I'm not OCD (at least, I haven't been formally diagnosed), but I still try to do justice to the profiles along the connection path. To me, that's just part of doing a good job.
There has been some debate about how to count connections. For a while there, every profile along the connection path earned a point (which is how I managed to rack up the connection numbers I did), but then it changed to only one point per leaf/twig/branch connected.
I can sort of see the argument both ways:
On the one hand, connecting a huge branch with thousands of people in it to the main tree feels to me like it should count for more than connecting one person. On the other hand, if it takes dozens of links to connect the one person, and only one to link the huge branch, then it would feel unfair to give more points to the person who put in less effort, even if more profiles got connected.
For a while there, I noodled about keeping score several ways:
- one point for leaf/twig/branch that you connect to the main tree
- one point for each profile added along the connection path
- one point for each profile in each leaf/twig/branch that you connect
But I don't even know if it's even possible to build a track that would track all that information.
I'd also love to see some way for people to get some kind of credit for finding additional connections between branches and the rest of the main tree. To me, that is also an improvement, even though there's currently no way to credit people for doing it.
But I guess sometimes we need to content ourselves with doing what we can to improve the tree, even if nobody else ever notices.