Calculate Gravity based on Orbit distance

[mhall119]

To keep the analogy to gravity, and I think to more accurately calculate the effect of members on the overall community, the amount of gravity each member contributes to the overall gravity should be inversely proportional to their distance.

Or, to put it in community terms, if two members have identical reach and love scores, but different orbit levels, the member in the closer orbit (say, Advocate) has a larger gravitational impact than the member in a farther orbit (say, Observer). This is because members in the inner orbit are more likely to interact with any given new member than those in the outer orbits.

I propose changing the definition of Gravity to be:

Gravity = Sum(Love * Reach / Orbit^2) for each member

This also lets you calculate the relative gravity of each orbit in your community. If you have more gravity in your outer orbit than your inner orbit, that means members in the middle are feeling more "pull" towards being less-involved than being more-involved.

[joshed-io]

@mhall119 Thanks for opening the issue. The orbit levels are a function of the love score. In the current rendition of the model, two members with the same love would be in the same orbit level. Two members can also be in the same orbit level with different love, if both are still within the bounds of that level's love range. So in effect, the Advocate does have the higher gravity than the Observer, reach being equal.

This is because members in the inner orbit are more likely to interact with any given new member than those in the outer orbits.

This is a good way to describe the gravity phenomenom, I think we could add that to the docs.

If you have more gravity in your outer orbit than your inner orbit, that means members in the middle are feeling more "pull" towards being less-involved than being more-involved.

That's an interesting idea, not one that we've accounted for yet specifically. The idea of "drift" or "decay" is generally about members floating outward with time, but there isn't the notion of farther members pulling inner members away via their gravity. We've considered the positive but not the inverse case (this is admittedly true in many places of the model including sentiment). Can an exodus of Observers cause a shake-up amongst the Advocates? I feel like it can, especially if the Advocates are attracted to the community because the Observers serve as an audience.

Let me know if the first part of the comment makes sense re: Orbit^2. I think we already account for that to some degree since lower love will lower the gravity. I do want to continue the conversation though, as I think we're hitting on another area of evolution of the model - should Orbit Level be purely defined by Love or should other factors go into it? I'm interested what you had in mind when framing the original question.