I know a lot of people do like it. I know a lot of people don't like it. The latter group has the option of ignoring it, but the former group doesn't. Can those who actually value article voting (like Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, Amazon, CNN...) can we at least get an official explanation? If the official answer is buried somewhere, I wasn't able to uncover it. Thanks!
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Official explanation for removal of voting on articles please!
- Thread starter Tux Kapono
- Start date
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Hi,
It wasn't a definite decision to remove it. I just kept putting off deciding what to do with it and we finally launched without it. I'm open for it to returning, and we'll exploring the options.
Anyone with suggestions for improvement on article voting?
arn
It wasn't a definite decision to remove it. I just kept putting off deciding what to do with it and we finally launched without it. I'm open for it to returning, and we'll exploring the options.
Anyone with suggestions for improvement on article voting?
arn
I would use lessons from YouTube and allow people to not only sort by most popular articles each day, but by month, quarter and year.
There are people like the previous poster who will insist on it being useless, but that's like saying helpful/not helpful is useless on Amazon... sure some people think so, but Amazon's success is a result of the people who value it, not those who don't.
For those who know how to read voting results:
- It gives an idea if the article is generally market supported or not, and really, that's the bottom line.
- Even when I read something that seems positive, a largely negative rating will help me realize that, for example, some great new service has hidden charges.
What can be used with the positive/negative results:
What was the top Apple story in May? How about today? How about the past year?
In other words, the positives outweigh the negatives. All the negatives have to do is ignore, which is something we're all trained to do on the internet.
There are people like the previous poster who will insist on it being useless, but that's like saying helpful/not helpful is useless on Amazon... sure some people think so, but Amazon's success is a result of the people who value it, not those who don't.
For those who know how to read voting results:
- It gives an idea if the article is generally market supported or not, and really, that's the bottom line.
- Even when I read something that seems positive, a largely negative rating will help me realize that, for example, some great new service has hidden charges.
What can be used with the positive/negative results:
What was the top Apple story in May? How about today? How about the past year?
In other words, the positives outweigh the negatives. All the negatives have to do is ignore, which is something we're all trained to do on the internet.
The new website design looks great, but I have to agree I really miss the voting. I didn't even vote that much, but I really enjoyed seeing how the community felt about an article.
In fact, I rarely used the mobile version on my iPhone because I wanted to see the voting.
I really hope you bring it back! Besides the great information and interactions, the voting was my favorite...I really don't think it needed any change.
In fact, I rarely used the mobile version on my iPhone because I wanted to see the voting.
I really hope you bring it back! Besides the great information and interactions, the voting was my favorite...I really don't think it needed any change.
When you voted for an article, what criteria did you use to decide on your vote?
What criteria did the others use?
Chances are people voted on all different criteria so the numbers are meaningless.
Attachments
I have never voted on a news article
And I have never looked at the ratings
That said, I am not opposed to it being there
I just find it meaningless because I have no way of knowing what the votes mean
An article about Jobs being sick for instance...
It might get positive votes from those who like the article and the information
And it might get negative votes from those who are voting against the sickness
I typically prefer to make up my own mind regardless of how others rate something
I learned that from movie critics
And I have never looked at the ratings
That said, I am not opposed to it being there
I just find it meaningless because I have no way of knowing what the votes mean
An article about Jobs being sick for instance...
It might get positive votes from those who like the article and the information
And it might get negative votes from those who are voting against the sickness
I typically prefer to make up my own mind regardless of how others rate something
I learned that from movie critics
This, I read an article not because it generated more positive (or negative) votes but rather the wanting to read the content. The voting is adds nothing
I've been a member here since 2005. I don't remember voting on an article once. I choose what to read based on what interests me.
here is my take on the subject.
i believe i have never voted positive or negative on an article. but the voting made me more curious, that i read the article (except on articles which interest me anyway).
to be honest, since the relaunch of the website, i have not really read a lot of the articles, except for the summaries. was it because, i don't see the number of positives or negatives? in my case, that played a part (i guess).
one more thing, the part where the voting used to be makes that space look "empty".
well, it might grow on me. how about a colored bar like in youtube (as suggested before). the number of positives or negatives don't have to be shown explicitly.
i believe i have never voted positive or negative on an article. but the voting made me more curious, that i read the article (except on articles which interest me anyway).
to be honest, since the relaunch of the website, i have not really read a lot of the articles, except for the summaries. was it because, i don't see the number of positives or negatives? in my case, that played a part (i guess).
one more thing, the part where the voting used to be makes that space look "empty".
well, it might grow on me. how about a colored bar like in youtube (as suggested before). the number of positives or negatives don't have to be shown explicitly.
I just find it meaningless because I have no way of knowing what the votes mean
An article about Jobs being sick for instance...
It might get positive votes from those who like the article and the information
And it might get negative votes from those who are voting against the sickness
I typically prefer to make up my own mind regardless of how others rate something
I learned that from movie critics
I agree with what was said here. Some people hit "negative" when they view the story as bad, but like the article. Other's vote negative because it was a bad article. Rendering the rating system useless at this point.
Also, I noticed that sometimes you will go into a story with a preconceived bias on either liking or disliking the article by seeing the rating. For instance, you will see the article with 500 negative, and only 70 positive, and you go into the article in a negative mindset (or at least that is in the back of your mind) to find out why there were so many people voting negative on it. Kind of like getting all psyched out for a movie that you think is going to be great, but right before you walk in, a ton of people exiting said it was horrible. Now you are watching it not for the shear excitement of wanting to see it, but why people were saying it was bad. (if that makes any sense).
Personally, I think it is useless myself. Being that if you truly formulate your own opinion based on what you read in the article, you won't care about what other people voted on it, right?
Plus, I think a lot of people read the title, and voted negative/positive based on that. I highly doubt that everyone who votes actually reads the article, then goes back and votes based off that. I'm sure (because I've done that a couple times myself), that people mainly read the title and start going click happy......which again, renders the voting useless because you have too many variables on what people used as the deciding factor.
It's a bit confusing what criteria people use to vote on articles. For some people it's a like/dislike decision. For others a believe/don't believe. For some it's an interested/not interested vote.
Since this site is MacRumors, I think the believe/don't believe vote is pretty apt! You could even allow people all 3 votes, whether they like, believe and are interested in the article. That might take up space (and maybe be too confusing) but would actually give the Macrumors staff great feedback on the articles.
Since this site is MacRumors, I think the believe/don't believe vote is pretty apt! You could even allow people all 3 votes, whether they like, believe and are interested in the article. That might take up space (and maybe be too confusing) but would actually give the Macrumors staff great feedback on the articles.
There is no logic in people's voting. They choose positive/negative based on their own reasons. To that point the voting system is not really useful.
Here's another way to look at it: I've never, ever been in this forum (not attached to an article) until this issue. I didn't even know it existed. The people who use filters like 'like/dislike' or 'helpful/not helpful' are those who feel they don't have the time to read the full articles and need filters, and certainly don't have the time to post in forums like these. Yet this a very important audience, and the companies that have the money to find that out all feature social filtering as a fundamental component of their content.
When you look at the comments on the MacRumors redesign, there were a lot of people requesting that the voting return, and usually written in one sentence, not paragraphs like this
There's no question there's too much information. Some other rumor sites highlight major news in red to distinguish "New iPhone prototype photos confirmed" versus "Nokia appeals court decision in patent claims against Apple". People just don't have the time to filter everything themselves.
The question IMHO is not whether voting should be removed for the people who know how to use it and value it, but what are the voting criteria that are more helpful/relevant:
Helpful/not helpful (Amazon, Yelp)
Like only (Facebook, iTunes)
Like/Dislike (CNN, Reddit)
Views
Relevant/Not Relevant
Positive/negative (I can't think of any site that displays both the positive and negative, and the fact it's not really used anywhere else may be a factor)
Again, when every media site out there is rapidly adding social filtering to help the busiest people sort through the information, and companies like disqus and pluck are dedicated to providing that very service, it seems somewhat conservative/traditional to be removing it here, ironic since Apple is anything but (hmm, maybe not when it comes to social media...)
Anyway, the bottom line is I'm taking the time to write this as an investment in time lost as I find myself transitioning from reading every word of every article for the past ten years to now skimming the articles here, but not before now reading the article headlines at appleinsider.com first instead. I would switch back with filtering.
ps I guarantee, seriously guarantee, you will have more traffic in the comments section if people were allowed to filter by most 'likes'. There are some hilarious posts that capture the essence of the article beautifully, like The Daily Show would write, or those with incredible knowledge of the topic in general that provide valuable insight, but they're buried on 'Page 6'.
When you look at the comments on the MacRumors redesign, there were a lot of people requesting that the voting return, and usually written in one sentence, not paragraphs like this
There's no question there's too much information. Some other rumor sites highlight major news in red to distinguish "New iPhone prototype photos confirmed" versus "Nokia appeals court decision in patent claims against Apple". People just don't have the time to filter everything themselves.
The question IMHO is not whether voting should be removed for the people who know how to use it and value it, but what are the voting criteria that are more helpful/relevant:
Helpful/not helpful (Amazon, Yelp)
Like only (Facebook, iTunes)
Like/Dislike (CNN, Reddit)
Views
Relevant/Not Relevant
Positive/negative (I can't think of any site that displays both the positive and negative, and the fact it's not really used anywhere else may be a factor)
Again, when every media site out there is rapidly adding social filtering to help the busiest people sort through the information, and companies like disqus and pluck are dedicated to providing that very service, it seems somewhat conservative/traditional to be removing it here, ironic since Apple is anything but (hmm, maybe not when it comes to social media...)
Anyway, the bottom line is I'm taking the time to write this as an investment in time lost as I find myself transitioning from reading every word of every article for the past ten years to now skimming the articles here, but not before now reading the article headlines at appleinsider.com first instead. I would switch back with filtering.
ps I guarantee, seriously guarantee, you will have more traffic in the comments section if people were allowed to filter by most 'likes'. There are some hilarious posts that capture the essence of the article beautifully, like The Daily Show would write, or those with incredible knowledge of the topic in general that provide valuable insight, but they're buried on 'Page 6'.
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If you select the article (rather than just viewing the front page) you can see the top rated comments i.e. this page
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/18/apple-lte-enabled-iphone-likely-due-in-2012/
To select the article click on the title of the article on the front page.
IMO there's not enough content to sort anything via voting or popularity... this isn't the BBC, Youtube, or anything of the like. In order for voting to actually matter per content sorting there needs to be bountiful content... 3 articles a day on average does not suffice.
I agree if that's the case, but there were 10 articles two days ago and 14 yesterday. Some people simply don't have the time to scroll through that much content each day. Apple's no longer a niche company with niche news.
Awesome xUKHCx, thanks! Arn, I think people are missing out on the "Top Comments" because you'd expect to see that when clicking on "Comments" rather than the article title, which for most people, there's no reason to do so unless you were forwarded the link. Simply being able to sort comments once you click on "Comments" on an article is the protocol nowadays, with the default sort set to "most popular".
Awesome xUKHCx, thanks! Arn, I think people are missing out on the "Top Comments" because you'd expect to see that when clicking on "Comments" rather than the article title, which for most people, there's no reason to do so unless you were forwarded the link. Simply being able to sort comments once you click on "Comments" on an article is the protocol nowadays, with the default sort set to "most popular".
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I disagree, I think there is logic to the voting process, it's just "Positive/Negtive" is too black and white, too limiting. Which is why I think the multiple question voting (above) might be better - though perhaps more effort than MacRumors want.
i.e. you can give 3 votes. Like/Dislike. Believe/Don't believe. Interesting/Uninteresting.
I disliked article voting above, because as said above, it was essentially meaningless.
However, if the vote were linked to a yes/no question connected to the topic of the article, that would be far more interesting. Lots of room for creativity in the question wording
However, if the vote were linked to a yes/no question connected to the topic of the article, that would be far more interesting. Lots of room for creativity in the question wording
But then you got things like "I Like to Believe that this is Uninteresting.
Or simply; they press Like and Believe, and don't have an opinion about the interesting part so they just vote randomly. Maybe Uninteresting since they voted the previous 2 polls positive. Just randomly... it doesn't work like that.
I think old voting options were perfect, it gave an
Idea of the value of the article that comments
Don't reflect.
I don't think it needs to be anymore detailed. I just want it back. It gave me an idea of how te community felt about it and that was great. I don't enjoy keeping up with macrumors nearly as much anymore because "like/dislike" is gone
Idea of the value of the article that comments
Don't reflect.
I don't think it needs to be anymore detailed. I just want it back. It gave me an idea of how te community felt about it and that was great. I don't enjoy keeping up with macrumors nearly as much anymore because "like/dislike" is gone
I liked the voting because it was a great reflection of the forums view
If they were for or against.
That said it's nice that things are so democratic here
If they were for or against.
That said it's nice that things are so democratic here