New Feature: Message Rating System

That's actually a cool idea.Sure, the board-administrator gets to set stuff up... but why not give some of that control to the user, as well? Especially for something like a rating system.Simple: The user could choose to not display any rating system while they are logged into their profile.Complex: The user could choose to have the rating system display something meaningful to them, regardless as to what rating system the administrator has incorporated. User wants to show likes as a positive? Okay. User wants to show a reverse rating? (a 1.2 would display for them as an 8.8). Sure. I know some of the against-evolution posters used the rating system like that anyway...It's just rating-system. Maybe it should be user-controlled as opposed to administrator-controlled. Kind of like whether or not you want to display other people's signature lines when reading the posts.

I finally found some time to complete my investigation into the problem where Larni had a 10.0 rating. I did find a couple minor bugs that didn't affect our board given how it's configured, but there were no bugs affecting Larni's rating and he did actually have a 10.0 rating. As you surmised, it was due to his first message in the It's a boy. thread back at the end of April. Votes have a 3 month horizon, so his rating has since declined.

I still don't like the equation. And not because of the length of the 10.0 rating.It's that if I see a fairly aged message that I'd like to Cheer, and it doesn't have any Cheers yet, and the member's rating is above 1.0, then giving them that Cheer will actually lower their rating. 'Cause that would be one more rating to divide by and it'd only be providing one point.If a person has no history, and one post get zero cheers, then another post gets two cheers, and then their third posts gets two cheers, their rating would be (2+2)/2 = 2.0If I then go and cheer their first post, then their rating become (2+2+1)/3 = 1.7I don't want to lower their rating, so that's a disincentive for me to use the system. That's not good functionality.I'm sorry I don't have any constructive criticism at the time, but the equation does need to be improved if you want desired functionality.That's still part of your ultimate goal, right?You really do have the best forum software I've ever used on the net (that's a big reason that I've stayed here - you spoiled me). I'm assuming you may still be considering marketing it?

Yes, I do want to improve the rating system, but my available time is short right now. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I'm supposed to be programming full time, but my time is instead going toward a couple unexpectedly large and ongoing tasks and an ongoing family emergency, so my programming time has been minimal.But I can make minor changes like changing the denominator. What do people think of making the denominator the total number of messages in the last n days? It would solve the problem you describe.

I don't care what somebody's rating is in an n-day period. I'm only interested in n = forever.

I agree! As long as I keep my 10.

In that case you should be really happy now.--Percy

Swooning........I earned every zero!

Well said.

I'm just trying to stay ahead of Faith.

There probably should be a rating for how many messages you have rated (cheered). Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

I figure that as comprehensive a feature-rich set of code as Percy has created here there most probably is a Forum Owner's option to turn off member rating altogether. I think maybe, in the interest of checking out that portion of the module Percy should turn off the member rating just to see if it really works as he expects. I should think, just to be thorough in this test, he should leave it off for, say, 5 years.

It would be nice if clicking on a members rating would give a list of the cheered messages, with the number of cheers. That would be a guide to "best messages" ("popular messages", and maybe even POTM type messages).MooseABE: For mysterious reasons, my rating has gone from about 6.3 yesterday, to 8.5 at the moment. Apparently it's because of what the even higher rated members have done, rather than what I have done.BTW, you can see the member list sorted by rating at EvC Forum: InformationABE2: Now Tanypteryx has posted a new message that has received (2+), which has dropped me to 8.1.Edited by Minnemooseus, : ABEEdited by Minnemooseus, : ABE2.

In Message 244 I asked what people thought of changing the denominator to be the total number of messages (instead of the total with one or more votes), and when there were no objections I made the change earlier this afternoon.

Our Supreme Leader writes: (Putting on my Atticus Finch face in the courtroom asking Sheriff Tate right or left side as you look at me or as I look at you):"Now is that the total career messages or total messages over the last 30 days or some other n?"