Comments on: Threadratings for Metafilter?

Threadratings for Metafilter?

boneybaloney — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:16:46 -0800

With all the huff and puff about quality, how about a facility in the blue for viewers of threads to rate them? This would have the benefits of indicating examples of quality (to newbies, oldbies with bad memories, etc..) and perhaps the possibility of searching for only threads rated over 7.0 or something. Whaddayasay?

By: trondant

trondant — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:38:21 -0800

Previously discussed.

By: boneybaloney

boneybaloney — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:50:04 -0800

Agreed, but not a huge discussion, and the need to recognise good posts and good posters seems to be important at the moment.

By: Stynxno

Stynxno — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:54:33 -0800

Agreed, but not a huge discussion, and the need to recognise good posts and good posters seems to be important at the moment.

because self filtering is so damn hard!

i must click on every link! I CANNOT THINK ON MY OWN!

By: i_cola

i_cola — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:58:25 -0800

I say no.

By: i_cola

i_cola — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:58:50 -0800

I say no. In fact I'd rate the idea as -5.
;-)

By: i_cola

i_cola — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:00:00 -0800

Ooops.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:03:06 -0800

I say no.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:03:22 -0800

I say no. In fact I'd rate the idea as -5.
;-)

By: ashbury

ashbury — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:04:20 -0800

Ooops.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:09:09 -0800

What i_cola said.

By: namespan

namespan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:09:18 -0800

because self filtering is so damn hard!

Self-filtering isn't the problem. It's the feedback effect that's the problem, and the idea boneybaloney presents would be one way to address it -- and I think it's a good one. The problem may be that it runs counter to two core philosphies to which mathowie seems to subscribe:

(1) Don't (in general) make technical solutions to social problems.

(2) Don't let the site become an all consuming time-sucking vacuum.

These are also good ideas.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:09:34 -0800

What ashbury said.

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:10:05 -0800

Whaddayasay?

I say present how you would design it, implement it and keep it from being a drag on the server. This isn't even a pony request. It's like the supercars my friends and I used to draw in sixth grade: they seemed awesome to us, but they were impractical and wouldn't have gone anywhere.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:10:54 -0800

Damn you, namespan, you interrupted my performance art. Philistine!

By: boneybaloney

boneybaloney — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:15:35 -0800

I think the principle that people might be dissuaded from twattiness by having a lowered average for their FPPs might have great positive effects.

Back to you languagehat.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:21:50 -0800

Don't forget that bad posts sometimes become good threads. A ratings system would prevent that from ever happening. And with all the bitchiness (twattiness?!?) here, everyone would downrate the people they don't like, or have on a list or something.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:22:38 -0800

Fearless Leader was planning something along these lines about a year ago. I liked the idea back then, and was sorry to see it go unimplemented.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:25:56 -0800

I like the concept, not the details.

Instead of having ratings per se, let's just have a "promote this thread" and "demote this thread" buttons. Threads with a minimum number of votes, having secured a certain net score, get added to the roster. Of course, the scores or total votes aren't displayed publicly.

By: boneybaloney

boneybaloney — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:28:55 -0800

Perhaps a [this is good] without a bad vote option would work reasonably well and avoid a few of the aforementioned pitfalls.

By: namespan

namespan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:36:28 -0800

Perhaps a [this is good] without a bad vote option would work

Also, it could fit in with my aforementioned philosophy #1 somewhat -- as long as you didn't let people filter by the best posts, but left it as an indicator only.

Right now the only indication of feedback you get from people is the number of comments. But number of comments on a post is a terrible metric of how good it is. A pot-stirring topic will often elicit huge numbers of comments, while a thought-provoking, amusing link might only generate a few [this is good]s. A [this is good] button would provide a way of amplifying the right feedback from the community. In that sense it's a technical solution, but it's not a constraining one... just a communications aide, like the rest of the site.

Of course, it may just reveal that the majority of MeFites consider something "signal" that a minority consider "noise", too.

Also, sorry languagehat. I hereby commit myself not to comment for at least 15 minutes. The stage is yours. :)

By: Gyan

Gyan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:42:37 -0800

boneybaloney: A problem I see with that is that's a very rough indicator. If I assume that a good post on, say, AI should appeal to the general public and not just the AI pros and enthusiasts, then your method would push such a post up, by virtue of the AI pros who vote it up. An effort should be made to recognize posts that are appreciated by a sizeable audience. So the "demote" option ought to be there.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 19:02:16 -0800

Yeah, I've been wanting to do this for ages but just don't have the time to program it. A rough indicator is better than none at all.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 19:11:40 -0800

No.

By: contessa

contessa — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 19:31:50 -0800

A thousand times, no.

By: Quartermass

Quartermass — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 19:45:22 -0800

Yes!

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 19:47:10 -0800

I'll just say it's a good thing Matt is too busy to do this.

By: namespan

namespan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 19:51:17 -0800

A thousand times, no.

(1000i + 1000) * yes

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:20:41 -0800

No: to infinity .... and beyond!

By: naxosaxur

naxosaxur — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:27:40 -0800

Voting encourages a repellently Heatheresque hierarchy. No & no & no. & nay.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:50:05 -0800

http://www.ratemypost.com

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 21:11:43 -0800

http://www.ratemypoo.com

(Not safe for anywhere)

By: weston

weston — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 21:38:30 -0800

No: to infinity .... and beyond!

The neat thing about having studied math is that you can totally pull out higher cardinal infinities and win past this point. Choke on my omega subscripts, fool!

Unfortunately, everyone thinks you're a nerd at this point and you still lose.

By: i_cola

i_cola — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 21:52:30 -0800

My head hurts...

By: Ptrin

Ptrin — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 22:04:15 -0800

Please please no. Anything but this.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 22:09:18 -0800

Weston: yeah, but namespan has already transcended all that "well-ordered" shit.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 22:10:59 -0800

What Johnny said. And Matt. Darn that Matt with his practicality and time demands. Honestly. You'd think he had a life outside of us. ;)

By: namespan

namespan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 23:06:45 -0800

yes johnny, I float above it like the stars above the see.

/assumes lotus position

By: freebird

freebird — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 23:08:47 -0800

I always thought the anti-rating arguments were wierd, but I've come to buy into it. It's like having un-threaded discussions - at first it just seems limiting and old-school. But when you drink the cool-aid long enough - and see what happened at, say, K5 - it seems like one of the things that make MetaFilter so great. It's like that wierd pomo stuff about restrictions allowing freedom.

Here's an argument for the existing self-regulating system over community ratings: with ratings, you end up trying to post what will get rated well. So you self-censor anyhow, but for the wrong reasons.

Whatever, there's lots of reasons to do it too. But if nothing else, it's one of the things that makes this site different, and that should count for something right?

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:25:24 -0800

if you've never enjoyed, upon awakening, a full body massage performed with warm, firm, gently-applied and melting- butter-slathered pancakes swimming in pure, hot freshly produced natural maple syrup all delivered by the nude holographic image of your choice prancing upon a finely groomed and well oiled young equine, well all i can say is: you shoulda been around when matt actually had the time to build mefi ponies.

By: poopy

poopy — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 01:22:24 -0800

oh yes, the good ole days. i remember when quonsar was just a quon. back then if a family member (or significant enemy) had an ailment, you had to resort to quoning them. ahhh, those were the days.

By: SpaceCadet

SpaceCadet — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:07:41 -0800

Isn't the point of an FPP for you to decide yourself? There is a link, you click on it or you don't. Imagine if the first "voter" gave it 4/10. They've effectively killed the thread, as rating encourages the bad habit of skimming over anything under (max score - 2).

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:21:27 -0800

What languagehat said, maybe, unless not.

By: biffa

biffa — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:22:51 -0800

What SpaceCadet said, plus it would emphasise even further any dominating group characteristic. E.g. rightish, christianish threads getting a kicking off the bat, plus ratings given just to put the boot in on less popular members.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:27:33 -0800

Language hat also made some good points, or was that Stella Artois? Maybe both.

By: namespan

namespan — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:29:45 -0800

That's why you wouldn't "rate" a thread -- you'd only get to express approval. You'd click [This is good] or you wouldn't. So next time someone (say, y2karl) posts something about Iraq, someone else (say, Seth) can't immediately bean his post -- because there's no beaning. Only approval.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:34:17 -0800

[language hat is good]

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 04:01:40 -0800

can't immediately bean his post -- because there's no beaning.

We could, theoretically, still teabag the post though, right?

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 04:04:14 -0800

Even think about it and I'll gut you from crotch to sternum like a trout.

Or not. I'm easy.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 04:14:25 -0800

please mod parent down.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 04:43:59 -0800

Even think about it and I'll gut you from crotch to sternum like a trout.

Or not. I'm easy.

This confuses me a great deal, although trouts are delicious creatures and I hope you save some for me.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 05:19:24 -0800

This confuses me...

This may help...

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 05:20:26 -0800

NSFW!!

NSFW!! (Text only link)

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 07:56:28 -0800

I just don't understand the need to tinker with something that works as well as anything is going to work in this imperfect world. It's like my job: suddenly one day somebody decided things needed to be shaken up, we'd been using the same boring old-fashioned management structure (= hardly any management) for too long, and we needed a new layer of supervisors. So they promoted some editors to Supervisory Editors and brought in an outsider at the same level. Immediate result: everyone resented both the outsider and the promoted editors. Short-term result: confusion, unnecessary meetings, wasted time, hurt feelings. Long-term result: everything goes pretty much as before, except less efficiently and with extra resentment. (And of course the salaries for the unnecessary level of hierarchy means less money for the rest of us.) And that was a good outcome, compared to the range of possibilities.

Moral: Don't Fuck with MeFi!

The God Complex: Your reverence is appreciated. I appoint you Chief Hierarch of my cult. Sorry, wendell, I'm forced to withdraw from yours by popular demand.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:07:28 -0800

you know, i thought my YetAnotherNewPonyRequest comment was, if not a classic, at least rated up there in terms of effort: gently and good-naturedly chiding the poster without casting aspersions on the suggestion. yet this morning i find a complete non-sequiter which is either unfathomable noodleheaded claptrap, some sidelong reference to trepanning, or perchance the medieval medical uses of leeches, possibly even a sequence of really lame (explained, no less) puns based on an ignorant but excusable pronunciation of my nick. how uh, poopy. but hey, like witty, it's probably his surname so we should wedge him some slack due to the primary school terrors he must have endured.

we now return to our ongoing reruns of the dissection of a malnourished but seemingly intact specimen of Ricus Condoleezium.

By: chicobangs

chicobangs — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:16:30 -0800

Nicht, nein, no, nope, no reason, no point, no guru, no method, no teacher.

I like the whole "make-up-your-own-mind" thing, and really, there aren't enough FPPs to make this a huge issue. Matt, if you want to play with something and see if it helps, well, I trust your judgement and all, but I just don't think it's needed.

By: chicobangs

chicobangs — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:17:06 -0800

Also, what i_cola, languagehat, and two thirds of the rest of the thread said.

By: Kwantsar

Kwantsar — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:18:54 -0800

I'm sick and tired of Seth and Albert Belle ruining Metatalk with their one-sided, axe-grinding, political, op/ed FPPs.

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:43:00 -0800

i don't know about a ratings system. seems to work well enough on its own so far. do we really want the slashdot-style "there are X FPPs below your current level of filter" on the page? and wouldn't that increase drain on an already straining server?

sounds like some of us want some kind of a meta-metafilter. y'know, filter out all the bad newbie posts, etc. and just get the juicy bits.

perhaps some kind of a classification for FPPs instead - if anything at all is actually needed - would be better. drop-down menu on the post page (hey, i haven't even seen what the post page looks like, so ignore me if there's one there) with some standard categories - NSFW, friday flash fun, politics, culture, photoshopped politicians, pepsi blue, and delete this thread immediately. who knows. then people interested in only subject X will be able to quickly screen out the politics ones, or the flash ones, or some such.

but i still think it's fine as-is. often by clicking i find a useful somethin'-or-other that i wouldn't have found otherwise. and my own personal filter seems to be nickname + previous post quality. that works pretty darn well on it's own, generally.

By: freebird

freebird — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:55:53 -0800

please mod parent down.

Hah! Exactly. Assuming you're agreeing with me. Otherwise, what a silly thing to say - I don't get it.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 09:12:10 -0800

quonsar, I think Kwantsar is paying homage to you with his moniker. Isn't that sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! I think you should publicly flog him for capitalizing it, tho; I'm sure he would appreciate it.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 09:14:03 -0800

languagehat: I just don't understand the need to tinker with something that works as well as anything is going to work in this imperfect world.

I agree with the 'imperfect world' part. I don't get how you know that this is as good as it gets. I've lurked since mid-2002, and I don't remember ever there being formal devices being implemented, as is being suggested right now. I can only assume that you're superimposing outcomes from elsewhere. But Metafilter is a group blog with a large active population and a unique sense of community. Frankly, it's better to have a fixed test run than resignation. The ratings idea, as in scores (4/10), seems a bad idea, but a simple net hidden score, that simply helps suggest that these are the agreed-upon best posts, sounds a good idea.

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:01:26 -0800

Stay off Shack's train!!

who do i pay to get an X?

By: darukaru

darukaru — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:05:21 -0800

Every post is sacred
Every post is great
If a post is rated
We get quite irate

By: timeistight

timeistight — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:16:55 -0800

...some standard categories - NSFW, friday flash fun, politics, culture, photoshopped politicians, pepsi blue, and delete this thread immediately.

And it should default to "delete this thread immediately" the way MetaTalk defaults to "bugs".

By: alphanerd

alphanerd — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:30:47 -0800

Hi, long time reader, first time MetaTalker. Is there any validity to the idea of showing whether or not a thread is referenced in MetaTalk along with the "posted by..." stats on an FPP? This would probably help direct comments as to the merits of a thread to MetaTalk, could be made retroactive to all threads, and might be of use to prospective FPPers if they could look for threads referenced in MetaTalk given a search term relevant to the FPP they want to post. It might require some fine-tuning, i.e. only MetaTalk FPPs that reference the FPP itself would count, to prevent catfights from besmirching the honor of good threads. Any thoughts?

[Yes, I know I have 0 FPPs to my name]

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 11:30:17 -0800

This is actually a reasonable use for the (temporarily offline) trackback technology. A very simple implementation: one more field on the MetaTalk posting page, named "Is this about a certain MetaFilter thread?", with a form input box into which you can put the thread number(s) you're ~~complaining~~ talking about. Then the fact that a thread has been cited in a MetaTalk thread could magically appear in the thread itself (with the rest of the trackbacks, or somewhere else).

Also, alphanerd: it would be nice, in my opinion (rarely-stated, oft-ignored), if the acronym "FPP" were deprecated. It's opaque, nondescriptive, and jingoistic. Plus, Matt's asked us not to use it.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 12:04:39 -0800

quonsar, I think Kwantsar is paying homage

oh, im sure he is ashbury! and truly i love him for it. but what l has that got to do with poopy's comment?

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 12:19:53 -0800

If the rating system is for poster feedback, shouldn't only the poster be able to see the result? Does a reader really need to see what other people think of an FPP? (I know I don't).

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 12:21:50 -0800

Thanks languagehat. I was just picking up the performance art trail where you were forced from the path, bravely fighting the forces of sobriety. If I'm going to head up your cult, however, you need to understand that I'll be acting in decidedly sneaky ways in order to turn you into a crazy liberal like myself.

I look forward to working/marching/killing the capitalist dogs with you.

-----

Oh, Quonsar was responding to something. I couldn't figure that comment out for the life of me, but only because I was trying to figure out when Ex-Cleveland Indian Albert Belle joined the fray.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 17:08:10 -0800

Yeah, I was going to say something about corked bats, but it didn't fit with my artistic vision. But you read my mind and made an appropriate remark in my stead, like the excellent Hierarch I knew you'd be.

By: namespan

namespan — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 18:49:41 -0800

If the rating system is for poster feedback, shouldn't only the poster be able to see the result? Does a reader really need to see what other people think of an FPP? (I know I don't).

The goal isn't just to give warm fuzzies (or not) to the poster. The goal is to accurately amplify the community's signal about what a good post is... to everyone.

Letting only the poster see it *does* have a good point -- you can't post for the pride of getting a good score. But it would also make it so that those who post more rarely in the community wouldn't get the idea of what made a good post.

By: furiousthought

furiousthought — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 21:48:55 -0800

Instead of rating individual posts, can we rate days? Because today Metafilter is kicking all kinds of ass.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 22:46:57 -0800

quonsar, absolutely nothing, as I didn't even see. You had me scratching my head and saying, "Poopy, now don't I know a Poopy from somewhere?" Then a brainstorm hit me and I looked upthread, and lo! there he was. It still made no sense, but I think he was being derogatory towards you and you should have Kwantsar kill him. Kwantsar should be eager to complete this task for you.

By: Kwantsar

Kwantsar — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 23:00:24 -0800

I'm so down with that.

You're next, ass-berry.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 23:08:45 -0800

Kwantsar, there's really no need to be rude - I'm not trying to be mean to you or anything, I'm just saying that you might be willing to do such a thing for quonsar. And you get points for ass-berry, I haven't heard that one before and I like its lip-puckering attitude.

By: wendell

wendell — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 12:30:54 -0800

You've never been called ass-berry? That's strange... must've been in a really cool school as a kid; my last name Wittler was alternately turned into Hitler, Witless and Shittler more times than I can count. And, yes I've heard "whine-dull" too. (But if anybody else can come up with a genuinely new one, I'll sit back and take it like the dork that I am...)

By: ashbury

ashbury — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:31:23 -0800

Well, wendell, my last name isn't ashbury and the only place I use the name is here. I don't tend to piss people off and therefore rare is the opportunity to insultingly change the name around. I once was sarcastically (sp?) called "ashy", tho, and let me tell you, the mockery really hurt. I like this assberry, however. Now you know, shittler. :) Wendell, do you think I should be worried about Kwantsar's death threat? The way he said it, it just sounds so . . . serious and threatening or something.

By: Kwantsar

Kwantsar — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 20:32:24 -0800

ass-berry,

My serious threats are not spent on Canadians.

This "Witty" chap, on the other hand...

By: ashbury

ashbury — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 19:39:01 -0800

Indeed, if witty is somebody you need to go after, don't let little old me stop you. Go nuts.