Scoop is warping my reality tunnel. I see a film and think, this got on a recommended list somewhere. Anything I see or read, I look around for a [rate] or a [recommend] button. Anything interesting conversation I have, I filter in the back of my mind, “would kossacks or (boomen, tribuners, what DO we call ourselves?) be interested in this and, if so, keep notes!”
And this is even though the rating system infuriates me just as the one on My Yahoo does, which is arguably even worse: “Would you recommend this story?’ ‘from 1 to 5’. It may be a horrifically badly written piece of spectacular garbage about a story that badly needs to be more widely discussed, so you rate it up.
Even with Scoop where you have the separate abilities to [rate all] and [recommend] you still can’t properly express your feelings with one drop-down menu click.
I submit for your consideration the drop down grid, perhaps color coded. A simple sixteen square x/y grid, x standing for agree strongly at +2 to disagree strongly at -2 and y standing for fabulous and interesting at +2 to uninteresting garbage at -2.
Anything in the lower left is essentially a troll. Anybody regularly below (-1, -1) should probably be banned. The lower right quadrant might be newbies and rush-jobs. Most of the highly discussed diaries will naturally be in (1,1)-plus territory though I hope we also have and discuss diaries in the high upper left.
and I wouldn’t mind a bit. It reminds me of those “slam books” that kids used to pass around schools.
Please rate this diary in comments using the system described. I won’t hold it against anyone if they give me a (-2,-2).
I’m tired and probably nuts to think anything like this might pass.
After all, right and left are left-overs from the French Revolution. What is the relevance now?
… about the rating system completely, so thanks for reminding me, even though I think my brain is too fried to really understand what this diary is saying đŸ˜‰
on paper. On the left to right axis is how much you agree with the poster. I could have said that all the way to I would never say that. And from the top to bottom axis is whether this is of broader interest or not. Or whether it is utter trash or not. In any case, put it on paper. Take a look.
Thanks, but I meant I forget to rate at all. I’ll read the comments and think they are great, and then go on to the next diary or to something else. For some reason (even on kos) I’ve never gotten used to rating comments, but as I said, this diary has reminded me to do so. So, I will keep it more in mind :).
I personally think the ratings should only be for 4’s and nothing else, to alert to others to read. I am against troll rating, and troll patrols. We do not need to silence the opposition which is sometimes within our own group. I suggest if one does not like comment or diaries, just ignore, better than going beserk over a subject.
I have so far gathered from this site that all views are welcome here and I applaud this and I do not wish to see flame wars and such here.
No one wants to see wars. I believe the rapid dissemination of accurate information is a disincentive for wars. The grid by providing you with a better view of what you are about to encounter will save cyber lives. You HAVE to support it!!! :=)
I am kidding. It is very, very late for me and I should go to bed.
Cheers.
who can do arithmetic without a calculator.
come on, admit it. you can, you do, and you like it!
I hate flame wars and troll-rating for disagreement as much as anyone here. However, having spent some time at other sites which were infested with trolls, it makes it almost impossible to have a productive discussion when every other comment is a childish (and I suspect often drunken) profanity-filled, attack.
And I don’t mean colorful and impassioned rants like the ones Maryscott is famous for. I mean, just pointless, scatological, adolescent tirades. Not only are the threads filled with this nonsense, but then they get taken up with reminders to not “feed the trolls,” responses to the trolls, chastisements for troll-feeding, defenses of how this time a response is required or just that it makes one feel better to rant back and therefore should be excused. . . .
No, please. Being able to hide comments like those so that the real discussion can proceed is essential. Sure, there will be ratings abuse, but better to deal with it and explain community standards when it does, than the alternative.
at least in part.A judicious use of troll rating can be beneficial.
That’s discussion group spamming (I’m dating myself to usenet days). ‘Bot generated commercial posts or google bombs for the usual spam suspects. That’s enough of a reason to have the user based comment hiding function.
Ratings are only useless because we have no ability to use them to filter out trolls.
Ratings work so well on sites like Slashdot, because all you have to do is set your filter to half-way up the scale, and you never see a troll, ever. No posts are censored, no posts are deleted, but the user is given the power to control his or her own experience.
THAT is what ratings are for – not to give people brownie points or punish others, but to add a machine-readable tag to a comment, that can be used in a filter.
Another thing Slashdot gets right is that one cannot rate a post in a thread one is commenting in. You either moderate or comment, not both. That prevents people from rating emotionally in response to a perceived attack on their comments.
Final point – on Slashdot, you only see aggregate ratings, you don’t have a list of who rated you.
I think the worst thing kos did was to show the names of each person who rates you. That is the single element that contributes more to the gaming, the vendettas, and the deterioration of civility more than anything.
Also, moderation on slashdot is a precious and relatively rare commodity. You gain it based on the frequency of your participation, and your past record of rating others, among other things. People are given extra “karma” every time they rate a post UP, and lose “karma” every time they rate a post DOWN.
I recommend that anyone wishing to understand how user-enabled moderation systems can help create and sustain constructive community read the slashdot FAQ on their moderation system. I have not begun to do it justice here, it is one of the most thought-out and real-tested systems around.
BooMan, I particularly recommend reading the FAQ on how the system evolved and developed, from manual administration to the user-controlled system they have in place today. It provides a reasonable road-map for growth of a CMS site like this, even if you choose different ultimate solutions than they did.
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm520
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm600
Neither Markos nor I invented the rating systems we have in place. We basically just decided how many different ratings we would have and what we would call them.
The ratings system, mojo, and display is configurable but basically part of the SCOOP package.
In order to implement something different I would have to build it. And building it costs between $50-$100 an hour. So, it’s something that I interested in, and Galiel is an excellent source for discussing group dynamics and management. But I’d have to ask for donations or something to build something better right now.
all you have to ask for is HELP! considering i spend umm at least 6 hours a day btwn here and DKos (skewing more and more towards here, not to disparage) – I could definitely spend a little time looking at some code. I’m sure others would be willing as well. It would be my pleasure.
Actually, the Scoop system on dailykos has been modified quite a bit – rusty foster, creator of Scoop, has customized things for Markos. This was only recently revealed in a February 13 post on dailykos.
Here’s the relevant part of the post:
Needless to say, I disagree with that last sentiment. The problem with the system there is that it is built by engineers, not sociologists. That is why it is so absurdly gameable.
I find it a bit disconcerting, to see rusty further down in that thread say that Drupal and Scoop are roughly the same thing. Of course, if this were a drupal site, you would be able to simply drop in a moderation module, out of the many written by independent open source developers, to add functionality to the site without having to build anything. I was shocked to discover that Scoop has no such third-party plug-in capability, which is practially de rigeur for similar applications these days.
Scoop was a wonderful development in that it made slashcode-like CMS accessible and installable for normal mortals. But Drupal, with its module-writing community, has so outstripped Scoop in terms of functionality, robustness and scalability that they aren’t even in the same realm. There is a reason DeanSpace (now CivicSpace) and Spread Firefox are built on drupal, and why Bryght and and even Yahoo! internally use drupal.
Anway, if you end up building a new Scoop op or series of ops that add functionality to the moderation system, I urge you publicize your hacks so other can take advantage of them. I still can’t believe there is no central resource for Scoop enhancements. Since it is an open source project, that doesn’t make any sense. But I can’t find one.
I don’t think you need to worry about all that at the moment, though, when the site is just getting off the ground. I certainly wouldn’t rush into changing anything before you have a critical mass of minds here and enough member experience to discuss what the best changes might be. I just tossed some suggestions out, from my own experience, but that doesn’t mean they are the right ones for this community.
By the time you are well-established, you may find it easier and more cost-effective to just port over to drupal, anyways, and have totally open options ;-D
are you going to post a bio or CV..i am fascinated…as i am sure others are too.
Thanks, but I’m curious why? I don’t mean to make arguments from authority, merely to share personal experience. We should all just evaluate each others ideas, not each others bios.
I do have a two-year old abbreviated bio online, at http://www.galiel.com/galiel.html
for what that’s worth.
I really don’t like talking about myself, which is why that bio page isn’t even linked on my organization’s site at http://piecorp.org/ – or anywhere else, for that matter. It is the work each of us does in the world that matters.
in regards to the work we do in the world that matters…I just know that controversy seems to follow you and I find that interesting. I think you were over at kos early on and you said you were banned recently. Just wonder a little about your past…I guess I will just have to live and learn. No worries.
Controversy is not necessarily a bad thing (nor inherently a good thing, either).
The only people who never create controversy are those who never make a difference.
I know many people one being my mom…she made a big difference (housewife, mother of 4, worked her entire life …and yet….no controversy. She made a difference in mine and many others lives. Next.
You have useful information and insights.
Some of that must be attributable to nurture rather than nature.
Your life experience might be valuable as a reference to someone who wishes to develop similar knowledge and skill sets.
Therefore your CV has value, not as proof of your ability but rather information about the nature of that ability.
In my own personal experience, to paraphrase John Doe of the Knitters:
“People ask me why I’m such a bastard
Grad school ain’t much fun,
an’ being a lawyer’s a disaster”
[The apostrophe before the “s” is not a possessive form but an elision of of the word “is”. IIRC someone around here was traumatized by an improper use of an apostrophe.]
IIRC someone around here was traumatized by an improper use of an apostrophe.
Say it ai’nt so!
is that I installed Kos’s rating system without one letter of extra code.
It’s in the box, and that post is either misleading, or their innovation was later added into the standard downloadable Scoop.
This site has a lot of original code in it. But ratings are not part of it.
But thanks for the information Galiel. There is a lot of interesting stuff there.
It probably has been added back into the Scoop code by rusty. That is how these things are supposed to work, so that all benefit from the improvements. I’m sure you are right about that.
I don’t think you need to worry about all that at the moment, though, when the site is just getting off the ground. I certainly wouldn’t rush into changing anything before you have a critical mass of minds here and enough member experience to discuss what the best changes might be.
This discussion got way too technical for me to follow. I’m just concerned with having some way to keep the worst of the trollishness out of here – see my comment upthread. But I’m interested in the /. approach, and especially interested in evolving a system that works and changes as the site grows.
a) . . . seeing who rated your comment.
I’m sorry, but a 4 from Meteor Blades is just special, and seeing a 4 from someone whose work you greatly admire can make one’s day. And for those who are timid about commenting, 4’s from community members that you have come to respect are priceless encouragement. This kind of encouragement can benefit the community by getting these formerly timid folks out of their shells and actively contributing.
Also, I often use 4’s (and I think so do many others) as a way of saying, “Thanks for your reply to my comment – I did read it,” or simply, “I agree.” Without the ability to use 4’s in this way (which requires that you be able to see who gave you the 4), threads get way too cluttered with too many “Thanks’s” and “I agree’s.”
b) . . . not being able to comment and rate on the same thread.
Because without this, then ratings can’t be used as above.
If there is a “decline in civility” – and there will be from time to time – most of us are folks who feel strongly about the topics we’re discussing – ratings may add to the emotional responses, but I think that we should focus more on getting a grip and reminding ourselves of Booman’s Rule. One of the things I’ve really like seeing over at dKos are the times that one of these highly emotional outbursts have resolved themselves into, “Sorry I overreacted. I still disagree, but you’re right, we should be respectful in our disagreement.”
I the non-cyber world, I’ve found that relationships are strongest not when people never react inappropriately – that’s impossible, we all have bad days from time to time. But being able to realize that you’ve crossed the line, pull yourself together and apologize – that’s the key.
a “4” from Meteor Blades is only meaningful because few used the rating system on dailykos, and here the community is still too small. Properbly implemented, you should get dozens, if not hundreds, of ratings on a comment. At that point, the individual rater becomes less important – which is how the system is supposed to work.
The whole reason to have a community-controlled moderation system is to allow the community to scale way beyond what a single top-down moderator or group of admins can handle.
Also, the idea is to negate the effect of single ideosynchratic ratings in favor of a group average, which, on the whole, has proven to be more fair, more objective, and more accurate, than individual moderators, no matter how skilled and honest.
It also is a matter of perception, not just reality; cumulative community moderation seems more fair and (when properly designed) less subject to personality issues, favoritism or bullying, or gaming by disruptive participants.
The concept behind community moderation is democracy at its best; a reliance on the cumulative wisdom of the crowd, rather than a central authority, no matter how benign in intent.
The very fact that people look to see who has rated them, subverts the intent of fair community ratings. Ratings should not become an obsession; ratings should largely operate in the background, providing broad feedback, isolating and inhibiting trolls, and encouraging posts that the community as a whole deems desirable. That is the essence of democratic control.
I don’t understand this rating system. Isn’t it all about sharing information. Now some write better than other. So if you are not part of the good writers the rating can be discouraging.
Recommend is different. If I find a diary personally interesting it is nice to be able to recommend it to others.
What I am trying to propose with this rating system is a method by which you would be able to see immediately whether other members of the community thought a particular diary both worth talking about and well done.
The problem is most acute on dKos where good diaries fall off and garbage gets on the rec list. I figure the more information you have from the ones before you, the better.
Thanks.
You’re quite welcome.
Alan
Maverick Leftist