This is regarding the new website in the works. See my post in Announcements.
The new site will have a rating system for people to rate articles submitted by the contributing authors (including me). The highest rated articles will get the most exposure. But after a couple weeks of considering it, I can't decide what type of rating system to use.
Note that there will NOT be ratings for forum posts. I want to keep the forum flowing freely.
Thumbs up - The same as a Facebook "like". Prevents feelings of resentment at getting downvoted. But the information this system provides is limited.
Thumbs-up/thumbs-down - Tracks the plus or minus rating, and the number of total votes. So you get information about what articles are disliked and what articles are the most contentious (the vote is split).
1-5 star rating -People usually vote either 1 star or 5 stars, so it may be overly complex for what is needed.
What do you think? Any other possibilities?
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Since I think more detail is better (you can ignore what's unnecessary to you, but can't discern it if it's not there to begin with), I vote for 5-star. I might give a 3 to something with good content which was written in a style I found hard to follow, for example. And it would be great if there was an optional place to explain why I gave something a 3 and not a 5. Thanks for all your work on this, David.
I think upvote/downvote would be interesting to try.
But at the end of the day we won't know until the sites up and something is implemented. I'd recommend trying to make it so switching rating systems isn't a total pain just in case the one you choose doesn't work out.
I figure when people are ambivalent or disinterested they will usually not vote at all, and that will mean something too if there are lots of views but not many votes.
So basically the voting is one way for everyone to control what's featured on the website and thereby steer the site in a direction it needs to go, instead of just me making the decisions. Comments are another way. There could be lots of other factors I can add in as things start rolling along. So over time, all the best stuff will rise to the top, while giving new stuff a chance to prove itself and be featured too.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Sounds like reddit type format. Maybe you can just use a total rip of it and see how it turns out? The time factor also needs to be taken into account orelse older arrticles would remain on top due to time of exposure to gain votes.
Yes, based on the reddit style. Vision improvement isn't as topical as reddit, so the time factor will be different, and there will be multiple lists of articles featured. And it will be a relatively small number of people writing articles, and everyone else commenting.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
I would also be fine with just the Like/Thumbs Up button. The thumbs Down or the Dislike button can get abused. They can discourage people from posting if they get one, though folks here are pretty nice so it may not be an issue. Tracking the number of members who say they like a post is a pretty helpful improvement to this site and also the members who liked it is good information.
lou_deg Wrote:I would also be fine with just the Like/Thumbs Up button. The thumbs Down or the Dislike button can get abused. They can discourage people from posting if they get one, though folks here are pretty nice so it may not be an issue. Tracking the number of members who say they like a post is a pretty helpful improvement to this site and also the members who liked it is good information.
The voting won't be for forum posts. And anyone will be able to cast a vote, not just logged in members.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
