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New Feature Test: Post Ratings
- Thread starter arn
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That is because those who oppose will find themselves without the right to vote.
I will turn this thread into a PRSI faster than you can say "Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a Kenyan!"
Remember that this is just a test. Maybe Arn and others want to try it out and see how it works. In the future they can then say that it was tried but it didn't work out that well.
I think that's the real issue here. It would clearly work in some forums and not others. IMO.
I started today in the programmers forum. I saw the buttons and assumed (I know!) what they were probably for. I read a posted question and then several answers. One was better (at least for me) than the others and I like the ability to vote for that answer. It could, if further options are added, help others interested in that question to zero in on that answer. Or, just to let the person who gave that answer a "one up" to let them know that their answer was cool.
This all works for me.
Now in the other forums where there is much more subjective material? It could be a zoo.
To add: I think I see a lot of shoot from the hip posts on this. I think we should give the team a chance to see how it works out and what changes they may or may not make.
Mad Mac Maniac
macrumors 601
Anyone else hate the ugly purple square around the arrows? What purpose do they serve?
I do think there should only be "ups", but the icon could be a checkmark. When you click it some subtext would appear below/next to it. Something like "You liked this comment" or "You agree with comment" or "This comment was helpful".
Probably the first of the 3 suggestions is best, because it covers much broader scenarios. Additionally you could also break it down into different buttons like a "agree" button and a "helpful" button, but maybe we want to just keep it simple.
Also, I still think it would be good to accrue the number of "likes", "agrees", or "helpful", or whatever it would be to help the member obtain different statuses.
As I'm thinking about it, it may also be beneficial to weigh in the percentage of "liked" comments in addition to the amount. For Example, a person with 20,000 comments may have 500 likes, and a person with 50 comments could have the same 500 likes, but clearly the second person typically produces better comments and that should be considered accordingly. Of course this may be slightly difficult to factor exactly how to do it, especially when you consider that people have been using this site for years and already have accrued thounsands of posts. (perhaps this system of "percentages" would only apply to new posts after this system was in place)
Just spitballing here. am I out of line?
I do think there should only be "ups", but the icon could be a checkmark. When you click it some subtext would appear below/next to it. Something like "You liked this comment" or "You agree with comment" or "This comment was helpful".
Probably the first of the 3 suggestions is best, because it covers much broader scenarios. Additionally you could also break it down into different buttons like a "agree" button and a "helpful" button, but maybe we want to just keep it simple.
Also, I still think it would be good to accrue the number of "likes", "agrees", or "helpful", or whatever it would be to help the member obtain different statuses.
As I'm thinking about it, it may also be beneficial to weigh in the percentage of "liked" comments in addition to the amount. For Example, a person with 20,000 comments may have 500 likes, and a person with 50 comments could have the same 500 likes, but clearly the second person typically produces better comments and that should be considered accordingly. Of course this may be slightly difficult to factor exactly how to do it, especially when you consider that people have been using this site for years and already have accrued thounsands of posts. (perhaps this system of "percentages" would only apply to new posts after this system was in place)
Just spitballing here. am I out of line?
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No sir I don't like it. By all means have a +rep button, but don't add a -rep one. With this kind of site if you express the slightest justified dissatisfaction with Apple you'll be downranked to oblivion.
I believe the Steam forum has the best method. Positive only. Keep reputation details private, but have the accumulated total under usernames.
I believe the Steam forum has the best method. Positive only. Keep reputation details private, but have the accumulated total under usernames.
I completely agree with you on this. Posts should be marked if they are helpful etc and just ignored if they are not. The site can still use the data in the same way for whatever site improvements they want later.
Having "downvotes" will I suspect lead to what we see on Reddit comments where any post that does not fall in line with the hivemind gets downvoted. Getting downvoted leads to people getting discouraged and not participating in the discussion IMO. Outright abusive posts can still be reported to the mods.
Boy I can't wait to see this used on some of the posts by certain members. This is going to be down right comical. Nothing like seeing a -54 on a post.
I realize that this is just a test run of this "feature", but I too wonder what has changed in order to come up with a reputation system.
Excuse me if this was already suggested:
Perhaps allow a post that receives a certain number of dislikes to be "hidden" from a general view unless someone decides to view it by clicking on a link.
Similar to how a moderator can you a deleted post, but for the general public.
Perhaps allow a post that receives a certain number of dislikes to be "hidden" from a general view unless someone decides to view it by clicking on a link.
Similar to how a moderator can you a deleted post, but for the general public.
That's an awful idea. Posts will get downrated because someone disagrees with a perfectly valid opinion? I've already seen posts downrated because someone said they prefer Android over Apple or had a good thing to say about Microsoft. Hell, I'd probably get downrated just for my avatar.
As long as people are going to act like little children, using these ratings to hide posts is a horrible idea.
That's why you need meta-moderation. Weighs the balance of votes in favour of those who rate sensibly, stops people from just burying personalities they dislike.
So we need moderators for this? I thought the complaint was that there aren't enough of them. Plus I would find it difficult yo determine a legitimate -1, to one that was added for malicious reasons.
Just to make a point of how stupid this whole thing is I voted every one of Arn's posts negative.
And you are why this system won't work.
I do like the system though. Just hours before the buttons were added, I was wishing there was a like button because a post was really helpful.
Same here.
It was working fine yesterday but today it just takes me to the forum index.
I got IE9 installed btw.
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My point exactly, this is the reason we never wanted this system.And you are why this system won't work.
That's the "reputation system" question. I continue to dislike the idea that being a member is a competition (even though for fun I track statistics on who posts the most).
See my earlier post.
That's been addressed too. Putting the post-vote system in place necessarily has to precede using the data to provide other new features.
It hasn't been decided, but it could include ways to find or highlight highly-rated posts. I hope there's a way to use the feature to find the best answers in technical/help threads. Perhaps there's a way to turn post votes into thread ratings; I'm not sure about that.
Those are both worthwhile ideas. Most uses of the votes would be to identify good posts, not single out bad posts, so positive votes provide the more useful information. The data is there to tell you how you voted so feedback on your own vote seems like a nice touch.
I wouldn't favor an automatic system like this. Since you can't tell the reasons for people's votes, it could eliminate less popular posts in debates, leaving you unable to follow the discussion. And if all visible posts agree with each other, why have a discussion at all?
If there was such a system, I think it should be entirely voluntary, e.g., you can ask to see only certain posts based on votes. But I think the back-and-forth nature of discussion, with users quoting and building on previous posts, would make this less useful than it sounds. Perhaps it would be worthwhile having a User Profile setting to hide the voting system completely from users who aren't interested in using it. But we have to put our programming resources where they will do the most good.
Like some of the posters here I can think of ways to slice and dice the data, (what threads in a given forum have the highest percentage of positive-rated posts?) and ways to collect other information (rating posts by multiple criteria, e.g., "helpful") but the system has to be kept simple to work in practice. That's one argument in favor of having the arrows in all forums. But perhaps we'll learn that voting does more harm than good in certain forums, e.g., in political discussions.
Remember that forum features are designed to provide benefits to the overall membership. Your comments in this thread help us find the best ways to do that, so thanks for sharing your thoughts.
No, moderation becomes distributed amongst all members. Have a look at Slashdot - they developed the system there to manage their large number of comments.
If you gain a lot of positive ratings on your own posts, you get 'kudos' points.
Kudos score means you're invited to 'meta moderate' that is, to judge whether others are rating comments fairly or not. This removes the problem of people unfairly trying to bury or promote based on personal reasons, since meta-moderation helps reduce the weighting of trollish raters.
It seems to work well, producing a self-moderating environment where you can easily filter thread comments to quickly read the best posts.
The problem with the system MR appears to be building is that all ratings appear to have the same weight, whether coming from a respected forum member or a troll.
Possible ways to fix this might be:
- meta moderation
- preventing the frequency that you can vote up/down a certain individual
- weight votes based on some other measure of goodness
- reduce weighting based on warnings/time-outs etc.
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