I had this interesting idea last night.
I've been really frustrated lately with the quality of the blogs here, the rating system, and way that many of the same blogs stay on the "highest rated" category (as good as they may be). Many of the most interesting blogs don't get seen because they are missed if you're not online at the right time, and you don't have time to shuffle through all the junk blogs from the day. I thought maybe we could have some way of "advertising" the blogs which have generated the most comments during a particular week, because these blogs clearly have something that has interested people enough to get a good discussion going. It could go on the side-bar or somewhere on the front page. It wouldn't necessarily replace the rating system, but it could be a good compliment to it. What do you think?
Yeah, I've had to catch the name of a few posters who I tend to think do good work, and add them to my 'buddies' list, but I miss out on any good ones that just post at odd hours compared to me.
Many have requested the same type of system, so we have been exploring ideas along those lines.
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~Fallon~
"I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts" -Lord Byron
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Sounds great! Keep me updated - I'll be looking forward to it.
Keep in mind that the best way to change the 'highest rated' list is to actually rate blogs. If only 3 people are rating, than the list isn't going to change too much.
~C
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I used to rate tons of blogs... and then I kept getting limited. Now I usually rate the blogs that are most polarizing (like really terrible, or really amazing), so I have some rates left for those that I really want to rate if I see one at the end of the day.
Up to a certain number of rates, the rating system is skewed anyway, because people either don't understand the point of the system or don't care. Anytime I have a high-rated blog, people just vote it down because they disagree with my politics. I've seen plenty of other well-written, logical, strongly supported blogs that have been rated down for the same reasons. I'll even admit that when I see a decent blog being rated down because people don't like it's politics, I'll rate it higher than I normally would just to even it out a little. It's very frustrating when people don't rate for the right reasons.
I'll rate blogs that I think are GREAT.... or ones that I think are horrid.
oddly enough, though... just because I disagree with someone (sometimes VERY much) doesn't mean that I'll rate them low.
I wonder how universal that idea is. heh.
I understand your frustration. I went from a 5.0 rating with 10+ votes down to like a 3.7 rating within only a couple hours on one of my blogs. That's the sad part about democracy.
One of the problems I do see with putting up blogs that get the most comments in a given day is that the blogs with the most comments usually aren't the best. They're just the most controversial. I mean, the blog that I've seen lately with the most comments period (well over 300 now) has so many comments because so many people disagree with the topic, and several debates have spawned from that. Any blog that takes a strong stance against things like abortion and religion are going to get high numbers of comments, either with people agreeing or, more typically, disagreeing. It doesn't exactly reflect the quality of the blog.
The same phenomenon will likely occur if we do any 'most' things, including reads, e-mails, etc. But we are working on it, we promise.
~C
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Even if the blog isn't that great, it can't be horrible, because otherwise people wouldn't understand it enough to discuss it to begin with. Plus it's nice to read all the comments and participate in the discussion, you know? The frustrating thing about doing the most reads would be that the same ones would be on top all the time (I'm pretty sure). As for e-mails, I've never used that feature, and I have difficulty imagining it being overly popular so I'm not sure if this would work at all?
I just thought the comments might be the most "honest" way of telling which blogs are getting the most interest and discussion going. Maybe we could do a weighted combination of the ratings and comments or something? It would be somewhat interesting to try.
Heh... think of the blogs where you and I get into it with some of the lefty posters...
*grin*
I'd like to think I am one of the most polarizing posters on this website.
Who made the determination that "progressive" means "liberal" anyway? Geez.
LOL... ;)
I hope to be in a close second. well, I don't HOPE to be... it is kind of depressing to think that the ideas of personal freedom and independence are controversial.
I think the email thing would be less vulnerable to abuse as well. How many people could one possibly email a blog to?
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I'm surprised mine (One Little Decade) is still up there as often as it is. 83 votes at a 4.3 rating... I would have thought it would have been voted down much lower months ago.
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~Fallon~
"I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts" -Lord Byron
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Nobody likes me... they think I'm an "insensitive righty" when I actually care very much about people.
Every single one of my blogs gets voted into the dirt. Only one of them hasn't gotten votes at all... I guess that's an accomplishment lol.
Eh, don't worry about it. When the people commenting are as far to the left as they are, take the low votes as a compliment.
I think the problem with most of the highly rated posts is that they generally tend to be based on a stance that everybody can argree on. They often don't tend to generate debate, because as soon as they do that, they get knocked out of the highest rated post section, to be replaced by something more innocuous, or something which will be immediately knocked off until something innocuous lands.
People also have a tendency, I've done it myself, to rate moderator posts with instructional content for proper protocol, with 5-star ratings. I've stopped doing this, largely because they are already on the front page and while they are often spot-on, there are more important issues which are more deserving of high rated attention than blogging etiquette. we should restrict our agreement with these posts to comments and not flood the highest rated section with messages from the moderators.
There are also too many knee-jerk 1-star raters around, who often would rather just hit 1-star, rather than actually debate an issue, instead of reserving that low rating for logs with no merit. It's like copping a squat on somebody's doorstep when they aren't looking, instead of ringing the doorbell and discussing your grievance. Even if a blog has no merit, a 1-star rating should be justified by the rater in the comments, otherwise it's pointless, not to mention cowardly in some cases, for people to rate at all.
I think one solution could be to reduce the rating system simply to 5-star. In other words, if you think a blog is exceptionally good, you can give it a positive flag; a 'for-consideration', if you will. That way, exceptional blogs will be promoted, without giving one person the facility to hit a 1-star and topple a blog that 10 people thought was excellent.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
Hmm....
None of this would be implemented until the next contest, of course, because otherwise it would be unfair. I think your idea is interesting, but herein lies the problem: some people rate very bad blogs 5 stars. For the same reasons you state, I think. Those blogs would show a rating of 5 stars, when other pretty good blogs could have no rating at all. On one of the trackers we use, we can only see the rating, not how many people have rated it.
We'll try to come up with some way to make the rating system fair, but honestly, I think its as much of a losing battle as is trying to get everyone to write blogs that fit the mission of the site.
~C
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"some people rate very bad blogs 5 stars."
That's true, but I think people are often more inspired by disagreement towards a 1-star, than people are towards awarding 5-stars for bad blogs. Essentially, there isn't a fool-proof system and I mean that literally, we can not completely prevent fools from using the rating system in a foolish manner. I suppose damage limitation is the best policy.
"Those blogs would show a rating of 5 stars, when other pretty good blogs could have no rating at all."
That's true, but do people really only read blog entries because of their star rating? I don't personally, I read blogs that sound interesting, whether they have a 1 or 5 star rating, I want to determine for myself what merit they have, or lack there of. I do look to the highest rated alright, but generally a 1-star means nothing to me until I've read the blog, as I'm more than aware that some asshole can just land a 1-star out of sheer spite, rather than out of genuine appraisal. One man's meat and all that...
It's a tough one really.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
What about a form where users have to submit a reason for their rating? It could be similar to the nominations for featured bloggers. Without the required tips/comments, the user wouldn't be able to rate it. I think this would work great if points were awarded, too.
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