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Thoughts on the new system?

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May 20, 2008 at 11:23 AM

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Caleb
Site Administrator

Posts: 69

What do you think of the positive and negative voting system? Do you think that there are any improvements that could be made to better benefit authors? Or do you think that it's just fine the way it is?

May 20, 2008 at 10:39 PM

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Justin
Site Administrator

Posts: 101

We have had thoughts rambling around in our heads to improve upon our current system. We've thought about implementing a few new voting systems on top of our positive-minus one.

A secondary voting system, with a scale from 1 to 100, 100 being the best, that would be a slider bar under the thumbs up and thumbs down. This second voting system would help authors and readers compare and contrast articles on their quality, along with the positive minus, to give them a better picture of how good that article really is. This one wouldn't be used to organize it as top rated nor win it any awards, but it would be a good way to figure out where exactly an article stands. A really popular article with a +190 could also have a score of 82 while another has a +150, but with a score of 90.

Another voting system would be a part of the review system. We would split reviews into two categories: quick reviews which is what we have now, and comprehensive review. The comprehensive review would have the 5 aspects of writing: spelling and grammar, word choice, voice, content, and quality. These wouldn't be the definite 5 we would use. We may want to change, add or remove some later on. Nevertheless, each of these aspects would get a score out of 10 and the score would be averaged. The score given by this review will not effect the other two voting systems and will only be displayed in the review, but will help give readers and especially the author an EVEN BETTER idea of what was good and what needs work. We've also considered comprehensive reviews tripling their score or something of that nature instead of the double for a quick review. You would not be able to submit both a quick and comprehensive review, only one or the other. The reviews would not effect the secondary score system either.

Thoughts, Comments, Ideas? Anything you like about this? Hate about this? An alteration of the idea that you think would be better? We'd love to hear anything!

June 11, 2008 at 12:18 AM

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Soli
Site Member

Posts: 3

I just joined recently so I don't know anything about the evolution of the voting system since it is the only system I know. I think a combination of the review ideas would be best, let me explain.

I like the idea about the 5 elements of writing since those of us that have taken a class or two know how to interpret that type of advice but as this site grows, there will be a much larger spectrum of writing talent and experience. Here is my poorly thought-out voting system idea:

Step One: Read Article and Rate It 1-10 (or 1-100)

Step Two: Choose Review Type: Comment
Quick Review (Pros / Cons / Overall)
Writer's Review (5 Elements etc / Most Detailed Review)

As for the display of the scores, I think that if there was more than one number displayed, it would be a little overkill. I wouldn't want to see some shitty story about Hitler ( wink, jokes ) and next to it, see eleven different ratings from people that don't know what they are talking about. Maybe just publicly display the average between the votes from step one yet have the other review scores viewable yet not displayed on the article page.

There, my 3 cents. This topic deserved more than 2 cents.

June 13, 2008 at 12:08 PM

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Justin
Site Administrator

Posts: 101

Thanks for your suggestion, it definitely gives us a better idea on what to do with the voting system.

June 14, 2008 at 6:53 PM

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Manman
Site Member

Posts: 16

The idea of a literary score and a popularity score makes me happy inside my head. The thumbs up/down system, while gleefully simple, can be daunting when a user like an article but doesn't feel it deserves the full vote, let alone double that vote when they review.

The review system, though, is pretty good the way it is. Breaking it down to pros/cons/overview is a great idea, as it gives a reviewer a chance to speak on improvements while balancing them out with positive aspects. Employing an even more detailed review system seems like it would be too intimidating, even with its own rewards. Most new users would probably avoid it, and what we want to is to get people discussing the articles and getting feedback on their skills.

June 15, 2008 at 10:57 AM

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Justin
Site Administrator

Posts: 101

In regards to our current voting system, we've had ideas about that as well. We've considered a few things:

- Allow users to give it a null vote so when they review the article, it doesn't hurt or help the score.
- Giving members the choice not to double their score when they review it.
- When reviewing it, allow users to choose the amount of plus or negative to give it.

We chose this system because it allows members to break out of the middle man to really let a user know if what they're doing is good or not and if their article is something a lot of people find popular. On TSS, we had so many article in the 30's range because most people gave articles a 3 out of 5, which didn't really help the author out at all. And when there's more members, your vote isn't going to be quite as devastating or too gracious when 30 or 40 other people already voted on it.

Thanks for the suggestion, you make some good points.

June 15, 2008 at 2:02 PM

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Michael
Site Moderator

Posts: 77

Justin said:

- Allow users to give it a null vote so when they review the article, it doesn't hurt or help the score.
- Giving members the choice not to double their score when they review it.
- When reviewing it, allow users to choose the amount of plus or negative to give it.

Those are all great ideas. While I do like the simplicity of the current "thumbs-up / thumbs-down" voting system, it doesn't work as well when a member's voting power starts to increase. More power requires more control, or things will eventually get out of hand. For example, if my voting power is "+/- 50" a year from now, I won't be able to downvote an article without murdering it, and not every bad article deserves a "-50" vote.

Still, I think the "thumbs-up / thumbs-down" method is a bit cooler than scoring an article from one to five. I just think higher-level members should be able to vote without being at full power, so to speak.

I also like the idea of being able to choose the power of a review. The way things are now, reviews are always twice the power of a vote, which means reviewers basically ave to choose between "two thumbs up" and "two thumbs down." Something as in-depth as a review should be more controllable than this.

Here's a possibility: Votes should always be "plus" or "minus" the same amount, for everyone. Reviews, on the other hand, should allow members to choose how many points to give or take away, with experienced members being able to give or take away more, if they want to. No matter what we do, it will take a while to balance it, but I think this is a good place to start.

June 15, 2008 at 4:13 PM

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Caleb
Site Administrator

Posts: 69

Hmm. Meditate on this, I will.

June 19, 2008 at 1:40 AM

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Justin
Site Administrator

Posts: 101

Michael said:

The thing with that is, by the time your voting power got that high a lot of other people would have that same voting power or near that power. Also there would be a lot more members voting up and down by then, so little votes would count to. Another point is that since leveling up is exponential, it becomes increasingly harder and harder to increase in rank which means writing a lot of reviews! If a member has that much experience writing reviews, I believe they can make the right decision on whether an article is good or bad.

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