Let's add a rating system to MetaFilter

September 26, 2000 5:52 PM

I think a rating system (perhaps similar to that of HalfBakery) would be a spiffy addition to MetaTalk/Filter. I thought of this a few days ago and had a genuine situation in mind wherein it might come in handy (Honest, I did!), but have since forgotten what good, exactly, it would be. Then, of course this whole TiVo essay thing came up, and I really want people to know how great I think bradlands' Limericks are, but don't want to be rude by posting "Hey, I just wanted to let everyone know how great I think bradlands' Limericks are." Ratings, of course, would be the obvious, and polite, way to do it.

Of course, I'm sure it would also prove a valuable addition to the entire MF/T community and everyone would love it, etc.
posted by Lirp to feature requests at 5:52 PM (5 comments total)

there's a small prob with ratings.

Someone makes a post to something amazing, but shocking and/or offensive. Take a recent link to TA tips for a texas university.

It was an amazing find, right, but it's highly offensive. On the one hand, I'm glad someone posted it, it brings up issues many thought no longer existed, but also reminds us of how ugly people can be.

Would you give that a +1 or a -1?

If most people found the link offensive, and you saw that the thread had a cumulative score of -20 would a good discussion follow?

I've always wanted to add moderation and meta-scoring, but sometimes it's hard to judge the commentary versus the link versus the poster themselves when judging quality.

It's not entirely +1 or -1, it's not a black and white, good and bad world. I don't want to complicate things, so the solution has to remain simple, but I fear a simple scoring system might do more harm than good.
posted by mathowie at 6:28 PM on September 26, 2000

While I don't like the idea of rating posts (*cough*Karma Whores*cough*) there are reasonably effective ways of doing it.

If, while discussing rating (in the FAQ or posting guidelines, whatever) you discuss how you want things rated. For instance, "Does this link/post/comment/foo/bar/baz spark conversation? Rate it up!" or "Is this link old and crusty and we just don't care anymore? Rate it down!"

Most people here tend to enjoy a good discussion, whether or not they actually agree with what a link points to, or a post says, etc.

Of course, that leads to classification... "-1 Troll" being a good example of that.

People who post here tend to learn fairly early-on in their MeFi existence what makes a good post, or a reasonable comment. The ones who don't get ... err... realigned. <grin>

Again I say I don't like rating. More than anything else because rating's just a damn hassle. Lazy? Darn tootin'! :-)
posted by cCranium at 8:59 AM on September 27, 2000

Hmm... I can agree with that. First of all, I was mostly thinking of ratings comments within a post, for a specific purpose, like this whole TiVo thing, etc. Oh well. When I can't seem to convince myself, I guess it's time to stop arguing. :)
posted by Lirp at 7:30 PM on September 27, 2000

Thanks for the kind words about the limericks, anyhow, Lirp. :-)
posted by bradlands at 6:14 PM on September 29, 2000

The idea of rating posts/comments is a complex thing. There will always be those people who will downrate a post or link to lower someone's karma points for spite, regardless of the quality content they're rating. The solution could be only certain people with a certain access level can rate content, and when a person's account reaches a certain level of positive ratings, they become eligable for being promoted to the ability to rate.

If you analyze slashcode, they use a similar yet very complex system of karma points and meta moderation, where certain accounts which have a certain level of positive points and have been in existance for a while get random instances of the ability to up/down-moderate with a certain number of points. After they use up those rating points, they can't moderate anymore during that session.

The situation could be approached from a hundred different ways with a hundred different algorythms. For now though, I don't think that It's necessary with the amount of self control and common sense present in the community. I only fear the day when MeFi grows so large that you have to implement some sort of ratings system, or even designated posters that sort through submitted stories and points good ones. Thankfully, that looks to be far in the future.
posted by tomorama at 12:05 AM on October 15, 2000