Subject:
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Re: Opinions wanted: article rating harmful? (was: New feature: Article rating)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Fri, 21 Apr 2000 06:22:35 GMT
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> Specific personal questions:
>
> 1. How would you feel (better or worse) if the numeric values of the ratings
> were not displayed to you unless you specifically requested (via some simple
> setting) that they be displayed to you?
Better
> 2. How would you feel (better or worse) if the numeric values of the ratings
> were not displayed ever to anyone but collected and used by the server only
> for internal calculations, hotlist generation, and personal recommendations
> to you?
So so. If the feature is to be kept, prefer that they be viewable. Else why
have them.
> 3. How would you feel (better or worse) if the ratings were not even
> collected and collated in the first place? (i.e. the destruction of the
> feature altogether)
Better. Wish the time had never been spent to develop them.
> 4. Have you ever felt victimized by the rating system? Have you posted
> something which has obtained a low rating and felt uncomfortable or unhappy
> about yourself or about LUGNET because of the low rating? How often?
Victimized? Hardly.
Annoyed that there's a strategic rater out there (and while there is no way to
PROVE it, I have pretty strong circumstantial evidence that it happens to me on
a fairly regular basis, and I am starting to suspect I know who it is, which
just validates my opinion of that person as basicaly a waste of food) but I
don't really seek validation from others as my main goal in posting, so I don't
get "unhappy about myself" over it. If you, gentle reader, do... grow up!
But then I am more self assured than the average person and I truly believe
that other people may well not have strong enough egos to get "down checked"
(or apparently downchecked... as I said, no amount of explaining away will
correct the perception that downchecking is what is happening) without feeling
bad about it.
> 5. Have you ever felt victimized indirectly by seeing someone else's post
> get a high rating? How often?
No one makes better posts than me (when I take the time to be eloquent) so how
could I be upset by someone else getting a good rating? That's saying that a
competent person is threatened by another persons competence. If I believed
that I would be threatened by the ability of others to make models almost as
good as mine or to architect systems almost as well as, or even better than, I
do. That way lies Looterville of the soul. So no.
Further I'd say that anyone who feels victimised because someone else was
winning a popularity contest this meaningless in the grand scheme of things has
deep deep issues and may want to seek professional help.
> 6. Do you feel that the article rating system makes it easier for you or
> harder for you to share your ideas? And does this bother you?
Mildly easier when they are good ideas, harder when they're flippant fluff, so
that's a (tiny little) good thing.
> 7. How does your initial reaction to the announcement of the article rating
> system compare to your current opinion of it?
Initially thought it was technically a neat idea and wasn't sure of the social
implications. Early experiences I observed portended problems which came to
pass.
Now feel that the LDT (Lugnet Development Time) would have been better spent on
any number of other things, such as unifying member information/cookies, fixing
the ***broken*** password system, streamlining and improving set database input
capabilities, allowing member areas to be created, facilitating group
sheparding/information gathering, improving the web interface ability to
remember what you had read, or some other things that I forget.
But then LDT gets spent on weird things. Look at how much of it was spent on a
password checker that over time due to repeated twiddling became so tuned to
recognise arcane substitutions that it fails perfectly good random passwords
that are not subject to dictionary attack... and ultimately there that checker
sits, a neat toy to play with, and we still have broken hard to remember
passwords that we can't change. But LDT is Todd's to spend as he sees fit. As
it should be.
Ratings have been a big administrative waste of time so far. Time that I'd
rather see Todd spend on coding useful features or on building or on sleeping,
or on having fun with Suz. Or even on doing LDT for geeky, useless but less
divisive things like that password checker.
> 8. Do you feel that it is too early, too late, or the right time to address
> these issues?
A bit late... quite a bit. The right time would have been before they were
deployed, and before this brouhaha got out of hand.
> 9. What other areas (besides news articles) can you imagine that a
> collaborative ratings system would be most helpful to you? LEGO sets?
> Websites? Individual web pages? etc...
Websites. I already know what sets I like and don't need anyone else's opinion,
thank you very much, but I don't know about all the websites out there and do
value some filtering there. Make it like Amazon in that it shows me sites I am
likely to like based on how I rated sites myself, not just ones that the great
unwashed masses liked, because who cares about popularity.
One other comment.... the current linear rating system, no matter how the
number of gradations, starting point, scale values, etc, is tuned, is
insufficient. That's because it is linear. As with so many things, there are
more dimensions than just one.
on/off topicness
newsworthiness
long term information value
Gee whiz that's neat factor
suitability for children
Just to name a few possible things...
Pretty much any linear scale is broken, c.f. the right left "political
spectrum" which fails to describe anything useful because politics is not one
dimensional.
> Thanks for your time
No charge. I just wrapped up a project early and sold followon work, so I'm in
a good mood.
++Lar
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