Any rating system on forums?

[V1Rotate]

No ratings please. Let the post's stand on their own merit.

James K0UA

I agree with Jim.

 

[newbury]

I can see 2 sides to it, I would be interested in a "Thanks" type system where if you find the post helpful you "Thank" the person for it without having to reply to the thread, but I would be against making that a "Aczlan has rep points" like we have for postcount as that has been a mess over on Arboristsite.

Aaron Z

I didn't want to explicitly mention that other site - BUT - when they first redid it I looked at it about twice, and now ignore it. I also ignore "likes" "tweets" "facbook" etc. But apparently some people thrive for it.

 

[MasseyWV]

No ratings please. Let the post's stand on their own merit.

James K0UA

I agree.

Any sort of rating system would only lead to more of the same competetive behavior associated with forum members trying to achieve "status", where it doesn't take much to imagine someone having all their "buddies" helping them to "boost" their ratings, making them about as reliable as post counts and user titles.

In fact, I wish forums would eliminate post counts and user titles because they have proven themselves to be anything but accurate indicators of a members true "status". With post-whoring being so common, one can't help but wonder how many of those "counted" posts have any "real" content, and from what I've seen on many forums the average post count is off by about 80% if you take the wheat v/s chaff factor into account.

There has to be a better way. IMHO

 

[brin]

I agree.

Any sort of rating system would only lead to more of the same competetive behavior associated with forum members trying to achieve "status", where it doesn't take much to imagine someone having all their "buddies" helping them to "boost" their ratings, making them about as reliable as post counts and user titles.

In fact, I wish forums would eliminate post counts and user titles because they have proven themselves to be anything but accurate indicators of a members true "status". With post-whoring being so common, one can't help but wonder how of those "counted" posts have any "real" content, and from what I've seen on many forums the average post count is off by about 80% if you take the wheat v/s chaff factor into account.

There has to be a better way. IMHO

I really agree Massey...Post counts and member titles are a waste....almost like kindergarten...where little kids try to get stars from the teacher.....

 

[MasseyWV]

I really agree Massey...Post counts and member titles are a waste....almost like kindergarten...where little kids try to get stars from the teacher.....

While I'll always believe that user titles are a waste, I do believe that post counts ***could be*** a potentially useful indicator of the "substance" of posts if all posts weren't treated equally as they were being counted. For example: One could use an algorithm which judges then counts posts based on their total word count and the frequency of certain words which are used in "fluff" posts v/s the frequency of certain words which are used in posts of more "substance". Emoticons could also be factored into the equation because they seem to be used more frequently in "fluff" posts. Likewise, images could also be used as an indicator because posts of more "substance" tend to include attached or embedded images, while fluff posts usually don't.

A simple number scale could then be used to count posts, where .1 is the lowest and 1 is the highest value a post can get. Fluff gets less, substance gets more.

 

[creekbend]

Until there is a method to qualify the rater of a post I don't see how ratings would be relevant...Suppose a knowledgeable member posted something and it was absolutely correct but for whatever reason less skilled members rated it poorly.....???? just a thought.

Well stated. I agree.

 

[creekbend]

No ratings please. Let the post's stand on their own merit.

James K0UA

Well stated. I agree.

 

[JoeBuyer]

It could be confusing if the ratings were for the quality of the information or the quality of the product the information was about. As has been mentioned, there are highly regarded people with a lot of followers who post on here that have differing opinions but are equally valued in my opinion. However, they are at odds and ratings could be an opening for spite. Sometimes there are right ways and wrong ways to do things but often there are just different ways of doing things, none any worse than the other given the same results. I value all the honest opinions and methods posted on here.

 

[MasseyWV]

It could be confusing if the ratings were for the quality of the information or the quality of the product the information was about.

It would only be confusing for the programmers, but good programmers eat this stuff for breakfast. As for the users, all they need to know is the rating scale. Good posts get more, bad posts get less... what could be simpler than that?

Rating posts counts on their actual content would greatly reduce the tendency many people have of post-whoring to boost their "status", while potentially increasing the overall quality of posts and the information they contain. Besides, people don't come here to look at the posts counts or user titles, they come for the information contained in the posts themselves.

 

[BeezFun]

A rating is just a number, ignore it if it holds no value, use it if it does.