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Subject: 
Re: Opinions wanted: article rating harmful? (was: New feature: Article rating)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Fri, 21 Apr 2000 17:16:53 GMT
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In lugnet.admin.general, Matthew Miller writes:
Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
  SYMBOL  NEW   OLD
    ++++   4   80-100
     +++   3   60-79
      ++   2   40-59
       +   1   20-39
           0    0-19

How about

+++ 4
  ++ 3
   + 2
     1
     0

That's probably even better.

Gonna try out a related thing first -- changing the "+" symbols to "!" symbols.
The "!" symbol is a lot skinnier than "+", so it saves precious space, and the
count of symbols isn't really as important anyway as the overall bottom-line
visual draw.  The "+" symbol (chosen over "*" for its higher legibility in
default Helvetica) still somewhat connotates "plus" or "better" even without
an accompanying "-" sign.  (Do you get that feeling as well?)  The idea behind
the exclamation point "!" is shouting "hey, look at this!!"

Changing the input-collection text from:

   How would you rate this message?    Low o o o o o o High    o (No comment)

to:

   Would you recommend this article to others?   Yes! o o o o Yes!!!!   o No

ought to alleviate ambiguity.

I always had reservations about using the word "rating" in context with
articles.  Slashdot uses the word "score" but that also gives the feeling that
someone is "keeping track" or "keeping score."  Other word options were
"voting" and "opinions" but according to their dictionary definitions, those
didn't quite match.  (I don't recall how much in-depth the word choice was
discussed in the initial thread, but probably not enough.)

Migrating this away from the idea of "rating" and toward the idea of
"recommending" (that's what the ratings are supposed to do, in the final
analysis) seems like a wise idea.

--Todd



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Opinions wanted: article rating harmful? (was: New feature: Article rating)
 
(...) symbols. (...) No, but I see how other people might. (...) <snip> Yes, definitely yes. If your post isn't recommended, it doesn't mean anything... just that it's not recommended. No hard feelings (or at least less hard than "low ratings"). (...) (25 years ago, 21-Apr-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
  Re: Opinions wanted: article rating harmful? (was: New feature: Article rating)
 
(...) Yeah, I agree that "+" has connotations of "better". But I think the "!" seems to have a "Warning" feeling to it, especially in red. (It's a typical icon in warning error message dialog boxes, for example.) That doesn't mean it's necessarily a (...) (25 years ago, 21-Apr-00, to lugnet.admin.general)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Opinions wanted: article rating harmful? (was: New feature: Article rating)
 
(...) How about +++ 4 ++ 3 + 2 1 0 ? (25 years ago, 21-Apr-00, to lugnet.admin.general)

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