Why Ratings Are Not Objective.

Just to reduce uncertainty, what Granny Magda described is how it works. In case it helps make it more clear, here's a simple example.Let's say I rate five of Buzsaw's messages, giving them these ratings: 5, 2, 3, 4, 3. The average of these five message ratings is 3.4, so I contribute a rating to 3.4 to Buzsaw's member rating. If I'm the only person who has rated any of Buzsaw's messages then 3.4 would be his member rating.Now let's say someone else rates five of Buzsaw's messages as follows: 5, 4, 5, 5, 3. The average of these five message ratings is 4.4. If you average 3.4 and 4.4 you get 3.9, which would be Buzsaw's new member rating.As quickly became apparent when I added message ratings, the current approach is inherently both unfair and ambiguous. The ratings are based upon opinion, which is highly subjective, and every person will judge according to their own individually selected criteria.While I wouldn't consider the current rating system a very reliable parameter upon which to judge the quality of a member's contributions, there does seem to be a correlation of higher ratings with those who discuss things they know something about or who take the time to investigate. Those who tend to put fingers in gear without taking the time to develop an appropriate level of understanding of the topic seem in general to have the lower ratings.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Leaving aside the question of why you think the developer described his own algorithm incorrectly, you could test your theory fairly easily. Find an old thread and rate a single message of a member who hasn't been active in some time and see what it does to his rating (click the rating number you want, then click on "refresh" or "reload"). I'm betting his rating will become whatever you rate that message. You can change the rating you've assigned this message, enabling you to check the effect of any rating from 1 to 5 when there's only the single message rated for the member. Please let me know if you find a bug.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

The thread for reporting discussion problems is Report discussion problems here: No.2.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Stile!I want a system with the flexibility to implement a number of approaches, including ones along the lines you describe. It should also be possible using correlations to divide members into camps and adjust the impact of their ratings according to how strongly they and who they're rating correlate with the different camps. Properly implemented, a low rating from some members could have the effect of increasing someone's rating.But this will take time to implement. For now I advise that no one pay much attention to the current ratings. Whether high or low, they're both imposters a la Kipling's If.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Oh ye of little faith. At some point the member's profile page will include whether he's currently active, and if so what he's doing, like reading a thread or posting a message. And if he's not active then it will include when he was last active and what he was doing at the time. How about a readability index. Your first paragraph scores at 11th grade with an ease of reading of 44, about mid-range of the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score.I'm currently working on private messaging.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Viv Pope puts us all to shame. Cut-n-paste some stuff from him and some of the rest of us into this Readabilty Index Calculator. I bet you won't find anyone who beats him.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Thanks for finding this. I must have broken it in the last release. Should be a simple fix.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Member ratings are updated only when someone rates one of their messages. Could you try rating a few more of Moose's messages? The first one should assign him the correct rating, subsequent ones shouldn't change that rating at all, assuming you continue assigning him 1's.--PercyEdited by Admin, : No reason given.

Yep, it's working as it should!Edited by Admin, : No reason given.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director