Well that created a lot of interesting (cough) discussion didn't it.
As I said to the mods, we would have to simply run with it to see what it would do.
We do need some kind of way of measuring the most helpful posts, so some kind of system is needed. Thankfully we can make it what we want and it has to be seen as helpful to all.
It has to stay in some form I'm afraid. It is very important for us to know who is particularly good at answering technical issues, for example, if we are to have greater participation of users in this site in the future.
The problem is that we are all so resistant to change. I remember just about every change we made to the HJ site over the 10 years or so being greeted by complaints - be they about the color, sizing, layout etc. etc.
ok ok, so that wasn't all of you here. ;-) But you get my drift.
So the challenge we face is to carry forward with a vision for this site whilst trying to listen to the constructive feedback.
I do hear your sentiments and understand better some of the issues that could be problematic for what is an essentially very loyal set of individuals (to each other).
Don't worry. Part of the reason for not completely finishing the system and ironing out all the bugs is that we knew we would have to modify it. It shouldn't stop you reading, posting and enjoying yourselves as a community which is the main purpose of this site. It isn't core functionality. We will try to make things better for the people who insist on using IE as their browser. ;-)
On that note, clearly the sword hanging over people with the threat of negative rating has an adverse effect on this site and will almost certainly get chopped itself. It seems that many of you have the impression that somehow we want to ban overly negative rated posts or posters. This was never our intention. So to avoid the confusion we will probably get rid of the negative. We will leave offensive flagging as this is important for hiding posts like some of the malicious stuff that could appear if someone wanted to wreak havoc on this site, and do this hiding without mod intervention. (We all know the kind of thng I mean)
I don't believe we will lose much by doing this and it should get rid of most of the fear of posting.
The word "rate" doesn't seem to be an accurate enough description of what we are looking for either. "Helpful", "informative", "good point" seem better because these could encourage a plus even on posts that you might disagree with for example.
It will be easier for us to simply reset the databases on changes, so if it all gets cleared to zero you will know what has happened. Please don't take the current ratings too seriously as we reserve the right to restart them tomorrow.
Finally at the early hour, please note that your comments are always welcome and we try to take them in the spirit in which they are intended.
I did take a long look at one of the other sites mentioned that use rating systems and was encouraged that most of the ideas we had in mind or had already put in place here would go a long way to preventing some of the abuses that can happen.
Last edited by: car4play on Thu 8 Apr 10 at 01:29
|
