Subject:
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What should be done about ratings (Was: Opinions wanted: article rating harmful?)
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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 20:06:26 GMT
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Highlighted:
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Before I start this message is a response to
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=6221.
I have very rarely used the Lugnet News web-interface so I did a little
research on the rating system. After twiddling around in the web-based
version I discovered that some fundamental issues need to be addressed to
achieve a meaningful rating system.
Firstly, what is being rated? Is it the relevancy of the post to the
message commencing the thread? Is it the quality of the ideas contained in
the post? Is it the post in general - e.g. style, humour, etc? It would
appear that the rating system is too vague and wide to achieve anything at
present. For example, if ratings are based on the relevancy of an article
to the message commencing the thread than the starting message cannot in
itself be rated. It also leads to problems when a conversation goes
off-topic; the mind boggles to think of the problems relevancy ratings would
cause.
Secondly, as I understand Lugnet Members can only rate posts; i.e. only
those that have coughed up the necessary wonga can rate messages. It would
appear that to have to pay to have the privilege of rating messages is
absurd. There are thousands of users but only hundreds of members. If I as
a non-member (not sure how long that'll last :) ) want to alert fellow
Lugnet users to Jimmy Crankies' article on Lego bricks being pretty
impressive/relevant I am unable. It is better that anyone can alert
everyone else to a great article than only a select few.
However, I will not simply state that the ratings system is unhelpful or
hurtful. I myself do believe that the ratings system can be made to work
but only with the following fundamental changes:
1 - That the ratings system criteria are clarified. The ratings must have
meaning to be useful. Relevancy to the message commencing the the thread is
wrong as it ultimately achieves nothing. Instead ratings should be based on
the quality of ideas expressed; for example, I want to say to fellow
Lugnet.Trains users that James Mathis post for a link to his latest train
creation is 'Great' so I simply select 'Alert users that message is 'Great'
'.
2 - The current 1-100 system is abolished. Instead a message can be rated
as 'Great' or just left alone as an average message. This would be very
much like the e-mail priority system; an exclamation mark could appear in
the web-interface to alert users to a 'Great' post. Rather than turning a
user away from posts it simply draws them to particularly brilliant
articles. As I said in point two, it alerts fellow users to something
especially interesting. It also prevents others from being hurt at their
messages being 'down-rated'.
3 - Rating privileges are extended to non-members. It appears that voting
is only for a select few; imagine being told, 'You have to pay £100 to vote
at the next general election'. It is undemocratic!
To summarise; the current ratings system is vague, undefined and
undemocratic. It needs clarification, simplification and opening to all
users to achieve the degree of effectiveness that Lugnet wants and requires.
If anyone has any views, comments and opinions than please reply; this issue
must be dealt with swiftly to prevent the current problem turning into a
crisis.
Thank-you,
Nicholas Allan
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: What should be done about ratings
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| (...) Good point. I see a growing need for a "ratings HOW-TO" page. (...) If just anyone can rate a message, what's to keep me from creating 100 accounts and rating my posts up to "100" for whatever reason? Todd's taking steps to verify existance of (...) (25 years ago, 20-Apr-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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