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Subject: 
Re: Just look what ratings did to Slashdot!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Fri, 21 Apr 2000 02:44:26 GMT
Reply-To: 
mattdm@=Spamless=mattdm.org
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Chris Busse <cbusse@infi.net> wrote:
They have a system in place where more senior/active users are assigned a
given number of points to moderate forum posts up or down, as well as bestow
adjectives like "Interesting" or "Insightful" to the posts each day.

I think you've got the details right, but I'd disgree with your assessment
of the result. I'd say that slashdot's moderation system has been quite
successful. In the early days, /. was fun to read and had good discussions.
But when it passed a certain critical mass, the signal to noise ratio
imploded. I didn't even bother to read the comments anymore.

The moderation system isn't perfect, but it now means that when I browse at
+2 or +3, I actually see a lot of signal.


further their personal agendas, effectively acting as censors against those
who share views they do not agree with (ie. Anyone saying that a given
Microsoft technology is superior to a Linux technology.)

I've actually seen a number of posts with high scores which say that
something from microsoft is decent. It's usually the ones that say so
without justification which get moderated down -- and let's face it, given
the audience, that's fair. (It'd be like me coming in here and saying
"Megabloks makes much better blocks than Lego" -- just asking for trouble.)


But, the point of slashdot's system is very different from what Todd wanted.
They were having a severe problem with noise. Here, we've got a lot of
signal, and Todd just wants to highlight the best. That may ask for a
different solution.


You may have missed my "two button" proposal in all of the current noise :)
so I'll repeat it. I'd like to see Todd's fancy cool geek stuff stripped
down to two buttons: "This post is exceptional" and "This post is
off-topic". In fact, if people prefer, I'd even do without the second one.

I think this would make the purpose of the system a lot more clear, and
actually work better -- usability studies (which I'm quoting third-hand
here) have shown that having more options on a scale is bad. (5 being about
the max.)

--
Matthew Miller                      --->                  mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us                     --->               http://quotes-r-us.org/
Boston University Linux             --->                http://linux.bu.edu/



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Just look what ratings did to Slashdot!
 
(...) That sounds like an excellent idea, but how would the votes be tallied? ie: 21-Apr-00 03:25 [5/1] Re: Check out this set! — John Doe where 5 = the number of yes this is exceptional votes, and 1 = the number of this is OT votes? (my apologies (...) (24 years ago, 21-Apr-00, to lugnet.admin.general)  

Message is in Reply To:
  Just look what ratings did to Slashdot!
 
While I'm not particularly interested in directly weighing in on the debate raging over Lugnet's rating system, I will take the time to say this: Look carefully at how rating (they call it Moderation) has affected the Slashdot community. ((URL) I (...) (24 years ago, 21-Apr-00, to lugnet.admin.general)

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