Share Influence

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Ditto!

The honest ideators could "recommend" the people that specifically influenced their product in the evaluation comments. When the product is resubmitted with the ideas recommended and it wins, those extra influential ideas that were added to improve the item should be recognized and rewarded.
Quirky can easily miss these things.

As for ID, if the ideator had specific illustrations that solve the problem and start the design process, then 35% is well earned. If the ideator submitted no real solution to the problem then yes, the initial submitter % should be lowered and the ID round should be much higher.

At the moment, the influence engine is a complex algorithm that takes into account many factors, and we try not to mess with it too much for individual requests. But the idea of "gifting" influence is certainly interesting. I also hear you on awarding more influence for the industrial design phase. You'll notice that influence awards for the various phases aren't standardized (i.e. sometimes 4% will be up for grabs, sometimes 10%) so there's lots of room for flexibility, depending on the project.

What happens to the tiny percentages we earn once we drift away from the site?

Personally, I would like to be able to will them over to someone so that whatever amount accrues will go to the person of my choosing.

To the idea of "gifting" influence...
Good idea, Judy... Voted!

If two ideators have basically the same idea submitted and were ok with it, it would be great to be able to share influence. Maybe that could be programmed in as a possibility eventually, but maybe in the meantime it could be worked out so that one ideator could get the initial selection influence, but have it cut in half (so 17.5% instead of 35%) and create a second filler round that allows the second ideator to be allotted the other 17.5%. Could that work?

This is a cool idea, Sam, and initially I thought, "of course!" But then I realized that one person's "it's so similar!" is another's "but mine is different because..." It could lead to some very unpleasant wrangling and accusations of unfairness. I completely concur that the current method is unfair as well (where your idea appears in the "random" sort seems to be a big factor). Let's not even get into the "better renderings" or "more popular ideator" question. I think the only way to make your idea work would be to put it up for community vote. In other words, if an idea wins and yours is similar, you are allowed to ask for a (noninfluence-awarding) vote. You get whatever % up to 50% that the community decides. Maybe that would work?

Hey guys, I think Judi's original idea was to add a feature that would allow each user to allocate influence to other members. It'd be tricky to implement, but I still want to keep the thread about that idea as much as possible.

If you'd like to discuss the pros and cons of being able to split influence between more than one ideator, check out this thread. Sam and Stalias, points have been raised that are similar to what you've voiced here. I'd love to get you guys jumping into that discussion if you're still interested. Thanks!