Reading zen's journal

I believe that all registered users can rate other's posts. At some point, one's work will be rated by strangers, or our on-line friends.

It's easy enough to rate someone's work, as it's just a button. One button with 5 degrees of like or dislike. It doesn't take any sort of special skill, or even thought to use this button.

I'm incline oft to think that there is no thought put forth when people use this button. I'm inclined to think that people use it instead of replying to a person's work, in a thoughtful manner.

Written feedback is optional. Noone HAS TO give comments or suggestions to another's work. Call it a courtesy, if you will.
Rating another's work is also a courtesy. But the two are diffent. One requires a moment of thought. The other requires a bit more thought, and then action. The written commentary takes a bit of energy, and time. But the writer, some of whom are serious in that chosen pursuit, doesn't learn a dam thing by the number i.e.% rating.

Whether the rating is 100% given by 5 viewers, or 63% given by 4 viewers, the point remains for both those instances: the writer of the post has no idea why his/her work was rated that way........
uinless you take the time to write a note saying what you liked or disliked about a work.

Personally, I don't give a shit about ratings. Like I said, they seem tailored to the individual who gives little thought to the post being rated.
I look at the numbers as an involuntary reaction, kinda like vomiting or laughing, after reading a post that emotionally moves one. The number rating, I suspect, is the perfect out for the person without much confidence in his or her own ability. It's undeniably the easier, softer way. Rating another's work poorly, and not having the decency, and courtesy of actually telling that person what you thought of it is also the coward's way out. It's like hiding behind a mask.

What I do give a shit about is getting a poor rating, and not knowing why people disliked the work. It is a courtesy to reply to a person's work, sure. However, it does nothing for me to know that 3 or 4 people read my work and all thought poorly of it.
What exactly is the problem with the work? Am I hard to follow? Does the post make no sense? Or is there some other reason why you really, really, really disliked the work?
And, if you disliked the work that much, shouldn't you say something, on general principles, for no reason other than you consider the work to be flamebait?
And I'm not talking about useless commentary like "your spelling/punctuation is atrocious"; but a discussion that talks about the content, or the issues discussed.

To sumarize: If you're going to "flamebait" someone's work, you should at least have the balls to speak up: male and female alike.

I'll bet that just took 5 years off my life--but GODDAMM if it wasn't worth every second

What I do give a shit about is getting a poor rating, and not knowing why people disliked the work

Amen brother! The ratings are fundamentally flawed, nobody has any indication on why a person rated the work a certain way. The other fundamental flaw is that you can write stuff and nobody bothers to rate it.

Don't consider this complaining, consider it as just stating the facts.

To sumarize: If you're going to "flamebait" someone's work, you should at least have the balls to speak up: male and female alike.

Well, there have been instances of bad bad ratings to extraordinarygirl and a few other users, and I remember that null or ginsterbrush (I hope I wrote it correctly W0lf) or even me where writing a sort of "exortation" to the writer of the poor post in order to have him/her write better, longer, more meaningful posts.

Also, remember that ratings have another important function: the one of keeping people away from a post they might not find interesting to read. And I do agree that nobody has the same tastes as far as reading topics are concerned, but if there is a post that reads things like "omg omg my boo left me I dunno wat do" (I am not good at imitating such English, sorry), there will be several people who will likely want to stay away from it. Therefore if other people (like moderators or others) actually read and rate that post in red, the common user who might have not enough time to check all the posts (I had 17 new topics today plus 4 journals) and might also want to actively participate, knows that he/she would lose time in reading a certain post that is bad written/inconsistent/stupid/not interesting...

This is not an apology of the rating system. But I do believe that the rating system works well if every one of us will actually rate based on the containt.

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

Also, remember that ratings have another important function: the one of keeping people away from a post they might not find interesting to read.

In theory, I can soo the logic. However, tastes vary widly. There's lots of things that people have bombed that I'd be interested in reading. Again, I can agree with the theory, but the execution sucks.

if there is a post that reads things like "omg omg my boo left me I dunno wat do" (I am not good at imitating such English, sorry)

Again, I agree in theory, but that is an example to make a point. I understand that point. But still, I have to say that I have run across those types of posts seldom.

I'm still thinking that if a post is bad, the person rating should say something, if for no reason other than for that which you've stated, that the poster should learn why a post gets a poor rating.
This is the point that I was making earlier when I posted, that the ratings should be coupled with a text that explains the need for a poor rating.

This is not an apology of the rating system. But I do believe that the rating system works well if every one of us will actually rate based on the content.

I agree, but not everyone uses it the same way. In an ideal world, that would be true.
I think that we'd be better served by having a multiple part rating system, where, say, style, grammar, content, etc. are all rated separately. It would seem then that there's less confusion on the how and why of rating.

I'll bet that just took 5 years off my life--but GODDAMM if it wasn't worth every second

I think that we'd be better served by having a multiple part rating system, where, say, style, grammar, content, etc. are all rated separately. It would seem then that there's less confusion on the how and why of rating.

All the more reason for people to stop rating. People are lazy busy. They either don't have time to read the contents, or don't have the time to make up their mind about the rating they are supposed to give to a post. To add to this, many of them don't even understand the purpose of ratings.

Now, if you have multiple sections to rate, they will stop rating completely. Ratings, today, are pretty simple, and it's pretty easy for people to rate a post. Giving multiple ratings on one post is going to confuse people more due to it's complexity.

But, I understand your point, maybe what you are suggesting, and need is a rating system that allows people to not just rate in percentage, but in terms of what the post really is, something like what SlashDot has. People can rate posts as the following: Informative, Insightful, Funny, Off-topic, Spam, Troll, etc. But, that would mean a complete overhauling of the current rating system.

Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener.

ginsterbrush (I hope I wrote it correctly W0lf)

Urk. NOOO! I'm not a 'brush' as in tooth brush or Gorge Dubya Brush, but 'bush' as in 'broom scrub'!

cu, w0lf.

Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind!

This post was edited by ginsterbusch on Feb 07, 2005.

Thank you for clarifying that issue. For some time now I've been laboring under the confusion between those two.

Imagine my chagrin.

I'll bet that just took 5 years off my life--but GODDAMM if it wasn't worth every second

Sorry sorry sorry sorry!! I knew I was going to mess it up... the truth is that your older name was easier for me to remember; and to be perfectly honest I was tempted to write something like "the so called Oxygenius" :P

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".