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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Thu, 20 Apr 2000 18:43:31 GMT
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> Clearly, these are very strong feelings being expressed by people. How many
> others feel this way? What would you like to see happen? Post your thoughts
> as a reply to this message (or reply privately if you prefer not to post your
> thoughts publicly).
Hi Todd,
To be brutally honest, I had some doubts about the rating system when I
originally saw it - I wondered how long it would be before somebody
decided (say) that they didn't like someone else and started rating all of
their posts as '0'. (I don't know if that's happened yet or not.) I also
wondered if people would use the ranking as a "competition". (Some people
will use *anything* as a competition...) I didn't really think either of
these possibilities were that great for LUGNET, but I kept quiet because I
really didn't have any firm evidence and I didn't want to slight your
work.
I know the rating system has made a few changes to my behavior, but it's
in the area of "checking what my articles were ranked" instead of "using
the ranking to decide what's worthwhile to read.
> It was never a purpose of the ratings system to make anyone ever feel bad
> or unwanted or unwelcome. It's core purpose is simply to highlight "neat or
> noteworthy stuff" but not to downgrade "un-neat or un-noteworthy stuff" or
> regular "fluff" (which there's nothing wrong with).
I'm not sure how this would work (and it's certainly got potential for
abuse) but maybe a self-rating system? I wouldn't be averse to marking
things I post as 'fluff' if they really are.
Another idea would be a non-numerical "rating" system. Maybe you could
rate something as "Fluff", "General Interest", "Group Spotlight" (sort of
like the Spotlight, but for individual groups), and "Spotlight". The X
posts with, say, the highest number of votes for "Group Spotlight" could
be shown in a special window. The numbers could decay over time so it
wouldn't be always the same posts. (Am I making this clear? If not, tell
me and I'll try to explain...)
A keyword system might also be a possibility (to help the "finding stuff
that interests you" part of the equation).
> It seem that no amount of education about what the numbers mean will be able
> to make a meaningful dent in the natural inclination to view, say, a 40 as
> having been "marked down" from its default of 50.
I'm afraid you're right here. Why? I think it's because somebody cared
enough about your post to give it a sub-50 rating, when they could have
just "left it alone".
> 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?
I don't think I'd mind that at all. Of course, I do half of my LUGNET
reading via NNTP, so I don't always see the ratings anyway.
> 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?
I think this would really cut down on hurt feelings. I know I wouldn't
mind it.
Would the personal recommendations be something like alexlit.com, where it
compares your ratings of articles with other people's ratings of those
same articles so it can "guess" what other articles you'd like?
> 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)
I wouldn't really miss it.
> 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?
Hmm. Most of the stuff I've posted that's gotten a low rating has been
"fluff", so I really didn't feel too bad about getting a low rating,
except for that first initial burst of displeasure at seeing that someone
thought my post was "not useful".
> 5. Have you ever felt victimized indirectly by seeing someone else's post
> get a high rating? How often?
Hmm...not really. But I don't study the ratings that much, either.
> 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?
Nope. I'm an opinionated son of a bull moose, so the rating system isn't
going to shut me up.
> 7. How does your initial reaction to the announcement of the article rating
> system compare to your current opinion of it?
Not too much changed, especially now that I find out that other people
aren't satisfied with it.
> 8. Do you feel that it is too early, too late, or the right time to address
> these issues?
It's never too early to defuse a potential problem in the community. "Too
late" would mean that LUGNET was doomed, and I highly doubt that it is.
> 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...
Hmm. The websites/web pages one could get personal the way the article
ratings did, if you weren't careful. LEGO set ratings would be pretty
cool, though!
J
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