The Promote / Demote thing

[Timmy!]

Can anyone explane this promotion / demotion deal?

 

[PMedMoe]

Just so you know what I mean, this is what I'm seeing under the member's name:

Milnet.ca Subscriber

Rating: +0/-0
[Promote] [Demote]
Offline

Is this new?  Is this something I shouldn't be seeing?  Am I going crazy? (Never mind, don't answer that  :).

 

[George Wallace]

OK, the two topics merged. Hopefully Mike will be along to explain it for you

It is a ranking system we had years ago.  If you felt the person was a reliable and valued poster, you could promote them.  If you thought that what they posted was garbage or not really of much help to anyone, then you could demote them.  I won't get into details, but it was abused and we did away with it. 

Mike must have had it in his April Fool's program and it got lost in Cyberspace and time and has only now reappeared.  ;D

 

[Sig_Des]

Or may be I was in those "drunk blurry seasons".

I don't think so. I seem to remember seeing it a couple of different times, but it never lasted long.

I think my major issues with it would be a) a lot of us are friends, and to goof off would give buddy a minus

b) someone may post something controversial, and have a doggypile of minuses.

c) It's akin to not having TI...someone with too many minuses may not be taken seriously by some, even if it's because they don't mince words.

I think it's a good idea, but that there's too many factors in administrating it, and too much possibility of misuse.

Maybe an idea would be to have the person who starts a thread have the ability to plus or minus someone in just that thread, as in hey, that reply actually added some conversation and insight to the thread, or that was just a useless post (IE, heheh...smiley...smiley...smiley....Canada flag...Canada flag....salute)

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Well, I knew it would be controversial when I turned it back on, but we need to give this a fair shake. The rating system was trashed the last time in part because some ratings were changed inappropriately. That won't happen this time. Yes, there will be "abuse" by some users. Once the novelty wears off, that will be a small percentage of the rating system, and overshadowed by thoughtful, correct usage. You can only rate a user every 5 hours, so it's not like a single person can skew another's rating too seriously.

If a user is a straight talker with lots of experience and no desire to filter then I expect the majority will appreciate that and show as much in their rating. I suspect someone like that will have a lot of +'s and a lot of -'s but if they know what they're taking about, the positives will win out.

On the other hand, a smack talking poser will be shot down very quickly. This has two effects: One, others will be able to see right away that advice from this user should be treated with extreme caution. Secondly, the poser will see their credibility taking a nose dive and may rethink their approach.

So not only will users be able to tell "at a glance" where a user stands (knowing of course that a good or bad rating is simply one component of a large composite judgment), but it is instant community based feedback on when a user is doing well or doing poorly. Once again, community is the key word here. If the system is to work, it's up to us to drop kudos when someone makes a good post, and drop the hammer when they're off the mark. By enabling this feature, we have put a bit of power into the hands of every user here. I'm confident we can use this new ability to make things better, not worse.


Cheers
Mike

 

[Sig_Des]

Fair enough Mike. I didn't know about the 5 hour timeframe, that may come in handy.

Maybe you could put up a quick guideline on using it, IE, when a good time to promote (IE, interesting topic, helpful information or suggestion, well written post) and when a good time to demote (trolling, flaming, useless posts)

 

[navymich]

You can only rate a user every 5 hours, so it's not like a single person can skew another's rating too seriously.

Is that one member can only rate a user every 5 hours, or a user can only be rated every 5 hours by the general poplulation as a whole?  I'm suspecting the former, but figured I would ask for clarificiation sake.

 

[Greymatters]

Is that one member can only rate a user every 5 hours, or a user can only be rated every 5 hours by the general poplulation as a whole?  I'm suspecting the former, but figured I would ask for clarificiation sake.

Im curious about this as well... What strikes me is that it doesnt make sense for a member to have more than one vote against another member.  Technically "Member X"' could give "Member Y" several minus points, so I see how the system can be abused.  Is there a 'reset' button in case this happens?  And what is the max +/- score? is it 9, 99, or 999?

This is going to be interesting...   

 

[navymich]

Watching the abuse of the system even now...

Do the mods have a chart to see the ratings of all members, or is there somewhere this is accessible for us?

 

[navymich]

If there is, I don't know about it. I could go and check and see how far ahead, of everyone else,  I am on the minusus.

Mike, is there something that could be set up to see this?  Ex-D, I take it that you are just watching the "abuse", as you call it, by checking profiles and watching through people's info on their posts?

 

[Spencer100]

Just a thought, instead of rating the user or member how about a rating system for the individual posts.  I have seen this on Weblogs Inc. blogs to rate individual comments.  ie www.autoblog.com I have thought it would be a good system here.  It maybe a little less open to abuse.  Just my thoughts.

 

[tdwebste]

I think we need to be careful that this does not turning into nothing more than a measure of political correctness within this social group. And a measure of how much someone is liked rather than a measure of the thoughtfulness of what they write.

How about rating submissions as informative, interesting, original, on/off topic, funny, trolling, and not rating people?

 

[Sig_Des]

I think we need to be careful that this does not turning into nothing more than a measure of political correctness within this social group.

And could you explain how you think this thing-a-ma-bob could turn into a PC tool?

 

[HItorMiss]

I think we need to be careful that this does not turning into nothing more than a measure of political correctness within this social group.

See this is where the rating system comes in handy Des...

And you really haven't read many of my post have you? I am less then PC in just about all my views and yet I like to think (likely incorrectly but I do have a huge ego) I am held in a semi high regard for my opinions and experience. I doubt this could turn into a PC tool. But I was wrong at least once that I know off.

 

[Sig_Des]

See this is where the rating system comes in handy Des...

And you really haven't read many of my post have you? I am less then PC in just about all my views and yet I like to think (likely incorrectly but I do have a huge ego) I am held in a semi high regard for my opinions and experience. I doubt this could turn into a PC tool. But I was wrong at least once that I know off.

I can agree, but political correctness generally applies to language or behaviour, I don't see how the rating doo-hickey would be a PC tool.

And I can agree with you on the second part...the one about you being wrong, I think

We'll see how it pans out. Way I see it, I see a post that I like, or teaches me something, I'll promote. I see a post that doesn't add anything to a thread, or is so out there...I'll demote.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

We'll see how it pans out. Way I see it, I see a post that I like, or teaches me something, I'll promote. I see a post that doesn't add anything to a thread, or is so out there...I'll demote.

There you go, usage instructions that can't get much simpler. That's how I intend to use it too Des, and I hope the majority sees it that way as well. I know there will be some abuse going on where people rate for the wrong reasons, but like I said, if the majority rate good/bad based on what they're reading, the abusers will just be background noise.

As for how the system works, you can rate a user every 5 hours. So if I rate Des, I can't rate him again for 5 hours, but I can still rate anyone else, and anyone else can rate me. (Once in 5 hours, again.) The "waiting period" is configurable, but 5 hours seems like a reasonable setting, at least for now.

The system could also be configured to allow only certain groups to rate others. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, I don't like excluding or shutting down a useful feature because of a small minority who can't handle it.

 

[Sig_Des]

Fair enough, and answers pretty much anything I would want to know.

I'm gonna add that personally, I'm not going to promote/demote for anything in the Radio Chatter board. That's the place for useless junk and tomfoolery

 

[dapaterson]

I can agree, but political correctness generally applies to language or behaviour, I don't see how the rating doo-hickey would be a PC tool.

I think read that as "abides by groupthink" vice PC.  (Or even "drinks the Kool-Aid(TM)", though I'm sure the more pedantic (like me) will point out it was some other drink product at Jonestown.  But I digress (-1 for me)).  This website can, on some occasions, suffer from groupthink, and engage in immediate condemnation of those who may be somewhat outside the box or who ask questions that may not sit right with some members.  The simple thumbs up / thumbs down nature of the ranking system lacks subtlety.

The slashdot system of moderation, where a descriptive term is attached to the assessment, seems to me a better fit (along with the meta-moderation).  I wouldn't like to see a change to the message threading by date/time though - perhaps in that way I'm just a crusty old guy who resists change...

 

[Sig_Des]

I think read that as "abides by groupthink" vice PC.  (Or even "drinks the Kool-Aid(TM)", though I'm sure the more pedantic (like me) will point out it was some other drink product at Jonestown.  But I digress (-1 for me)).  This website can, on some occasions, suffer from groupthink, and engage in immediate condemnation of those who may be somewhat outside the box or who ask questions that may not sit right with some members.  The simple thumbs up / thumbs down nature of the ranking system lacks subtlety.

Now that is a concern I could understand, and brought up earlier. From past experience here, someone may say something and get dogpiled. Now, a dogpile, and a whole lot of minuses.

 

[Roy Harding]

I'm just ignoring the whole thing.  I already know who I find credible and who I don't - the Promote/Demote thing strikes me as a wonderful toy for those who wish to indulge - I'm just not so inclined.