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New feature trial: Comment rating
Posted by Super G on June 19, 2008 - 9:14pm
Topic: Site news
For the next week or so, we're going to be conducting a trial of a comment rating system.
Here's how it works: At the bottom of each comment, there is a form with a number, an up arrow, and a down arrow. The number is the comment's rating. To rate a comment up, click the up arrow. To rate a comment down, click the down arrow. Once you've made a rating, the arrow you've clicked will get filled in. You can change a rating as many times as you want, but at present it is not possible to "unrate" a comment. In other words, if you accidentally rate a comment down, the only way you can undo it is to rate the comment up.
For the future, we are contemplating hiding comments with low ratings and sorting subthreads by rating instead of by date. But for now, ratings will not have any effect on the visibility or placement of a comment.
Some ground rules:
- Only logged-in users can rate comments.
- You cannot rate your own comment.
- You can only rate comments that are less than a week old.
- Comments should be rated up if they are especially insightful, informative, or interesting. Down ratings should be reserved for comments that violate the reader guidelines. Do not rate a comment down just because you disagree with the opinion being expressed.
- For now, the ratings are anonymous, but keep in mind that they may be made public at a later date. Also be aware that the administrators can view everyone's rating behavior.
- For now, users can rate as many comments as they want. We may decide to limit this in the future.
This is the greatest single post in the history of the blogosphere (testing whether the feature works)
It was -1, but I upped it to zero. Pity it doesn't record both.
Neg for complaining about your rating.
A reference was made to the negative numbers being red in color. I'm red/green colorblind and cannot tell the difference in the color of the numbers. I have no idea which are positive and which are negative.
That's what the - sign is for, you'll notice it on the negatively-rated comments.
I can barely see those, it all looks yellow. Blue and red would be really nice to make it blue and yellow for me.
P.S. I have this pretty bad. All stoplights look yellow to me, I can only see the indication of the light by its position.
I am not red-green colourblind, but have javascript turned off; all the numbers are green, but the negative ones have a minus sign in front of them.
Pump me up
I don't think I want to search for and study negatively rated comments.
It would be better yet if double plus (++) signs were placed in front of ratings greater than 10 (>>10) and (+++) fro greater than 100. Then I can automatically search (at least in Firefox) for these.
What about advertising for ratings or running polls? Is it permissible to ask people to pump your rating up by doing the following?
Example:
Comment not relevant to the readership, ranked down.
Aye, this feature helps to track what people generally think around here about various issues. It's much easier to agree or disagree with a post by clicking an arrow than writing a reply when you don't really have anything to add.
Edit:
Um, not that anyone would wote anything down just because there isn't an agreement. It would have more to do with your opinion about the writer not knowing what the hell he/she/it is writing about ;-)
Hmm...
"Do not rate a comment down just because you disagree with the opinion being expressed."
So much for that idea...
Hence my idea to remove the negative voting altogether. Will remove the opportunity for voting based on opinion, but will still give you an idea which posts are most interesting.
I like having both. The idea is not just to point out good posts (it's worked very well in today's DrumBeat, BTW, highlighting Darwinian's post about Hirsch). It's also to hide spam and such.
In this case there should be separate negative and positive votes. I may post extremely interesting, but controversal opinion and 10 people may appreciate it and vote "for", 11 people will disagree with me and vote "nah", and my opinion will be labeled as spam, because it will have a negative rating of -1. You can't force people to vote irrespective of their opinion coinciding with the post, or just assume they will.
The net result is that 1000 people coming later on the thread will probably ignore my opinion altogether. On the other hand if I see +10 and -11 on some post I will be interested to read it because I'd see it has provoked some interesting reaction among people.
[Edit] In addition to that, opinion-based negative votes will move my comment downthread, which will make it even harder for people to notice. Maybe sorting upthread should be based only on the positive votes.
Granted this isn't exactly a poll but I think this link expresses my opinion about rating other people's comments. http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/343285
If you have something to say, say it.
First, I apologize for responding here so that my comment is seen upthread. I have several issues with the new feature:
1) The rating font is too large and kind of intrusive. The ratings should not prevent people from posting, so I would prefer something more discrete
2) It will be more informative to have the negative and positive ratings separately. The Daily Kos format is a good example.
3) If there is no separation between negative and positive ratings, than I'd prefer the negative rating button to be removed all together. We will avoid a number of issues of psychological and interpersonal nature
Finally some food for thought: in all cases people will give second thoughts now before posting... not good if we are going to have free and relaxed discussions. Many people will be afraid to defend minority views just because they could lose rating and/or credibility. Also there is a number of personal and/or group spats around this forum, and I can't help but think the new feature will just encourage them. Overall I'm undecided if this feature is going to be more useful than causing a harm or vice versa.
What is the purpose of the rating system if we can't filter by rating?
well it will automatically put the positive ones near the top. the 0 in the middle and hide the negatives at the bottom, if it's similar to the one i am thinking of.
expect to see every tom and harry with the snake oil energy solution dejor of the week get rated +1 or +2. at the same time watch as people who point out problems, debunk said articles with those (sarcasm)pesky things called facts(/sarcasm), or just plain bad news.
That would make it confusing trying to read threads of discussion...
SuperG:
The above post shows 5 little icons next to the time stamp but Rethin's post only shows 3 little icons. Can you explain what these are for?
It seems that the far right one with chevrons collapses or expands the comment thread but not sure about the others.
Thanks.
The one with three icons are for permalinks, isolating the thread and going to the top of the comments, the additional two icons appear in all comments that are replies to new threads, and they direct either to the comment being replied to or the comment that began the thread. You should be able to hold your mouse over to see what they are.
Thanks!
Moderation is useful. Only by registered users, and there should be a history of how those registered users moderate. Unlike what most are suggesting, I'm thinking only negative moderation - for the purpose of removing spam and trolls should be permitted. That makes the rules much easier to follow.
However, you have also changed the UI. All these little icons are a PITA. I can feel my brain burning energy trying to shift from text mode to visual mode on each and every post now. (Stuff on this at useit.com.) That is a different issue than moderation. There ought to be a way to turn the icons to text mode.
Why use 8 bits when 64k will do? I dunno.
I find I've largely stopped reading TOD since they appeared. But hey, maybe you will gain a bunch of other people. That's a policy decision. Me, I'm mostly out of here.
cfm in Gray, ME
In the Navy we had a saying...'If it's working, don't fix it'.
I believe TOD will become dominated by smiley faced cheerleaders for technofixers, who may or may not have an interest in selling a product that they are cheerleading. I visit TOD for an exchange of ideas and occasionaly let off some steam. If my comments are no longer appreciated or are 'low rated' and pushed off thread then I will have no reason to continue to come here. I am long past the point where I am interested in a report card.
Imo, it is a dumbass idea...give me some negs, I can take it.
My sentiments exactly. I have often commented that TOD should be renamed TSP (The Solar Panel). Lots of technofix posts here, and little of the stuff that is in my Peak Oil report (Google or Yahoo search: Peak Oil impacts). TOD is "Peak Oil light," that is, we are facing Peak Oil, but solar panels and high tech Rube Goldberg devices will save us, somehow. There is little sense on TOD that we need liquid fuels, not electric power. Rarely do I see stuff here about Peak Oil reality: When oil gets too expensive, the highway system and power grid will fail, and so too will all of Rube Goldberg stuff. We are facing mass fatalities and need posts on risk management and planning for Peak Oil impacts.
Given the high number of technofixers at TOD, a bad rating on my comments could mean that I'm telling it like it is.
cjwirth...I gave you a good rating because I agree with you.
I have often commented that TOD should be renamed TSP (The Solar Panel).
You do understand that solar energy is why the oil exists in the 1st place, right?
We are facing mass fatalities
Ok. Fine.
and need posts on risk management and planning for Peak Oil impacts.
Before totiania was into I-O PNK, he was into earthmarines and being killed by the young. And most of the 'planning' tends to be 'plan on a violent death at the hands of others'.
So it you have a better 'plan' - let us know.
Yes Eric, I knew that at age 10 (1957) that oil is old solar energy and a lot of stuff about oil and energy. My dad was a technician for Atlantic Richfield Refining company, testing motor oil. And I read the 600 NAS study cover to cover. The rest of your post is pure drivel.
Hi Cliff,
I'd like to respond to your comment and your exchange w. Eric to illustrate what I'm trying to say in my comment to Super G.
Here's an example of where - possibly - you and Eric may be talking past each other.
My take on Eric's post is that he's feeling some desperation. I could be mistaken, only he knows, of course. I'm just guessing.
You answer him in a straightforward way until your use of the word "drivel" to describe "The rest of your post..."
Is there any other way to talk about this?
To me, the last question of Eric's post seemed sincere.
Maybe it's not; I don't know. I'd like to, though.
If Eric is sincerely interested in your ideas about risk management, is there a way he could say this that would enable you to hear it as such? (ie., As a sincere question?)
I don't know.
I'm not very good at these type of "translations", for eg. see: www.cnvc.org, www.newconversations.net and something I need to find a link for: Thomas Gordon's "active listening", and another group (don't have the reference) on "Appreciative Inquiry". That said, I have seen such "translations" facilitate the conversation.
Dear Super G, why does my comment come with a little green "1" when I hit the post button?
Now it has a little green "0". (It changed before I posted it.)
I don't know or care what Eric thinks or feels, I just respond to what he writes.
Now why in the world is my comment being down moded?
Its not even an opinion for christ's sake, its a question. Why would anyone downmod a question?
This is not going to end well.
Exactly!
this is how slashdot ended up. the moderation system did the /exact/ opposite of what they wanted. people who knew about the subjects of the story's were modded down especially if it's a story about power, or anyone who did not buy into the 'cult of the mac'. once a post reaches -1 it by default is collapsed and moved down thread invisible to all but those who expand them or those who have their settings to show all posts -1 and higher.
So far I am unable to see how comment ratings affect the page. A good example of the use of ratings is NewsTrust.net, a news aggregation site. The focus at NewsTrust is on good journalism, and most stories listed there are ordered by journalistic quality. People rate the stories using a fairly sophisticated system. The reviews can be rated by others, and those ratings affect the weighting of each review into the total. It works quite well, helping to filter out people who try to game the reviews.
To mimic this at TOD we would need a single set of rating controls in the comment submission area, where a logged in user could rate the blog post itself while writing a comment. Then each comment would have controls so others could rate it, as we have here. But to be like NewsTrust, each user would only get one rating for the post. So all comments by a user would have the same story rating value. And if a user's comments get low ratings, their story rating has less effect on the overall rating.
It may be easier to just submit TOD stories to NewsTrust. A bunch are already there, some submitted by me. I see Prof. Goose has rated some NewsTrust stories, although he might get bounced out for not using his real name, and he got dinged once for giving a TOD story the highest possible score. TOD stories tend to fare well at NewsTrust, because evidence, sources and balance are respected there. But 1.0s and 5.0s are rare ;)
Are you going to have a hall of fame for top rated posters?
I am going to start posting lots more, get my score up.
duh...kohesion...more posts might get your score up...more posts might get your score down. Fool's errand that.
Since I believe that posting a lot is usually a sign of a big bag of wind do not count on any 'ups' from me if you do post a lot.
No, there will be no 'hall of fame' for 'top rated posters'...There might be a hall of fame for those that post what the board monitors agree with...time will tell.
I personally try not to post much, because I haven't really got all that much to say that other people would find interesting. Also, the threads are getting so long that it takes hours every day to get through them. I don't mind now, as I'm on holiday, but once I start working again, I may not be able to follow these discussions.
While I'm not telling anybody to post less, I would encourage people to think before posting and perhaps refrain from adding to the noise. It's just common courtesy, after all we all want this forum to remain intelligent, informative, thoughtful and civil.
Although this goes against your advise (think before you post),
I'd like to add that you don't have to read everything every day.
It's not physically possible.
Pick a random snippet.
Scan through it.
If you run across something you like, great.
If not, well, that's the internet for you.
Thank you for the new feature!!
Neg for being a suck-up.
Pos for analysis
I can't see this as anything but a way to delete unpopular opininons/facts. That will turn this site into a heavenly chorus for one point of view. When that happens the site has lost all measure of respect, and you will no longer see both sides of complex problems that beset our society in dificult times.
I don't know. I think the universal problem is the "half-life" effect. Slash-dot has a huge amount of commenters but the flurry of activity usually lasts for about 15 minutes; that is the half-life for getting your point across before it gets swamped and then lost for eternity. TOD doesn't have this problem yet, and you can still search through the comments a day late and get some responses.
Seems possible. With enough of the right kind of Pavlov training this could be a prime site for Iron Triangle (copyright WT) advertising. In fact, you could probably change the whole face of "Peak Oil" tinkering with this site alone.
I think that's most likely. But they're saying they'll know who's giving out ratings, so if you get (say) some "there is no peak, ever! You guys are all dumb!" troll running around downrating everyone's posts, well...
I don't really know though, I don't see the use of this sort of thing.
I still say better would be going to a forum from these comments, in a forum you can have avatars and ignore lists so if someone consistently writes stupid or annoying stuff then most people will be able to say, "ah, another comment from Kiashu, I can scroll down and read the next one instead" and stop responding to them.