[[deXter]]

So MSFN finally decided to implement a (long overdue) post rating system!

The question is how useful is this? Right now, I feel that the rating system is no more use than visual gratification. Sure, it does help skip those posts which are really long but don't contribute to the topic, but the post is still occupying space. The post still shows up in search results. I still end up reading the so-called uninformative posts and waste as much time.

IMHO the following should be implemented to make the rating system (more) useful:

• Search by Rating: The search page should have an option to show only those posts rated above x stars.

• Hide all posts below x rating: While viewing a topic, this option will automatically hide all posts below a rating of say, 2 stars. (Slashdot and Digg have this system)

• Comments: In addition to the stars, there could be an option to mark a post as "funny", "insightful", "informative", etc. (Same as Slashdot).

If these changes are implemented, it'll become easier for everyone to weed out unwanted information and keep topics more organized.

[xper]

Please read forum rules and post in proper forum.

Moved

[AH Modding]

We already made point 2.

[xper]

Quote

• Search by Rating: The search page should have an option to show only those posts rated above x stars.

Will be implemented soon.

[ripken204]

i feel that the post rating is pointless.. especially at this stage in the forum. it has been around for years so there will be thousands of excellent posts that will have no rating.

[Zxian]

Fair enough, but as people read the posts that they come across, they can rate them. Whenever I get around to finding that Office 2003 SP2 slipstreaming guide the next time I need it, it's gonna get 5 stars.

[Martin L]

ripken204, on Jun 28 2007, 03:15 PM, said:

i feel that the post rating is pointless.. especially at this stage in the forum. it has been around for years so there will be thousands of excellent posts that will have no rating.

pointless? we have a saying here in The Netherlands: "Beter ten halve gekeerd dan ten hele gedwaald" Which means something like: You better turn half way instead of doing it the whole way and dont do it good. We implemented this feature in order to prevent this forum for people who dont have replies that contribute

[[deXter]]

How about allowing only mods/admins to rate a post? Chances are that people may senselessly give someone's (useful) post a 1 star rating just because they don't like them, like it happened to my post here.

Surely, the mods would be more sensible. I for one feel that I'd rather have few posts with right ratings than many posts with biased/misjudged ratings.

Edit: Darn it, they did it again! Who's the jerk who keeps rating my posts 1 * ?!

This post has been edited by [deXter]: 03 July 2007 - 01:36 AM

[jcarle]

Personally, I think individual post ratings are useless and may lead to thread discontinuity when people start filtering by ratings.

If ratings are really desired (though I still think it's a waste and pointless), they should be on the thread, not individual posts.

[Camarade_Tux]

Post ratings can be handy because many msfn threads are dozens of pages long (and that's already with a high number of posts per page).

I think we (the most active posters) should make an effort and massively rate. The first example which comes to my mind is nlite: many people quote their lastsession.ini and therefore their posts contain all the possible keywords and this pollutes search a lot.
But I'm not sure how ratings should be interpreted. I don't like the idea of giving a score to a post; it just feels like giving a score to the poster. :/ However I do like the idea of being able to help with searches so it comes down to "Do we simply rate posts or do we rate posts to help other people find information?". It seems Martin L and xper are for the second answer but most people, including me, don't and for me, it's not volontary.

It's clear we're not used to this; it's really too manichean atm. We should maybe agree on some standards:
-1: should be excluded from search
-2: not very useful
-3: may help, may not; average
-4: good post, helps a lot; should be seen
-5: excellent post, make it frontpage!

Also, there might be a problem because rates will appear after only one vote. Could this be delayed? I mean, hide it until a second (not more) member votes.
And would it be possible to have some ponderation: give more weight to rates by big posters (something like one per thousand posts)?

Last, I think there's no point for this outside tech sections so could it be disabled there?
In some sections, we will of course argue (without killing anybody) and post ratings will only deserve such arguments.
Rating should not be seen as a Ditto/+1/plussoyer* post; it's not how much you agree with the post, it's how much the post helps.

Hope this helps.


*we (French people) made "+" a verb.




PS: btw, I can't give any rating in Konqueror (don't tell me to use Firefox or Opera): when I try, the dropdown list appears and I can chose how many blue stars I want to give but then clicking is effectless and if I move my cursor, the number of blue stars still changes.
(Konqueror and Safari use the same rendering engine: KHTML; IIRC, Konqueror is very strict on valid javascripts/html/css)

This post has been edited by Camarade_Tux: 03 July 2007 - 01:09 AM

[[deXter]]

This is getting out of hand. Someone's going and rating all my posts a 1 star. This isn't done. It's unjust, biased, and insulting to say the least. I take some time out to contribute something, and this is how I get treated?

If this goes on, I'm afraid I won't be contributing to this forum again. Please, please do take a look at Camarade_Tux's suggestions or simply scrap the whole rating system as jcarle suggested. The way it's going at present, I'm only being discouraged from posting. It's doing more harm than good.

[Martin L]

Quote

Also, there might be a problem because rates will appear after only one vote. Could this be delayed? I mean, hide it until a second (not more) member votes.
And would it be possible to have some ponderation: give more weight to rates by big posters (something like one per thousand posts)?

Last, I think there's no point for this outside tech sections so could it be disabled there?
In some sections, we will of course argue (without killing anybody) and post ratings will only deserve such arguments.
Rating should not be seen as a Ditto/+1/plussoyer* post; it's not how much you agree with the post, it's how much the post helps.

Hiding it untill at least 2 people voted is a good idea IMHO specially because of what happens to certain people now. As for disabling in certain forums... it is already disabled in the general discussion, introduction and announcements, we will look into it for disableling more forums.

About the weight by big posters, good idea, will be looked into

@ dexter: dont worry, this system is not on its limites so we can make changes

[jcarle]

Martin L, on Jul 4 2007, 04:29 AM, said:

As for disabling in certain forums... it is already disabled in the general discussion, introduction and announcements, we will look into it for disableling more forums.

Which is simply proof that since this was needed, it was a bad idea to start with.

Let's not turn MSFN into a popularity contest.

This post has been edited by jcarle: 04 July 2007 - 06:00 AM

[Camarade_Tux]

I rather think such a system has only interest in forum where you want to note. Would you note somebody introducing himself in the corresponding section? These sections don't even count for the number of post.

On a private board (friends; not warez) I visit pretty often I usually have difficulties finding a specific topic or post though I know which keywords to use, when it was written, who wrote it... and we're around 20 members there!
MSFN has topics that are even longer. Imagine how hard it can be for people who don't know exactly what they search.

And as for the popularity contest, I think we're adult enough. Hum,... are we? :roll:

[ripken204]

jcarle, on Jul 4 2007, 08:00 AM, said:

Martin L, on Jul 4 2007, 04:29 AM, said:

As for disabling in certain forums... it is already disabled in the general discussion, introduction and announcements, we will look into it for disableling more forums.

Which is simply proof that since this was needed, it was a bad idea to start with.

Let's not turn MSFN into a popularity contest.

it will turn into that stupid digg site..

[Camarade_Tux]

ripken204, on Jul 4 2007, 05:10 PM, said:

jcarle, on Jul 4 2007, 08:00 AM, said:

Let's not turn MSFN into a popularity contest.

it will turn into that stupid digg site..

Diggs can go to infinity notes whereas there is a limit here, pretty low btw.
Is msfn as big as digg? Do you think best noted posts will make frontpage *automatically* without any human superising it?

As for noting,
http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/...-DVD-Copy.shtml
http://www.crystalxp.net/galerie/en.id.130...es-complets.htm
everything has notes.
Would you find good programs on softpedia&Co without any singles appreciations? Maybe that high marks don't make everything but it avoids you losing time goind through bad apps (here bad means doesn't simply mean bad but also old, high-priced...). And if you easily find what you are searching for, would you also had 3 years ago when you knew less about computers and software?

edit: as far as I'm concerned, msfn is not a forum for me and other tecchies; it a place to help other people with basic knowledgs about computers while sharing with others who are more technology-aware.
I haven't first contributed to forums (tech or not); I first have read them and it's important to have something clear which is not that easy with msfn's long topics (more than 50 pages with 25 posts per pages...). Take wikipedia for example: how would it be wihout all these links to other articles*? People would read far less articles and learn less. MSFN has one of the most incredible source of information I've ever seen and this is reflected in msfn's pagerank** but many things don't get the highlight they deserve.


* I really appreciate the "similar topics" thing at the bottom of the page. =)
** create a topic wait one day and you're on google's first page of results for not so uncommon keywords.

This post has been edited by Camarade_Tux: 04 July 2007 - 10:55 AM

[jcarle]

I think there are better ways to solve the problems then with ratings. Ratings don't apply here. This isn't a software download site, this isn't a movie review site, this isn't a popularity contest, it's a discussion forum. Just like Wikipedia serves knowledge and doesn't use ratings, nor should MSFN.

Rating individual posts means rating what people have said, and that should have no place here. Rating entire threads (which I suggested earlier) is better, but still isn't a great solution. Threads that have no valuable content (a discussion of say AMD vs Intel ... again) could be rated 5 stars and be the most irrelevant item, when other threads such as a complete analyses of Price vs Performance thread may get rated 1 star and get completely left out.

Again, MSFN is a forum and as such should not have ratings. If finding valuable information is too hard because there are too many threads, a different solution should be taken. Enhancing search options to limit, for example, searches to include only results from Stickies. Creating an FAQ section listing popular topics and forums. Creating compilations of threads and turning them into MSFN guides. Those are solution, not ratings.

[Martin L]

I agree that the rating system like it is now is not working good. If someone hates one or another he/she can just rate that once replies 1 out of 5, which is NOT good.

jcarle, on Jul 5 2007, 05:17 AM, said:

Again, MSFN is a forum and as such should not have ratings. If finding valuable information is too hard because there are too many threads, a different solution should be taken. Enhancing search options to limit, for example, searches to include only results from Stickies. Creating an FAQ section listing popular topics and forums. Creating compilations of threads and turning them into MSFN guides. Those are solution, not ratings.

That sounds good indeed, but i am sure that you realize that this will cost a lot of time plus it has to be done by people who know their stuff, not by bystanders (or how do you call that in english? people who have no knowledge about something). Plus i think that unattended.msfn.org is already pretty much what you mean right?

PS reason why nothing happens atm is that xper is on vacation and i cant do it

[jcarle]

Well, in a sort of way, yes. Adding the option to search threads that are marked as stickies only is not very complex for someone who knows SQL, PHP and this board software.

[xper]

Post rating feature removed for now. We will see what can we do when i'm back.