How is the forum rating system doing?

[Pup]

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.

I still think my two suggestions on that are worth considering, assuming they're possible...

As to the problem of the voting essentially becoming an agree/disagree thing, I'd suggest a pulldown menu with slashdot-style options like "informative", "interesting", "insightful","humorous", etc. It's not an end all solution, but it does set a psychological barrier to the "+1" voter.

As to the visibility of the ratings, how about changing the color of the text of the post to a different color so that even a with quick skim of the topic the good posts are obvious to all? You'd have to remove the color option for posting of course. For down-votes, the color could be made grey or something more easily disregarded.

[i70q7m7ghw]

For those of you using the Stylish add-on in your web browsers, you can use this code to hide the rating system from view:-

Code: Select all

.u-rep,
.rep-box { display: none !important; }

[Nando]

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.

I see it as doing the regular moderator job all other sites make.
I know sites with over 100,000 members and they only have a "like" button and have no problems sorting out the bad stuff,

[notsofast]

...Such changes must increase visibility of valuable posts...

Which forum users should benefit from increased visibility? Answering that question might help lead us to figuring out what those changes ought to be.

If it's for the benefit of the forum users who are already up-to-date on a given topic, and who are maybe just a page or two behind since their last visit, then a simple highlight color might be enough.

If it's for the benefit of the forum users who are not up-to-date on a given topic, and who want to catch up quickly on an entire thread, a different solution may be needed.

[Pup]

So, an option to hide posts below a certain rating then. I can see how that would be useful, either for catching up as you say, or for going back to look at older threads. I think it would need to be a visible option and not something that is hidden in the preferences. That is, I'm not sure how many people would want that to be the default.

[Nando]

Lovely system in place..

I didn't know such methods... And I still don't, because they're bullshit. You have no idea how much time the parts brought. It could be 0.1 seconds, it could be 3 seconds, it could even be -0.05 seconds but made the car handle in a more reliable way and hence made them more likely to finish the race and not wear the tyres.

Basically, you're talking out of your ass.

But still. You are saying the car will be a quarter of a second faster yet you haven´t seen any of the upgrades.
the calculations are based on thin air surely you must see that?

What you are doing is waiting for the car to be competitive in the Race and say "see i told you so".

Guess which one got a downvote..

The voting system with only a select few being able to vote is a complete utter joke.
It´s not about what´s written in the post, it´s about WHO wrote it.

[flynfrog]

Lovely system in place..

I didn't know such methods... And I still don't, because they're bullshit. You have no idea how much time the parts brought. It could be 0.1 seconds, it could be 3 seconds, it could even be -0.05 seconds but made the car handle in a more reliable way and hence made them more likely to finish the race and not wear the tyres.

Basically, you're talking out of your ass.

But still. You are saying the car will be a quarter of a second faster yet you haven´t seen any of the upgrades.
the calculations are based on thin air surely you must see that?

What you are doing is waiting for the car to be competitive in the Race and say "see i told you so".

Guess which one got a downvote..

The voting system with only a select few being able to vote is a complete utter joke.
It´s not about what´s written in the post, it´s about WHO wrote it.

The one personally attacking another poster?

[Pup]

Or maybe it was the one that shows it was edited some 20 hours after it was originally posted.

Seriously, when you get in the middle of a cat fight like that, you can't expect the voting to be anything near fair. And judging from the precipitous drop in smikle's rating after that little dust up, I'd have to think that this will be one of those instances where some moderator "corrections" will likely take place.

Or maybe not. Smikle kind of walked head on into that one, Gettysburg style.

[Nando]

Or maybe it was the one that shows it was edited some 20 hours after it was originally posted.

Very good reason for it as well.

Got a downvote, then edited the message with a similar complaint to what i´ve written here only shorter.
Then proceeded to make this post in here and one minute after i mysteriously had that particular post neutralized again.
So i re-edited the message.

Funny how things work.

I just find it funny how 2 people can talk to one person, in this case Smikle. One is visibly much more aggressive as i´ve showcased above yet i´m the only one getting downvoted three times.

It´s absolutely ridiculous. It´s not about the content, it´s about who made the post, it´s starting to become very clear by now.

[wesley123]

I wrote about it a while ago, just only now saw that topic was locked lol.
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 1&start=60

Anyway, give a man the power to do something and he'll abuse it. There are very, very few people that can actually handle "power". The rest will use it in such a way that either he will get better off of it, or just abuse it.

And certainly with the current amount(of better said, lack of) of voters this abuse, or voting out of personal interest(yes, upvoting someone so that he'll like you better is out of personal interest), just shows much, much better.

But then, when everyone can vote, everyone can abuse it in a way he will see fit and we would see that the one that is most liekd by the people on the forum would get the highest ranking of them all, even though he doesnt really add anything informative, which is the way that the rating is meant to be used.

[i70q7m7ghw]

So the solution is... reduce everyone's power. If voting is opened up to all, the power of a single vote is less.

How am I not getting this point across?

[Nando]

So the solution is... reduce everyone's power. If voting is opened up to all, the power of a single vote is less.

How am I not getting this point across?

Remove the negative voting, let moderators do their job, there is a report button, let´s use it.
If you post off-topic stuff, make outrageous posts, foul language use the bloody report button.

Today it´s "hmm i don´t like this guy and i don´t agree with what he´s saying, so i´ll give him a down-vote since it´s anonymous and he can´t retaliate"

Why have negativity when you can have positivity only. Plenty of forums and comment sections use up-votes only.
Another option is to remove the anonymity, i can garantuee you people will think twice before they down vote a post.

[wesley123]

Honestly I think that if we keep the upvotes we should keep the downvotes too. downvotes are good for picking out 'bad members'.

On the other hand, we also see some anger from downvotes, now for example Nando. But I also had a pm from someone who was mad at me because I downvoted his post, the fun fact was that I cant even downvote.

Anyways, when there is an opinion from a single person there is always someone who does not agree with it. And so we see it with the up and downvotes. There is still a part of opinion in there, and also you are limited in the votes you can give. So what if, the one who downvoted Nando's post actually wanted to downvote both, but instead ran out of votes? I mean, I agree on that there will be abuse, and that there is abuse, but to base an opinion on that "someone dislikes you" just because of one instance, that's a little bit over the top. Look, if you were downvoted more than once in such situation, then I can agree, but that didnt happen.

[Pup]

So the solution is... reduce everyone's power. If voting is opened up to all, the power of a single vote is less.

How am I not getting this point across?

Because you aren't listening. Plenty of people can vote now, but only a few do. As has been said many times, the problem is getting people to vote, not allowing them to.

[strad]

Pup of course is right..As I pointed out a while back,,I don't find much these days that In My Opinion warrants a vote either way. I must admit I don't read every single post however.