Here's an idea. On the DailyKos blog, they have a message rating system, but it's much simpler. Basically, there is one button, to uprate a post, making it known that the post in question is a well-regarded post. WHen someone has enough upratings within a past number of hours (or days) they become a Trusted User, and can then also down rate posts that they feel are inappropriate or otherwise detracting from debate. Once a post has enough downratings, it gets hidden and only viewable to moderators and trusted users.
Now, obviously, the formula for deciding when someone becomes a TU and when they lose TU status (not having had enouhg consistently good posts to get upratings) is up to you to decide, as is the penalty for downrated messages.
If you don't like the idea of a Trusted User, seeing as how that may infringe on a moderator's role, you could simply have the uprating as a way to mark good posts.
My additional suggestion: -get rid of the numbers and descriptions. Make it simple, and obvious that it's only for flagging "good" posts:
1 star icon 2 star icon 3 star icon
Your averaging can still work the same way, each poster will end up with a rating of something like 2.15 stars or whatever. (I suggest 2 decimal places if going with a 3-point system).
Calling them "stars" just gets people into that feeling that it's only for "good" posts, not to identify negative posts.
There would only be one admin rating given to any single message (Once it's first rated, no other admin can add another opinion).
The demerit rating points for a member would NOT be averaged. Rather, they would be summed. Build up to high of a sum and you might be suspension bound, with maybe the suspension length being proportional to the sum.
It would be nice if an admin (or any member?) could choose to see a listing of a members demerit postings. Something along the lines of the current one member only display of a topic, only that it would cross all topic boundaries.
An admin can choose to reset the sum value to zero, or perhaps an individual message demerit could expire after a given time period (3 months?). Also, a suspension would reset the sum, either automatically or manually by an admin.
But I would like to see the demerit rating persist at the topic itself. Such would permanently display that there was an admin disapproval about the message.
Interesting idea, but it doesn't have to replace the suggested 3-button positive rating scale. You could have both.
The admin rating would be good for the reasons you suggest, but there should be some automatic reduction--say 1 point per week reduced automatically. That should serve the desired purpose, while offering a way to work one's way clear.
The 3-button positive post feedback seems like a great idea. It gives folks something to strive for. I like to see expectations raised, and this might just help do that.
All in all, having an admin negative and a poster positive feedback rating might be just the ticket.
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Interesting idea, but it doesn't have to replace the suggested 3-button positive rating scale. You could have both.
I didn't specifically say such, but having both is also my thought.
My 1 to 5 system suspicions are that 1's and 2's will be given out mostly by "wise guys" and/or someone with some sort of grudge against another member. On the other hand, I don't see the opposite happening - "Wise guys" and friends giving out gratuitous 4's and 5's. Therefore, eliminate the 1's and 2's.
Speaking of "wise guys", someone's apparently given me (the admin mode) a bunch of 1's. My first rated message (a very atypical style admin message) was a 4. Since then my rating has dropped to a 2.0.
I tried several types of searches to find the later rated messages without finding any. It would be nice to be able to search a members messages to find the 4's and 5's (and on the perverse side, the 1's and 2's).
Likewise, it would be nice to be able to do a search for a members admin demerit messages (assuming such a thing comes to be).
A "moderator only" demerit type system seems a good idea, I like it. For anyone familiar with soccer where the accumulation of a certain number of yellow cards (I think 7 here in the US) brings an automatic one game suspension (a red card is ejection from the current game and suspension from the next), the software could issue an automatic suspension after the accumulation of a certain number of points.
The number of levels in the current rating system is not hardcoded, and I will be adding a couple lines in the board's control panel to make it settable. Directors will be able to set it to as many or as few levels as they like.
The rating system is a feature that I have to keep turned on in order to hone it to production quality and to wring out the bugs. Some with experience with them elsewhere haven't had much good to say about them, so I'm not sure how seriously to take it yet, not that I won't be making frequent mention of my lofty rating in the moderator lounge.
I think it is valuable to be able to mark exceptional posts, and you could have a
Post of the Month Nomination
That would automatically put the nomination in the POTM thread.
You could also have the message display
This message has been rated POTM material by
RAZD
Onifre
Straggler
etc
This would allow readers of the thread to notice the POTM nominations and also see who it was that was making the rating (and see how biased it is based on their opinion of the rater/s): one should be willing to stand for their vote eh?
Overall ratings for members is more problematical, as it is not a true survey of opinion (and it is opinion) of all the readers.
My experience on other boards has been that it is used as a weapon for lurkers to bump messages they agree with while avoiding confrontation with reasons why their position is poor or bad - an indication of confirmation bias for messages you agree with and of cognitive dissonance for messages you disagree with. In other words it becomes argument by popularity.
I even asked to be rated poorly (it was a OEC Christian run and YEC dominated forum) because the bias was so thick that messages clearly false (CTD's math) were rated high.
So I would not have an overall member rating system.
If you want to keep a record of POTM through the radio button response on a members profile, with links to the posts, then that might be a value when running yearly stats.
I would also have the rating show which admin rated it so, and keep the stats only in admin land.
If you want to keep a record of POTM through the radio button response on a members profile, with links to the posts, then that might be a value when running yearly stats.
All such information is retained in the database. At some point I'll be making it available.
Netflix adjusts a movie's ratings according to how you've rated other movies relative to how everyone else has rated them, and I plan to do something similar, including detection of when someone is rating in inverted fashion.
But I hope we don't agonize over the rating system too much. If it happens to be EvC Forum that manages to develop the most effective rating system yet devised, more power to us, but if not, it's just a board feature I'm testing.
So, years ago I belonged to a gaming forum. Most members, like myself, were pretty much just immature sons of bitches. The forum also had a post rating system. Over time, it evolved into coordinated attacks. So, we'd have this "war" between factions. It became such a headache that the admin decided to permanently turn off the rating system.
This is the second time I've seen it introduced. I'm just a little worried that it might be abused. But I guess only time will tell.
I fear that because I don't often post in science forums here (due to our resident experts handling such matters better) and find myself defending philosophical or metaphysical positions which are not popular, I'm never going to do well with the ratings as they are.
As others have suggested, rating a post as exceptional, perhaps on a scale of 1 to 3, appeals to me. As does RAZD's suggestion for a POTM button. I wonder if there's a way of differentiating types of posts? Maybe one is full of enlightening scientific information. Maybe one is very well reasoned. Maybe one is hilarious. These all seem like different categories to me. If we're going to really try to be fair, maybe we could have a separate creationist POTM category? Some of them manage some reason here and there, even if they're ultimately still wrong.
(added in edit) I notice that Nosy and RAZD's ratings are poor too. That's criminal.
Yes, it's has all the same flaws but is more public and annoying giving it an added side order of tit-for-tat.
The trouble with ratings and EvC is that this is a site with sides, the majority of posters here are either Creationists or Evolutionists. That means that any membership based rating system is not going to function well here.
I really like Post of the Month, I think it's been remarkable successful at bringing light on the best posts, rewarding good posts and promoting the best of the site. I think any new system you bring in should try and be closer to that model than any other.
I really like Post of the Month, I think it's been remarkable successful at bringing light on the best posts, rewarding good posts and promoting the best of the site. I think any new system you bring in should try and be closer to that model than any other.
Agreed.
Your three-tiered rating system could be:
--Post of the day --Post of the week --Post of the month
This would 1) eliminate the negative ratings, 2) give three levels of accolades, and 3) stay reasonably close to what works currently.
You could then assign values to each and calculate a score.
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
The trouble with ratings and EvC is that this is a site with sides, the majority of posters here are either Creationists or Evolutionists. That means that any membership based rating system is not going to function well here.
I think that's spot on. The ratings are already polarised with the evolution side being much higher rated than the creationist contingent. I don't think that will ever change and I think that it will (quite reasonably) upset the creationist members.
Member rating systems work best for sites where people are swapping advice, be it about gardening or looking after your pet dog. Those who give good advice get higher ratings and that's going to accurately reflect the quality of their advice. No partisanship is involved. It means that the ratings are providing people with genuinely useful data and it's easy to see whose advice is considered most useful.
The fact that EvC sees us constantly butting heads is inevitably going to undermine any such system.
On the other hand, I can see why it would be important for Percy to include this feature in his software package. Technically, it's great, I'm just not optimistic that it will be a good thing here.
Mutate and Survive
AbE; Shouldn't admin messages and accounts be exempt from ratings? On a board where we are discouraged from discussing moderating procedure, it doesn't seem appropriate.
rating show which admin rated it so, and keep the stats only in admin land.
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