is eager to get web hits ranking rolling.  I have a lot of
experience with online communities so I thought I'd fly some ideas and
see who salutes.  But before we do anything, will GET be search-engine
ready after Clinical Analysis paper is accepted?  If not, what else
has to happen before we can register it for crawling by Google/Yahoo?

Without further ado, here are some ideas for getting web hits ranked
by the community:

* Incentive: top contributers win $500 (full package) sequencing from 23andMe

This is better than a cash prize because it will have a tendancy to
only motivate those with a sincere interest in the field, and not just
random hackers and ne'er-do-wells.

* Link exchange:

This is a well-known key component to building online traffic.  GET
should have a published directory of links whereby like-minded
webmasters can submit links to their website after they have shown
that they have linked to us.  I have a PHP module that I developed off
an open-source base that does this, and can probably be integrated
into GET with a little effort.

* Interactive Banner for Link Exchange

We need to have a banner that can be delivered for link exchange (see
above).  We can be a little creative about this by including maybe
some kind of AJAX application to stochastically pull an unrated link
from a high-auto-score variant to include on the banner, along with
buttons to allow us to capture a rating from the mere act of clicking
our banner.

* Referrels

Another key component to traffic-building; we can offer bonuses to
people who refer a winner - say, $300 (minimal package) in sequencing
from 23andMe.  The MIT guys that one the DARPA red-balloon contest did
this.

* Object of the "game"

Rate links and/or editors (cannot rate editors you've referred, out to
3 connections?)

Rating system:
10 points: rate a link
5 points: thumbs-up'ing a popular editor
1 point: thumbs-up'ing an unrated editor

For this to work well, it's essential that ratings should include a
comment field so raters can explain their rankings (there was a recent
Science paper that kind of backs this up!).

None of these components would take a terribly long time to develop,
and I think it's pretty important to get it rolling quickly if we
don't want to be displaced.  Can we have this ready and waiting for
immediate release when the Clinical Analysis paper has been accepted?

-Kim