How is the forum rating system doing?

[hollus]

I see even more of an agree / disagree there than now, and I have the feeling that addicts to other forums will still see +1 / -1, although that might be just my number based brain talking.

But then I am not sure how much of an agree / disagree problem we have here anyways. I think current votes correlate reasonable well with informative and justified posts, of course with user ratings weighed by number of posts.

As an aside, I've been reading the threads in Ars Technica about their voting system. The user base there might have similar mentalities to here and the implementation is very similar, except that they have many, many, many more users and that they gave unlimited voting, both ways, to everyone, so most posts attract in the order of 100 votes (only in the first comment page, but that is another story). It is almost scary to read how those threads are a carbon copy of the ones here and how the point of view of the moderators is identical to the one here. Maybe there are some lessons to be learnt about what works and doesn't work there, as they are bigger and things evolve faster. In particular they don't think that they are creating an echo chamber. Some users are starting to think so, though, sounds familiar?
The only place where mods there see a problem with the voting is in threads about OS, like where androiders and applers gang on each other tribally. Interestingly, that is the very same problem we had here and it got more or less solved by removing voting from race and team thread.

Anyways, so far I have been reading the forum all too frequently to benefit much from the voting system, my vote often was first, but now I'll be off the site from Thursday til Monday, it will be interesting to see then how it looks after a race weekend when most people have cast votes before I read the posts; I'll have a more informed opinion after that.

[Steven]

Another variation, with the downvote hand becoming red only on hover (to not emphasize the downvoting)

[hollus]

That is a good idea. Humans are trained by instinct to look at red things. More discrete this way.

[turbof1]

Make the lines a little bit fatter of the downvote thumb; if your eyes quickly roll over it you are gonna miss there is actually a downvote button.

[Pup]

If you don't want the voting to be agree/disagree, then why change to symbols that mean exactly that?

(At least in the west - the thumbs up gesture means pretty much FU in Arab cultures.)

[Steven]

If you don't want the voting to be agree/disagree, then why change to symbols that mean exactly that?

(At least in the west - the thumbs up gesture means pretty much FU in Arab cultures.)

I have asked a few pages back for suggestions, and this appears to have user support as a better alternative to -1/+1 icons.
Also, to make it clear what voting means, tooltips are displayed as soon as you hover over a voting button. I don't think it needs more explanation than that. There is even more info in the FAQ of course.

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.

If you are so depressed by your lack of daily votes, it might help to post some things that people find interesting enough to get an upvote.

[hollus]

Not sure, what you are showing looks a lot like the voting icons in youtube, and we all know what those mean... but again, if it has to be a simple graphical icon only, at least I like the absence of red and green.

[gandharva]

Imho the complete voting system is crap. Each post has it's purpose and I don't give a s**t if the person who posts has a rating of +100 or -100. The content of each single post, considered for itself in context of the thread matters, and nothing else. Imo it's a shame, and it also points towards a degenereted society that such a system is esteemed as "normal", "needed" or "accepted" these days.

[wesley123]

Thanks for your great addition to the topic

But On Topic:

A thing that I sometimes see on other forums is that you can "thank" a post. Then under the post there is an list of the people that thanked the poster for the post. Then, with every "thank you" placed this is added to the total.

[flynfrog]

I think the biggest issue is that people don't know that its not an I agree with the post button but rather this is a good technical post.

[wesley123]

I think the biggest issue is that people don't know that its not an I agree with the post button but rather this is a good technical post.

I agree. the current system pretty much relies on members praising a good post, no one can do that and there is always some sort of opinion added to that, which is 'wrong' in the current system.

The system is just trying to force people to do something they cannot do.

[Dragonfly]

Add to that the different level of command of English for the non-native English speakers.

[Steven]

I think the biggest issue is that people don't know that its not an I agree with the post button but rather this is a good technical post.

We've talked this through thoroughly within the moderator group before the introduction of the system, and it was clear that a +1 would not do. Hence there is the popup that immediately shows when you hover over the +1 button, to show you what you're going to do. It allows people not to click it, as they will see the message before that. Personally I really think this should be more than enough to make it clear, although I have indeed had to point out the FAQ to several members who still misunderstood the system.

To help this, of course there will be the change of icons. Perhaps we should change the tooltip text as well?

[wesley123]

An explaination doesnt really help in guiding the members to do something they cannot do. Also there are differences between members about what is informative and what is not. One could find a post informative while the other does not, and that is part of the opinion. I think the post is informative is pretty much the same thing as "I agree with this", and that is what the system wasnt meant to be.

The system now ask members to rate someone without a biased view, without an opinion, does anyone here think that they are able to do so? I am sure I am not, and I am quite sure the rest of the forum isnt able to do it either.

[Steven]

Nobody ever said that opinion may not play any role. The idea however is that people here are smart enough to know what is interesting to others and what is not. And if they don't, they'll soon find out from the mods anyway.

Your claim of "I agree" is the same as "this post is constructive" is quite a far stretch I think, but probably it can be changed to something better. Perhaps we can even have "Recommend this post to other users", although than probably the user would expect to be able to choose to which users, which is not the idea of the system.

As for abuse that was mentioned here a few times before, I can only pinpoint one single pattern that I have seen among several users so far. It seems that moderator action against one member triggers a trigger happiness on the voting system, sometimes with the obvious intention only to annoy mods and to require them to take action again. Other than that, I have seen no obvious abuse, but I agree very much that if more people would vote, the system would become more representative.