How is the forum rating system doing?

[i70q7m7ghw]

Unlimited votes per person (but still limited to 1 vote per post) is probably worth a try. Combine this with widening the number of people that can vote and it would certainly increase voting, which is necessary for the system to gain credibility.

This assumes that there is a large body of people who want to vote, but cannot. However, according to Richard, 30% of all up votes and 50% of all the down votes are being made by just 3 people (just 2 in the case of the down votes). Clearly, the problem isn't that not enough people are allowed to vote, but rather that very few people want to.

I want to, but because I know I only have 5 votes, so I have to do my daily reading, then track back over my "top 5 posts of the day" and up-vote them. I can't do it on the spot, because I might blow my votes on 5 posts that aren't as good as the next 5 posts I find. It's all very depressing, so I don't bother.

[Cam]

Unlimited votes per person (but still limited to 1 vote per post) is probably worth a try. Combine this with widening the number of people that can vote and it would certainly increase voting, which is necessary for the system to gain credibility.

This assumes that there is a large body of people who want to vote, but cannot. However, according to Richard, 30% of all up votes and 50% of all the down votes are being made by just 3 people (just 2 in the case of the down votes). Clearly, the problem isn't that not enough people are allowed to vote, but rather that very few people want to.

And not just 'want to'. I don't vote anywhere near enough and can go for days without casting a single vote either way - but as I've explained previously, my reasons for voting differ from others. For highly technical posts - I have no idea if they're right, so how can I vote to say it's valuable. In fact, unless you're an expert in the field that truly understands the technical stuff, no one else 'can' vote on it - that is another problem. So while great 'technical' posts don't get up-voted by me - it's simply because I can't blindly vote up something I don't fully understand, something I assume we all do??

From the sounds of it, everyone here wants purely 'technical' content and up votes for such - which leaves me out of the voting capacity. I'm happy to vote for 'content' I think is good or bad (whatever that may be to me) - but that's not what everyone wants. So you have a very small percent of members who can truly vote up technical data - that 3 people statistic sounds about right.

Good content should include theories, insights, hunches, educated guesses and well constructed arguments - be they right or wrong. I'd be happy to cast all my votes, up and down, on these - if that was allowed.

[Pup]

I want to, but because I know I only have 5 votes, so I have to do my daily reading, then track back over my "top 5 posts of the day" and up-vote them. I can't do it on the spot, because I might blow my votes on 5 posts that aren't as good as the next 5 posts I find.

My point is that you're a special case, whether you realize it or not. Very few members vote regularly, if at all, regardless of the restrictions, and there's nothing in the stats that Richard posted to suggest anything would change by lessening those restrictions. So the 'power' of the vote is in reality being wielded by very few people (which makes for a very undemocratic system with a very democratic face painted on it). Allowing you, or any other regular voter, to make an unlimited amount of votes would only skew those results even further, making it even less democratic.

[Richard]

However, according to Richard, 30% of all up votes and 50% of all the down votes are being made by just 3 people (just 2 in the case of the down votes).

Can you show me your sums? I see 62 people casting +ve votes.

I think you might be misreading the bit about favouritism where I identified how many people cast 3 votes for the same person. That showed that most votes are widely distributed and not concentrated as favortism.

Sorry to be brief, I'm just popping in.

[Pup]

168 votes were +ve placed by 62 members, received by 79 authors.
40 votes were -ve placed by 9 members, received by 23 authors.

...

The person who placed the most +ve (20) also placed the most -ve (12)votes
Similarly the next most +ve voter (17) was also second most -ve voter (8)
Curiously the next most +ve voter (13) place no -ve votes

The top 3 voters placed 50 out of 168 positive votes - 30%
The top 2 voters placed 20 out of 40 negative votes - 50%

You said there were 208 votes total, and the top 3 voters made 70 of those, or 34%.

If there is a voting problem, it's with encouraging people to vote, not allowing them to. Just out of curiosity, are any of those top 3 voters moderators?

[strad]

I want to, but because I know I only have 5 votes, so I have to do my daily reading, then track back over my "top 5 posts of the day" and up-vote them. I can't do it on the spot, because I might blow my votes on 5 posts that aren't as good as the next 5 posts I find. It's all very depressing, so I don't bother.

You find more than 5 posts a day that deserve an up or down vote????????

[Pup]

Everyone's threshold for greatness is different, strad.

As is their tolerance for idiocy - another interesting tidbit from Richard's statistics is that while only 12% of the people who are eligible to up-vote choose to do so, 23% of those who can down-vote are ready and waiting. It's so much easier to hate than to luuuv.

Of course, I've already pointed out that there's a big difference between voting and voting a lot.

As to the two Gomers making all those down votes...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqewojda3M0[/youtube]

[flynfrog]

I want to, but because I know I only have 5 votes, so I have to do my daily reading, then track back over my "top 5 posts of the day" and up-vote them. I can't do it on the spot, because I might blow my votes on 5 posts that aren't as good as the next 5 posts I find. It's all very depressing, so I don't bother.

You find more than 5 posts a day that deserve an up or down vote????????

pretty much this.

[i70q7m7ghw]

I want to, but because I know I only have 5 votes, so I have to do my daily reading, then track back over my "top 5 posts of the day" and up-vote them. I can't do it on the spot, because I might blow my votes on 5 posts that aren't as good as the next 5 posts I find. It's all very depressing, so I don't bother.

You find more than 5 posts a day that deserve an up or down vote????????

Not every day, but then the 5 votes I didn't use yesterday don't carry over to today. Over the course of a race weekend, I get 15 votes. They are only up-votes, no down-votes, which I would certainly have a use for.

[flynfrog]

I want to, but because I know I only have 5 votes, so I have to do my daily reading, then track back over my "top 5 posts of the day" and up-vote them. I can't do it on the spot, because I might blow my votes on 5 posts that aren't as good as the next 5 posts I find. It's all very depressing, so I don't bother.

You find more than 5 posts a day that deserve an up or down vote????????

Not every day, but then the 5 votes I didn't use yesterday don't carry over to today. Over the course of a race weekend, I get 15 votes. They are only up-votes, no down-votes, which I would certainly have a use for.

so the point of the weighted rating system if you want more votes make some quality posts. As Ciro used to say Motivate your posts.

[i70q7m7ghw]

You find more than 5 posts a day that deserve an up or down vote????????

Not every day, but then the 5 votes I didn't use yesterday don't carry over to today. Over the course of a race weekend, I get 15 votes. They are only up-votes, no down-votes, which I would certainly have a use for.

so the point of the weighted rating system if you want more votes make some quality posts. As Ciro used to say Motivate your posts.

Forced participation? I've always been a bit of a lurker, I'm just hear to learn. I loved the technical slant this forum had, it's a shame a lot of that has diminished now.

[Pup]

Well, technical discussion here mirrors technical development in the sport, and we're a bit starved for material of late.

[Steven]

Just when I was considering raising the daily voting limit, the above few posts have showed why there is such a limit. In fact, the limit is commonly seen at various voting systems, and does seem to have its purpose.

One of the complaints here seems to be that too few people are skewing the results of the voting system, as they vote a lot more, or have a considerably different voting behavior than most others. Where one remedy is undoubtedly to get more people to vote (which is probably directly related to the possibility to emphasize valuable posts better than what is currently possible), the current daily limit helps to prevent even less people from dominating the voting system. Having unlimited votes per day would enable users to vote on every possible post they look at, enforcing more controlling action and evoking more emotions with others. Instead, the limit forces users who are willing to vote to consider carefully if a post is really worth a vote, or if that vote should be given to another post.

I agree here though that cancelling votes should be easier, but it's already possible! In fact, there is a link in the user dropdown in the site header saying "view my votes", allowing you to list your own votes (although it seems this is somewhat broken at the moment...). Each recent vote has a cancel button on the right.

Also, -1 and +1 will definitely be replaced. I've been working on several things, but a lengthy throat infection has negatively impacted my thinking abilities in recent weeks. Things are getting better now, finally.

I think the most important thing to focus on right now is think (together) about how we can better highlight / focus on great posts better. Such changes must increase visibility of valuable posts while it should also help show why the voting system really was instated in the first place.

[Nando]

Make it only positive instead. Let moderators "moderate" the out of line posts.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Make it only positive instead. Let moderators "moderate" the out of line posts.

This is likely to mean busy moderators = more of them to keep the quality high, because they will be receiving quite a lot of reports, I suppose.

The system is (almost) fine the way it is, highlight the good posts with some nice background color (light green or light blue) seems like the most wanted feature plus option to filter posts - check mark "Show me the rated posts" and voila.
My feeling is that we are starting to over-think the issue - there will be unhappy people always, for whatever reason. Hence, cast your vote.