April 19, 2004

Curious George: Would anyone like to help me? I need some volunteers to help out with a project I'm doing for university. It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes of your time. (More inside for anyone who is interested)

Okay, a brief description of what I'm doing, and what I'd like you to do. Its pretty simple stuff, really. I'm doing a project comparing different recommendation algorithms for E-commerce websites. The experiment (or whatever I should call it) involves looking round an e-commerce record shop site (which I haven't built yet) and rating a bunch of CD's between 1 and 5. I do need people who'll be answering stuff truthfully, though. Once enough people have rated stuff, I can then apply the algorithms to the data, which should spit out some recommendations. I'll then ask you to say which recommendation is the best. This'll be done via email, and not on the website, most probably. And thats it. Just two short little uses of your time. (well three, if you count emailling me, and four if you count reading this) If anyone is interested, can they email me (my email is in my profile) If you are interested, email me your monkey name, your real name (age and sex optional), and put the title MONKEYFILTER PROJECT HELP. Once I'm ready, I'll email you. Your details, nor your email addresses will be passed on to any one else, I assure you. If this is an innapropriate curious george, I apologise. Delete away, tracicle.

posted by dng 20 years ago
  • *panics, doesn't know what to do* I think it's okay if we don't make a habit of it. Only because I like you, mind.
  • Cheers, tracicle. Your in my Monkey Swap group, I noticed. I'll have to make sure my CD is extra nice, now...
  • Oh, and make sure to link the finished product on this thread, won't you? Of your project, I mean.
  • Yeah, okay. It won't be that interesting, though...
  • May as well make it worthwhile. :)
  • dg - my music preferences are pretty dated, but if you need that kind of wild card, I'd participate. On the other hand, if the selection of CD's is limited to the most current popular stuff, you should skip me.
  • And, dng, it should be "you're" in my Monkey Swap Group. Don't confuse the two in any presentation you make.
  • Hmm. I never got an email about monkey swap groups.
  • Nevermind. :D~
  • dng--do you need/want to know our music preference's before you set up site? I've already emailed you so if you need to know.....
  • What, are we swapping monkeys now? I want in on that - my monkey has grown a little despondent. He no longer plays chess, and I think he is suffering from ennui.
  • I though there was a law against putting the words "ennui" and "schadenfreude" so close together...
  • I'll see your ennui, and raise you an anomia.
  • I have no idea what that means.
  • i can't name it.
  • do you need/want to know our music preference's before you set up site? I've already emailed you so if you need to know..... No, I don't. If it turns out you don't like anything on the list, just give some bad scores to some items. If you don't know anything on the list, you just don't need to choose/rate anything. my music preferences are pretty dated, but if you need that kind of wild card, I'd participate. On the other hand, if the selection of CD's is limited to the most current popular stuff, you should skip me. The list should be fairly varied (although it'll only have about 2000 records on it). Depends how dated you tastes are, really - but like I said above, it doesn't really matter if you don't like, or don't know anything on there. It shouldn't matter. And thanks to everyone who agreed to help. And apologies again for the self indulgence of all this. Sorry.
  • my monkey has grown a little despondent I love hearing about schadenfreude's misfortunes.
  • A bit late, I know. I passed, by the way. This project got me my highest mark, too. So thanks everyone for your help. It was much appreciated. (I ran out of time towards the end, so the analysis was pretty poor - which is why I never got back to any of you with the results. Sorry)