"[color="#1C2837"]Beginners aren't necessarily lazy by asking a certain question.. some of them may not have developed the research skills necessary to be wholly independent ..."
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[color="#1C2837"]Incidentally, one time a user came into the beginner forum and asked how to make a game (or something like that) and was somewhat stubborn about the responses. He revealed he had no computer... [color="#1C2837"]I decided to write to him directly and asked if he wanted to make games. He seemed a little weird, but I convinced him to get a computer, and... This took a few months for no reason I could gather. I pressed him and advised, then I tried to press him to do this and that and try this, but he'd just play X-Box all day.
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[color="#1C2837"]Eventually I realized he was mentally challenged.
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[color="#1C2837"]I forgot where I was going with this ...
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[color="#1C2837"]I somewhat dislike the presence of a smack button if folks are using it against newbies, but one could also make the case that newbies and lazy observers can smack someone responding with the local equivalent to "RTFM" on a topic that just plain isn't intuitive.
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[color="#1C2837"]In the latter case, using an anonymous smack button can fall under the "choosing your battles" principle. Sometimes it's obvious why something is smackworthy and you don't really want to get that invested in it..?
Negative Reputation
Of course, one option would be to remove the "up/down" model entirely and simply replace the buttons with a "tag this post" link. Meta-tags like "helpful" or "rude" or "inaccurate" could be supplied, so that people cannot simply vote down (or up!) a post without providing a cogent reason. By making it a tag rather than a free-form input, we can ensure that people don't just type "asdl;fkasdglk;mnsd" into the box and thereby go around abusing the system.
I think this might be doable in the new IPB version with tag support, but I might be mistaken. If it is possible, I think it'd be a great solution to the issue. We could even have the tags be aggregated into a number automatically (every "negative" tag is -1, every "positive" tag is +1, show the sum on the post instead of the vote count). This could also be supplemented with a detection method that says "oh, hey, person A flagged this as useful and B flagged it as inaccurate; let's mark the post as controversial."
This solves the problem of nobody knowing why a post is red or green, while still retaining elements of both community self-policing (for negative behavior) and supplementing the rating system with a mechanism for objectively determining quality content.
I think this might be doable in the new IPB version with tag support, but I might be mistaken. If it is possible, I think it'd be a great solution to the issue. We could even have the tags be aggregated into a number automatically (every "negative" tag is -1, every "positive" tag is +1, show the sum on the post instead of the vote count). This could also be supplemented with a detection method that says "oh, hey, person A flagged this as useful and B flagged it as inaccurate; let's mark the post as controversial."
This solves the problem of nobody knowing why a post is red or green, while still retaining elements of both community self-policing (for negative behavior) and supplementing the rating system with a mechanism for objectively determining quality content.
Check the latest Staff Journal post I made, everyone. We're looking for help in making these kinds of changes a reality. The more help we get, the sooner we can start implementing stuff that needs to be developed in order to make these features work.
Laugh it up, fuzzball. Although I wouldn't call it a fan page, since it's run by us.
We've been hearing this a lot. I'm in favor of it
Are these critiques publicly visible? I think one argument to be made against this is similar to what Mike has been saying where a full reply would serve the same purpose and also explain to others what is good/bad about the post.
Yea that's a good point to ponder.... still pondering...
What if no one knows who Yann L is? The number system enforces "that person is doing something right and other agree with him". A bunch of random names doesn't seem as useful as it sounds.
[/quote]
True, but this is where stuff like badges can come in. You'll notice in the IPB post Mike linked to you can hover over names to see profile info. We can begin having badges that denote certain members as experienced users or experts on certain topics that mods can hand out to members they recognize for these abilities. It would at least let people recognize who is thinking their post is accurate/helpful
This should be possible - you can change a lot of terminology by editing the site's word bank. For example I changed all instances of "blog" to "journal"
Interesting idea, mainly because it's been suggested and considered before. I think it merits consideration again now that tagging is coming to IPB.
We have a GD.Net facebook fan page ?! Please tell me this is a joke.
Laugh it up, fuzzball. Although I wouldn't call it a fan page, since it's run by us.
There's always the stackexchange system, where downvoting costs you a tiny bit of your own rep?
We've been hearing this a lot. I'm in favor of it
CgSociety for example is very strict and appeals to professionals, therefore people behaves a lot more there. I like their "critique system"; it's basically an "I like" button, but a window pop ups where you have to explain WHY did you like it, or WHAT did you like about it.
Are these critiques publicly visible? I think one argument to be made against this is similar to what Mike has been saying where a full reply would serve the same purpose and also explain to others what is good/bad about the post.
Since the new system came in, my rating has stopped being a static number, and is instead climbing daily... it's pretty much just a counter for how long I've been active on the forums.
Yea that's a good point to ponder.... still pondering...
[quote name='Michael Tanczos' timestamp='1310790178' post='4835889']
So if "Yann L" likes the post it will say so, and others aware of his considerable background can pay more attention to that post.
What if no one knows who Yann L is? The number system enforces "that person is doing something right and other agree with him". A bunch of random names doesn't seem as useful as it sounds.
[/quote]
True, but this is where stuff like badges can come in. You'll notice in the IPB post Mike linked to you can hover over names to see profile info. We can begin having badges that denote certain members as experienced users or experts on certain topics that mods can hand out to members they recognize for these abilities. It would at least let people recognize who is thinking their post is accurate/helpful
Reading through this topic, it seems to me that there's a lot of objection to the term "like this" and very little objection to the actual functionality -- perhaps we just need to replace the button with "agree" or something similar?
This should be possible - you can change a lot of terminology by editing the site's word bank. For example I changed all instances of "blog" to "journal"
Of course, one option would be to remove the "up/down" model entirely and simply replace the buttons with a "tag this post" link. Meta-tags like "helpful" or "rude" or "inaccurate" could be supplied, so that people cannot simply vote down (or up!) a post without providing a cogent reason. By making it a tag rather than a free-form input, we can ensure that people don't just type "asdl;fkasdglk;mnsd" into the box and thereby go around abusing the system.
I think this might be doable in the new IPB version with tag support, but I might be mistaken. If it is possible, I think it'd be a great solution to the issue. We could even have the tags be aggregated into a number automatically (every "negative" tag is -1, every "positive" tag is +1, show the sum on the post instead of the vote count). This could also be supplemented with a detection method that says "oh, hey, person A flagged this as useful and B flagged it as inaccurate; let's mark the post as controversial."
This solves the problem of nobody knowing why a post is red or green, while still retaining elements of both community self-policing (for negative behavior) and supplementing the rating system with a mechanism for objectively determining quality content.
Interesting idea, mainly because it's been suggested and considered before. I think it merits consideration again now that tagging is coming to IPB.
Are downratings restored? I can't downvote others, but others obviously can downvote. Is that some new functionallity based on your rep number, perhaps?
I respect the decision to remove the down rating, but in all honesty, I thought it was the best system GD.Net ever had. You had immediate impact on what specific posts got down rated.
The negative for keeping it is, some people may opt not to post specific content for fear of being downvoted or losing personal rep. Isn't that the whole idea of the reputation system? To be the little buzzer going off in your head that says, "If I post this I might lower my rep..."
Prior to the forum change I was getting downvoted for posting opinions contrary to the mood of the board, which really sucked. With the last system that happened maybe 1 or 2 times, because other people could see when you got down voted and vote you back up if you got downvoted for no reason. On that note, the times I did get downvoted were honestly warranted. It was a really well done feature that provided immediate feedback to posters.
The only real down side I saw was the abuse that you mentioned (which I think could be remedied), and the lack of ability to sort posts (specifically of yourself) by ratings.
It seems like every time the rate down feature goes away, idiotic posts go up exponentially.
The negative for keeping it is, some people may opt not to post specific content for fear of being downvoted or losing personal rep. Isn't that the whole idea of the reputation system? To be the little buzzer going off in your head that says, "If I post this I might lower my rep..."
Prior to the forum change I was getting downvoted for posting opinions contrary to the mood of the board, which really sucked. With the last system that happened maybe 1 or 2 times, because other people could see when you got down voted and vote you back up if you got downvoted for no reason. On that note, the times I did get downvoted were honestly warranted. It was a really well done feature that provided immediate feedback to posters.
The only real down side I saw was the abuse that you mentioned (which I think could be remedied), and the lack of ability to sort posts (specifically of yourself) by ratings.
It seems like every time the rate down feature goes away, idiotic posts go up exponentially.
Without downrating, when someone comes onto the forum and is WRONG how else is the army of GD.net computer geniuses supposed to punish them?
A suggestion for an alternative post rating/voting system from another site I often read: Instead of vote up/down buttons, have a combo box with a set of preset words. When you read a post you can select one of the words and the average vote is displayed. The words could be something like "neutral" (the default), "helpful", "correct", "incorrect", "irrelevant", "off topic", "repeat", "funny", "rude", "flamebait", and so on. So if a few people selects correct and a lot of people selects incorrect the average would show incorrect, and in this way the community can converge on a classification of how informative a given post is. This system is used on newz.dk (in danish.) Of course, you must be logged in before you can select. Oh, and you are free to change you selection later, the average is computed dynamically.
I guess this could even tie in with a member reputation. Instead of having a numerical reputation, show something like "Most of this posters posts are <correct>".
As I see it this system has two advantages over a like/dislike system. 1) It is more fine grained: I can indicate why I like or dislike this post, as in, was it correct information, was it rude, was it irrelevant. 2) It is "easier" to rate posts. I will only click the like/dislike button on posts that I am really sure are good or bad, the in-betweens are lost, but I can easily attach a word like helpful or irrelevant to how I feel about a post so I'm more inclined to do it.
I guess this could even tie in with a member reputation. Instead of having a numerical reputation, show something like "Most of this posters posts are <correct>".
As I see it this system has two advantages over a like/dislike system. 1) It is more fine grained: I can indicate why I like or dislike this post, as in, was it correct information, was it rude, was it irrelevant. 2) It is "easier" to rate posts. I will only click the like/dislike button on posts that I am really sure are good or bad, the in-betweens are lost, but I can easily attach a word like helpful or irrelevant to how I feel about a post so I'm more inclined to do it.
Downvoting is restored for some people - We are experimenting with factors that to help determine those who would be less likely to abuse the system and thus cause troubles for everyone else using the site. Think of it as automatic selection of meta-moderators. Think of the algorithm as a big black box where a bunch of calculated variables based on your account go in and it decides whether or not to give you downvote access yet. If you don't have access, it doesn't mean you're not trustworthy.. at some point you may get access.
- Michael
- Michael
I curious if the ratings could be setup so that beginners have to "earn" the right to upvote or downvote a post. This could be participation in the site, not having less than 0 for so many months, or getting their posts upvoted.
Downvoting is restored for some people - We are experimenting with factors that to help determine those who would be less likely to abuse the system and thus cause troubles for everyone else using the site. Think of it as automatic selection of meta-moderators. Think of the algorithm as a big black box where a bunch of calculated variables based on your account go in and it decides whether or not to give you downvote access yet. If you don't have access, it doesn't mean you're not trustworthy.. at some point you may get access.
- Michael
I'd rather not think of it as a magical black box of judgement. Even though you say it's not a measure of trustworthiness, that does appear to be exactly what it is (people more likely to abuse the system == less trustworthy). It's apparenty not a GDNet+ thing, so I'm guessing it's just a plain old "if you have >n reputation, you can downvote"? (Incidentally, I can downrate journal entries, but not posts - is this a bug?)
I'm curious to know if you've actually confirmed any cases of people "abusing the system". Unless this is actually a problem, and was happening in more than one or two cases with the old system, this is somewhat reminiscent of premature optimisation. (And if it was in the Lounge, then you could just not allow rating at all in that forum).
I also don't really see how you can judge some users less likely to "abuse the system" than others. Letting everyone vote both up and down means that you end up with a post rating representative of the community as a whole.
[quote name='mrchrismnh']
Without downrating, when someone comes onto the forum and is WRONG how else is the army of GD.net computer geniuses supposed to punish them?
[/quote]
Maybe my sarcasm detector is broken, but it should never be about punishment. Post ratings should just be about marking incorrect information, IMHO (another reason to not have ratings in the lounge, or at least not to count them towards user reputation). I'd be perfectly happy with user ratings being removed altogether, but it's also why I suggested basing the rating on number of +ve or -ve posts above, rather than directly on the number of pluses or minuses. That way one bad post in a thread with lots of traffic doesn't nuke someone's reputation, and you don't get the perception of being "picked on" leading to a long-lasting stigma.
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