I'd like to step away from my usual rants and such to blog about our rating system on this site. Bear with me, there is a purpose to this blog.
First off, I must say that I was pleased with the new rating system. Was being the key word. If you are new to the site, you don't know any difference, but there used to be a rating system where you had to click on an arrow and scroll down to the number you wanted and then hit 'submit'. For a short time we could even get points for rating other people's blogs.
But the new system, though being "easier", has it's issues, and I think I'd like to see it back to the way it was. All my old ratings have disappeared, which sucks because I used to get some fours and fives. Now I'm stuck in 3-land with no sign of escape. Also, I've found that I can only vote after I comment, because if I vote before commenting my vote will disappear (is it just me, or is this happening to other people as well)?
Now here's the part I wanted to get into. Ratings are more than just ratings to me. They are an indication of self-esteem that tells me how well I've done. With the amount of 3's I've been getting, I'm starting to wonder if my blogging has gotten worse since I first joined the sight a year ago.
My biggest problem with the ratings is if I get a bad rating, nobody explains why. If I get a 2 star rating, I really want to know what I can do to improve. It's getting pretty frustrating when I get a 2 or 3 and nobody explains what I could do to earn that 4 or 5.
When I visit other blogs, I rarely rate. I usually save ratings for the really good blogs. However, if I rate badly I will tell the blogger what they would need to do to get a better rating. I don't know if anyone's listening to my advice on format and spell-checking, but I dish it out anyway. Can't hurt to lend a helping hand, can it?
So there are two things I'd like to see: 1. The old rating system up and running again. 2. People to explain to others why a bad rating was deserved.
Then I think we'll start seeing some better blogs, and some less frustrated bloggers.
I can't have an informed opinion on the old rating system, as I am new to the site, but I can say that I have the same problem with the disappearing rating. And I think there has been a lot of rating on the message rather than the quality of the blog. I've noticed that angry comments tend to correspond with low ratings. In my opinion, if you got that riled up about what I wrote, it must have been pretty effective writing, right? I guess not everyone sees it that way.
If you want to know my personal rubric for rating, I detailed it in a comment to ashmoney (I think that's who wrote the original post). The post was called "Stupid Little Stars."
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I think a rating should be based on content and mechanics and the blog topic. Just because I don't agree with someone's opinion does not mean I will automatically give them a bad rating. I will rate them well if they wrote and expressed themselves well, that's all.
I see people getting "riled up" as a good feature too. It must have meant something to the person in order for a commenter to be so mad or whatever. I guess we're just weird, ediblewoman.
Oh, and I'm glad I'm not the only one with the rating troubles.
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Freaks with standards!
8-}
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Whoo! Go freaks!
Hey, maybe we need a "freak" rating too...
*looks up at rating* Hey! I had a 4 a minute ago! Not fair! :(
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I gave you that four. It recorded it, and now it's gone. Did i lose my rating privileges somehow?
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I dunno. Maybe I've cursed us to a vicious circle of a faulty-rating system.
Thanks for the 4, by the way. :)
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I've noticed the disappearing ratings too.
The threes might be a sign of the 'value' associated with each of the numbers, though. On this system, when you scroll over a one, it says 'poor', a 2 days 'okay,' a 3 says 'good', a 4 says 'great', and a 5 says 'excellent'. So, people giving you a three means it was good, but not better than good. I personally don't like the values assigned to the numbers, but I don't know how to change that. I'll talk to Fanaile about it tonight.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
Cool. Thanks for the comment, mvenus.
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to me it seems that the same people are the only ones getting 4's or 5's
"my first name must be, "He aint sh@t", cause everytime I come through, yall be like "He aint sh@t"!....I'll be dat" --Redman
"Anything that can go wrong, Will go wrong"----Murphy's Law
And that's why we need more people to rate other blogs.
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I do agree with you on the rating. I have not been on this site very long but people surely do not like to rate you that much. Then like you said if they do , they don't say why and if they blog you back they never do say if you need to improve on anything or not. Good write.
Kiota told me about the disappearing rates a few days ago and I have been working on it.
Here's my dilemma...
I have the code that should work and fix the disappearing ratings. But - if I install it, we'll probably lose all the current votes. Which was the same dilemma we ran into when we wanted to switch to this new system. I had posted it to a vote and let the members of the PUAA and the faculty play around with this system and vote on whether or not it would be worth it to lose their old ratings for this new, easier system. And it was unanimously agreed upon that this system was much better.
So, I'll let your readers vote now. Is it worth it to lose all your current ratings if I go in and install the new code for the rating system?
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
I'm sorry you're having trouble with the code, but I'm no techie so I can't help you there.
Can you post a blog or something so people can vote on whether the rating system could change? I personally would give up my current votes for a system that works better, but my opinion might not reflect the rest of the community.
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Done!
:-h
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
Alright! I influenced something!
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I couldn't agree with you more! If I get anything lower than 5 stars, I want to know why! What's the point of getting a C if the professor can't tell you why you deserve it?
I'm not going to tell you why I didn't rate your blog a 5 if I didn't rate it a 5. If I rated it a 2 or 1 (or sometimes a 3), and no one else has told you what's wrong with your blog, I'll let you know. But to get a 5, you have to blow me out of the water, and that doesn't happen all that often. Too many people use the same topics again and again, and while the blog is GOOD, it's not great. The vast majority of the blogs I rate are given 4's.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
Well, for me I don't tell why I give certain ratings unless the author has tagged his or her blog entry with "Critique my writing" or something to that effect.
Personally, I am a little tired of all the comments I see that read something about spelling or grammar and nothing about the content itself. I think its distracting and takes away from the blog. And such messages could easily be conveyed through PMs without destroying the blog.
And I don't rate on content, I rate on the writing and how it reads. If it's jumbled, filled with lazy errors (like refusing to capitalize sentences), all bold or all italics, and not punctuated - it'll get a one from me until I see some edits done.
But since I will not comment on writing style unless asked to - I will not go into how I rated something or why in my comments.
I'd also like to point out that we can't have the best of two worlds. If you want people to comment only on the content - and not on the writing itself - then you can't expect someone to comment on why they rated something. How can we rate on writing and comment on content and explain our rating without commenting on writing style?
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
You say comments should be about the blog itself and not about corrections? What about the whole formatting issue? I'm always telling newbies that they should separate paragraphs with a space or simply have more than one paragraph instead of a huge block of text. Is this inappropriate as a comment? Should I just PM these people, or am I completely out of line? I've made a LOT of comments like this, so I want to be sure.
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It's not so much that it's inappropriate.
But there are times when I'll go to read a blog and there are five or six different comments from five or six different people that all say something about formatting, writing, grammar, snd / or spelling. That's excessive.
Plus, then the author's will write a complaint about it - saying something to the effect of "why don't you comment on what I wrote rather than how I wrote it."
I'm just saying - we're expecting and trying to get people to rate fairly based on writing style and presentation. Then we want users to comment on the content of the blog. And then when people do this, others complain that they aren't given a reason fora low rating.
So - if you want people to leave comments on whether or not they disagree with the blog, or what their thoughts are on the story or whatever - then people really shouldn't be bitching that no one will leave a comment saying "I rated you a "1" because you misspelled every other word and there are no paragraphs and overall I think your title sucks. Stop using bold and I'll think about rating this a "2" next time instead."
Besides which, I would get extremely pissed off (and have) to go to one of my blog entries and see someone left a comment that said "I gave you a 3. I would have given you a 4, but you used "their" instead of "they're". And by the way, it's spelled "should" not "shoud"...
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
Well I'm not that crazy. I understand that there can be some typos and little problems, because we all end up with those in our blogs (generalization, but I think it's a fair one).
And usually if I'm comment on formatting or whatever, I will also address the topic of their blog. I try not to comment simply with "btw, you should separate your paragraphs". I will usually accompany that with a "real" comment as well.
I don't usually mention what number rating I give people. Sometimes I'll say something along the lines of "I think you'd get a better rating if you elaborate more/relate it to ProgressiveU somehow/etc"
~ *~
Visit my blog! I'll even provide a link for ya:
Comments are always appreciated! :)
Testing.....
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
Look at that - it worked and I managed to save all the ratings...
Yay!
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
Alright! Congrats on a job well-done!!
~ *~
Visit my blog! I'll even provide a link for ya:
Comments are always appreciated! :)