Comments on 2731 | MetaTalk

If we get an actual "vote" button, then I suppose any member could vote, eh?

DEMOCRACY, then. PROBLEMS?

What if a majority of MeFi new members vote for newslinks? After all, some of us in a recent MeTa thread concluded that many new members of MeFi already view it as NewsFi.
I suppose, though, if Mathowie is deleting excess newslinks, this might not be a problem.

Seriously, though, doesn't the idea of a rating system make anyone else shudder, just a little, in fear of a PopStars mentality? What if the majority of MeFites start voting in such a way that MeFi moves away from Matt's vision, or even moves away from the vision of the people in this thread (who, I'll admit, probably have good ideas for MeFi.)

Do you trust the masses?
posted by Shane at 6:06 AM on October 28, 2002

perfect! bookmarked next to alterslash. [works in NS 7 for me]
posted by dabitch at 6:31 AM on October 28, 2002

ok, ok. So Matt now wants it. I overlooked his message, and must have misremembered what I thought he said in past threads about this sort of thing. I wonder what would have happened had he not wanted it though... or if someone were to come along and redesign the interface for the site and, in essence, hijack the content.

But apparently that's a moot point.
posted by crunchland at 6:47 AM on October 28, 2002

1. This is an outstanding and long-overdue enhancement. I hope Matt can work it into the code pretty soon.

2. torrez should get a penny royalty on every [this is good] .
posted by briank at 7:09 AM on October 28, 2002

I'm in favor of anything that helps separate interesting, usable signal from newsnoise. Thanks so much, WebMutant, for the time and energy to create this for the rest of us...
posted by JollyWanker at 7:17 AM on October 28, 2002

crunchland, from what I remember, Matt wasn't originally interested in this sort of thing. It was only after many requests for something like it, along with an expanding membership and the many I/P or Newsfilter posts that made him change his mind. I think.
posted by ashbury at 7:20 AM on October 28, 2002

The question, of course, is will this separate the signal from the noise? As Shane's pointed out, a lot of members like Newsfilter posts. There's no accounting for taste. If everyone gets the opportunity to vote, a lot of crap is going to get bumped up and there's going to be more whining about deleted posts. "But it was popular! Why'd you go and delete it?"

Just some things to think about.
posted by UnReality at 7:22 AM on October 28, 2002

Interesting. Thanks, webmutant. Think I've found a bug, though. If I am the first to vote for a thread, it appears to add 2 votes. If I vote for an already voted on thread, it adds one. {Win2K, Mozilla1.1}.
posted by normy at 7:34 AM on October 28, 2002

...and the [this really sucks] function is coming when?
posted by quonsar at 8:07 AM on October 28, 2002

If everyone gets the opportunity to vote, a lot of crap is going to get bumped up...

[/sarcasm]To avoid this, we will have to draw up a constitution. And we won't allow everyone to vote directly on issues, instead we will elect representatives who will be incorruptible and represent the best interests of the populace without self-interest. And then everything will be just peachy... [/sarcasm]

quonsar, people here at work will be looking at me funny for the rest of the day, wondering why my cubicle said, "Bork's teeth are brown..."
posted by Shane at 8:14 AM on October 28, 2002

And I evidently goofed up the HTML on my [sarcasm] code, so I'm sorry if the facetiousness didn't come through.
posted by Shane at 8:16 AM on October 28, 2002

There are a few threads that I thought were pretty great that are missing...And a couple that weren't really great that are present.

And this is the flaw in this system. It may be interesting to actually try such a system out in practice, but in theory (in several lengthy MeTa threads), we've already pretty much established that such a system can't add any value to the Metafilter experience. Democracy works in a free market system where censorship is minimal, not in an automated system wherein censorship is the center of the process. That simply leads to mob rule.
posted by rushmc at 8:18 AM on October 28, 2002

quonsar beat me to it. 'This really sucks' will be needed to separate out the trash from the stuff that people liked, but may not have had large audience response.

Also, you can have the 'this sucks' versus 'this is good' wars on threads and pummel eachother into submission.
posted by rich at 8:19 AM on October 28, 2002

Hmm... this is a really good post by (Insert Username)... But (Insert Username) made some nasty comments to me in a thread yesterday... I think I'll vote [This Sucks] for (Insert Usernames) post...
posted by Shane at 8:34 AM on October 28, 2002

found a bug. you must be sorting alphabetically instead of numerically because the postage stamp link has 10 votes, but it's at the bottom of the list when sorted by votes, whereas one with 9 votes is at the top.
posted by jnthnjng at 8:34 AM on October 28, 2002

This is great! Maybe a sort by "Most comments by date" would be nice.
posted by Stan Chin at 8:45 AM on October 28, 2002

Now if you had to qualify why you were voting for a particular post...

But then, that's partly what the comments are for, no? To discuss why we think a particular post is good or bad.
posted by UnReality at 8:47 AM on October 28, 2002

Sorry I mean, "Most Votes by Date."

posted by Stan Chin at 8:49 AM on October 28, 2002

....is, apparently, quonsar's diamond mine.
posted by Fabulon7 at 8:56 AM on October 28, 2002

Gee, I hate (Insert Username 2)'s latest post. But (Insert Username 2) votes on everyone's posts, and his friends seem to vote, too-- the same as he votes. (Insert Username 2) and his buddies are kind of a block or PAC or clique... They might vote [This Sucks] on my next post...

I better vote [This is Good!] on (Insert Username 2)'s latest post, even tho' I hate it...

Just thinking and extrapolating situations, ya know...
posted by Shane at 8:57 AM on October 28, 2002

(chill--joking--insert smiley face or what-have-you here)
posted by Fabulon7 at 8:57 AM on October 28, 2002

Shane, all those situations would be rare instances, and an acceptable margin of error. It is unlikely a large sample of the voting population would act in a similar manner.
posted by Stan Chin at 9:07 AM on October 28, 2002

Just an FYI: I do want to work this feature into MetaFilter

Will people still have the option to see posts without ratings?
posted by ginz at 9:19 AM on October 28, 2002

It is unlikely a large sample of the voting population would act in a similar manner.

Probably. I am purposely exaggerating. But a rating system would surely have some social effect on MeFi's atmosphere. It seems to me that the people who are the first to jump on "ratings" and "popularity" issues aren't always the folks with the best taste.

The opposite is often also true. I think I post tastefully (lately I've been holding out for that "creative" project post to flash into inspiration), but I have no inclination to rate or be rated--it just feels vaguely alien to the way I think. I post comments in the posts I like, I ignore the posts I don't like.

I guess it's all good as long as we don't elect a MeFi Homecoming Queen. [Insert joke about Fave MeFi Queens...] ; )
posted by Shane at 9:56 AM on October 28, 2002

....is, apparently, quonsar's diamond mine.
yes, in fact, functionality needs to added so that all "sucks" links are forwarded to my posting queue...
posted by quonsar at 9:58 AM on October 28, 2002

This is very cool. Thank you, webmutant.

I think that you're sorting the votes alphabetically instead of numerically: 11 and 10 are sorting below 2.
posted by timeistight at 10:08 AM on October 28, 2002

Excellent work and all, but what rushmc said.

This seems like a fantastic way to shutdown minority viewpoints, mute emotional discussion, and promote groupthink. Suddenly posting becomes a numbers game. We'll all try and post things that will draw the highest number of "good" votes. Because good is better. And posts that don't get good votes are a waste of everyone's time.

Maybe I'm just being cranky, but I think this takes a great deal of the fun out of it. Longtime Metafilter users *like* a healthy dose of chaos with their discussion, they *like* being antagonized. Right?

I can see how a popularity vote could clean up some of the noise. But just a bit. What I really see it doing is changing the character of the place to make it more like network TV.

Ick.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2002

I agree. Voting, counting and vote-counting are definitely noise and pushy noise at that. Why use numbers when we have words? Why should the number of votes for a particular thread mean anything? Either it works (which I doubt, as most users dislike voting) and there'll be an ugly "Top of the Pops" pressure or it doesn't, in which case it's just an unrepresentative opinion, like this one.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:23 AM on October 28, 2002

Voting is not entirely without benefit.

It solves a few problems:

- How can I point people to "the good stuff" on their first visit?

- How can I say "these are good threads that you should learn from?"

- I'm tired of all the incessant "this post sucks, d00d" or "why didn't you post this on your own damn weblog?" editorializing in threads

- allows the community to spread some work around and filter the site for others

Of course it's not perfect and creates problems as well

- editorialing about the quality of a thread may just mutate into editorializing about the quality of voters or voting

- it's ripe for abuse (either by concerted group effort, or a single person gaming the system)

- has the potential to introduce all sorts of friction among members that start counting and comparing their collective brownie points (I tried to keep the site free from it, but even then, look at the ubiquitous "my userID is lower than yours!" infighting.

The bottom line is that even given the range of drawbacks, I know, and you know that MetaFilter can't last forever as-is. Eventually, it will no longer scale (if it already isn't bursting at the seams), and something will have to be put in place to keep it readable.

The more I look at Slashdot and Kuro5hin, the more I think that someday voting on threads and voting on comments will have to make its way here, if only to help people find the signal in all the noise. While I don't visit slashdot much anymore, and I stopped posting there a couple years back, whenever something big happens, I know sorting their comments by highest scores, with a minimum of 3-5 will result in at least a handful of meaningful contributions that bring light to an issue. Of course, that ignores the other 95% of contributions completely, and again, I hope MetaFilter never gets that far gone, but it can't help but head in that direction.
posted by mathowie at 11:36 AM on October 28, 2002

but... but... I was just voting the straight Cardoso-jujujive ticket...
posted by y2karl at 11:38 AM on October 28, 2002

(y6)³ and Miguel: Do you have a better alternative? Because I don't think the status quo is particularly satisfying for many of us. Without voting, what do we have instead? Number of comments or number of posts on a certain subject, both of which are imperfect metrics, to tell us what's good, and a lot of yelling and flaming and MeTa callouts to tell us what's bad, and people accusing people (like me) of being Mefi cops when they have the temerity to pipe up about it.

Voting, counting and vote-counting are definitely noise and pushy noise at that.

So, by that logic, are trackbacks, which themselves could be seen as a form of voting -- voting by Movable Type users who link to a Metafilter post.

We already pass judgment on most of the posts we read, whether privately or in the comments or here. This at least has the possibility to be more positive than the usual snarking. And if nothing else we'd get a more concrete, quantitative sense of what people consider good around here, rather than the assertions-without-data we often get when discussing what makes a good post around here (cf. mischief's everyone-posts-news-links-so-they're-good-by-definition thesis).

What would you do instead?
posted by mcwetboy at 11:40 AM on October 28, 2002

If we go for voting, I would like it to be a little more descriptive than [this is good] and [this is bad. Because I think voting would work best if we could seperate the popular threads from the genuinely good threads, both types will earn a [this is good] vote, but we should be promoting the genuinely good threads, and not the popular ones.
posted by riffola at 11:50 AM on October 28, 2002

Do you have a better alternative?...Without voting, what do we have instead? Number of comments or number of posts on a certain subject, both of which are imperfect metrics, to tell us what's good

I submit that the best solution might just be to not look to others to tell you what is good. Read the links which appeal to you, follow/participate in the threads which capture your interest, and judge for yourself. It's more work, sure, but also more effective, more deeply satisfying, and more in line with the intent of the site.

People post links on Mefi to things on the web that meet the criteria of the guidelines--THAT is the "filtering" of Metafilter. Why do we expect an additional layer of filtering beyond that, or seek to impose one? I realize that many of us can be anal about data characterization, but I have come to believe that additional layers of interpretation and/or approval will simply muddy the Metafilter waters. The simple presentation of information has always been the site's greatest strength. Those who wish to alter that should bear the onus of having to justify any changes, and the cases made to date just aren't very compelling--or are so problematic as to almost certainly doing more harm than good.

Because I don't think the status quo is particularly satisfying for many of us.

And for many of us, it is. While I think all are entitled to their opinion and to propose tweaks for Matt's consideration and public debate, I again think that the burden must lie upon those who seek to change it to present an unimpeachable case for doing so. Or would you equally expect to go to CNN's website (or any other) and dictate to them a new functionality that suits you better, and have them implement it with no regard to their own vision or the expectations/desires of their other users?
posted by rushmc at 12:00 PM on October 28, 2002

"Voting is not entirely without benefit."

I agree. But as presented here I see the voting changing the site in bad ways. I think it will make it more homogenized and predictable. But that's just my opinion. Don't many other sites already do that?

Once we (you really) go with the "site personality by popular vote" route we just have the same model everyone else has. I think. Right now we argue about it. But voting is sterile.

"(y6)3 and Miguel: Do you have a better alternative?"

Yes.

Scale the admin. Give several people rights to delete posts. Collect a list of ten do's and ten don'ts, and then have the admins moderate strictly by those rules.

Matt can do what he does now, but there will be several people to delete double posts, handle newbies, swat down "this post sucks" comments, etc.

I want to keep it the same and scale it. Voting will change the site so that it scales.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:08 PM on October 28, 2002

I would like to see a voting system offered because it might lessen the urge among many members to constantly criticize links. It's getting to the point where there's more MetaTalking going on over there than here. Self-policing with loose guidelines isn't scaling very well lately. If there was a way to make a simple good/bad vote of some kind, it would reduce the need to make a comment to express a critical sentiment about a link.

posted by rcade at 12:22 PM on October 28, 2002

- How can I point people to "the good stuff" on their first visit?

- How can I say "these are good threads that you should learn from?"

The only system I can think of which might work is for votes, duly identified, to be collected and sent to Matt, in an instant format which would allow him to gauge the voters' preferences. Only Matt would know about them - they wouldn't be made public.

Matt could then look at the most voted links and select those he feels are good examples of MetaFilter at its best. These could be marked with a simple asterisk, to mean nothing more than "This is the sort of post that MetaFilter does well". Not "this is good" or any value-judgement (that might provoke resentment). Just: "This is in the MetaFilter style."

Perhaps these posts could all be collected somewhere and made available on the posting page, so new users could check them and find out what sort of post to make themselves.

Matt's opinion is the only one capable of being respected by all.

(I'm sorry if this is not much use and falls in the awful "More work for Matt" category. )
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:28 PM on October 28, 2002

I'm not clear on where most people posting to this thread see the problem. Is it the front page that's accumulating too many junk posts, or is it too many junk comments in the posts? Or is it both?

I agree with those who think voting is a bad idea. I also agree that something will probably need to be done to keep the ever-growing MetaFilter from exploding.

Has it ever been suggested that MetaFilter could perhaps be, well, more filtered? That is, on the front page, one makes a post for a certain category much like here in MetaTalk but instead of Bugs, Feature Requests, and Etiquette/Policy, we have categories like News, FlashFun, Arts and others. People could then use customize to see posts only in the categories they selected. It seems to me that a lot of the complaints that end up here involve people who are tired of seeing certain kinds of threads that they don't like but that other members obviously enjoy (newsfilter, Isreal/Palestine, Friday Flash, etc...) so this'd be an 'out of sight, out of mind' solution for them.
posted by picea at 12:42 PM on October 28, 2002

I can't believe people actually think this would reduce the amount of bickering, criticizing links, etc. -- it's like thinking building another expressway will reduce traffic. I'm willing to bet cash money that if it's implemented the amount of bitching will go up: "It's ridiculous that that condiment post got voted to the top when X's brilliant post on Y was ignored!" Just you wait. (And then we'll have MeTa threads on why we shouldn't be bickering about the quality of links when we have this shiny new quality-control system. Oh, I can see it all.)

On preview: picea's solution seems far better to me. Those who don't like news or Flash posts can ignore them.
posted by languagehat at 12:50 PM on October 28, 2002

Those who don't like news or Flash posts can ignore them.

And yet, by creating a category especially for Flash crap and Newsfilter fluff, you make a permanent home for that which most dislike.

Also, non-members would not get to choose categories and would still be subjected to all posts in all categories.
posted by mathowie at 1:03 PM on October 28, 2002

picea's solution has been proposed dozens of times before. mathowie doesn't like it because he thinks it would encourage the posts he doesn't like (I'm misquoting from memory here but I'm think that was the gist of his argument).
posted by timeistight at 1:03 PM on October 28, 2002

Post collision! Anyway, I guess that means I remebered correctly.
posted by timeistight at 1:05 PM on October 28, 2002

webmutant, this is brilliant. whether it's a success or not, it needed doing - seeing something in action is so much more useful than wild speculation... thank-you very very much. wonderful. and a pony too. woohoo.
posted by andrew cooke at 1:06 PM on October 28, 2002

I can't see myself paying attention to ratings unless the site starts getting so many posts that it's impossible to skim them all. If anything, I'd probably start paying more attention to the ratings-underdogs. Rating might be good in some ways, and in other ways it could promote a really negative Top-of-the-Pops attitude. But I suppose there will always be element of competition here, in a Ridicule sort of way, no matter what we do.
posted by Shane at 1:06 PM on October 28, 2002

It's also a very nice design, webmutant. Good job all around!
posted by timeistight at 1:13 PM on October 28, 2002

In terms of the proposed solutions, there seem to be three lines of thought:

1) Greater editorial control. Assign deputies to Matt, as (y6)³ proposes above, scale the administration -- in other words, keep control of the site centralized. Matt's preferences take precedence.

2) More filtering. Categories, killfiles and the like. Allow each user to decide what is hidden from him/her, but the user cannot affect the content itself. Bad content persists -- if you don't like it, filter it. The Slashdot method.

3) More self-policing. Like voting on posts. Matt doesn't decide what constitutes a good post; MetaFilter users do, as a group. The most democratic option, because it's in our hands, rather than in the hands of Sheriff Matt and his deputies. The most social option, because our participation is public.

Number three seems to be Matt's preference, and is in line with his expressed philosophy of the site (guidelines rather than rules, light editorial hand, self-policing). I think people who have problems with number three are not self-consciously anti-democratic, but they do not trust MetaFilter's members. Or at least they trust them less than they trust Matt. In other words, they're more comfortable with Matt's benign dictatorship than they are with the prospect of a somewhat anarchic democracy.
posted by mcwetboy at 1:19 PM on October 28, 2002

Some combination of one and three, I think. Deputies seem like an ideal solution, except for deciding who they'd be. Popular vote, or executive appointment?

Self-policing. We do this already, and the current "system" seems to work. The (minority?) group of people that pay attention to and follow the guidelines are given enough power by them to shout down any badness. The final vote is of course Matt's, but he's been swayed into deleting/not deleting posts in the past based on our commentary.

I don't think you can add software filters without losing some of MeFi's charm. I can't count the number of times we've decided that guidelines are better than rules, and all filtering really does is add a bunch of rules that we're all going to have to follow.

There are a million message boards out there that have people posting whatever, whenever. What makes this one great is not only that we don't have that going on, but that the majority of users here work to keep it that way.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 1:48 PM on October 28, 2002

While I prefer the wild and raw Metafilter I agree that at some point in time the ability to filter more will be needed. How about a reverse combination of the above. Put the ability to pick an area of interest (such as Arts, Tech, News, Flash, Political, relatively silent I'll read anything) for each member and then create one of those linky things for the corresponding types that then becomes 'this is good flash' or 'this is good news'. Then you can filter all except, for example, the top posts rated by Arts type members for good flash, or the top news post as rated by people that will read anything. If I can't see it all I want to be able to slice and dice it every way I can think of to filter.

Of course this will lead to long discussions about groupings and should we include the 'none of the above' category. Thus Metamatrixfilter.
posted by mss at 1:55 PM on October 28, 2002

Would there be a limit to how many votes per member per day/week ? Some scarcity may make each decision more meaningful. (Assume one vote per member per post is a given). Would be a shame to see a degeneration into American Idol territory (with Matt mutating from Baseball Commissioner to Simon Cowell.)
posted by Voyageman at 1:56 PM on October 28, 2002

Like the categories idea, the deputies idea comes up over and over again. I can't remember mathowie ever showing the slightest interest in it.
posted by timeistight at 1:57 PM on October 28, 2002

Exounding on mss' thought: why not just organize posts by category, a la Kuro5hin? That would preserve the wild and raw Metafilter (perhaps LoFi could stay as it is?), but would allow those wanting to avoid news/flash/IP/sniper to do so.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 2:01 PM on October 28, 2002

I'm thinking that if this did happen, perhaps it would be a good idea not to display how many votes a particular post received. Just so it doesn't turn into a vote-getting contest...
posted by jnthnjng at 3:24 PM on October 28, 2002

I too get nervous about voting and categorization. Look at the big media outlets. The technology and code is certainly available for the New York Times, Time Magazine, etc. to allow users to customize their home pages, but they don't offer that (yes, I know the Times has subscribable news categories). Look at the portals, even... MSN and Yahoo both let you customize a page, but their default addresses point to uncustomized, centralized content. AOL's welcome screen is almost entirely centrally chosen. Why? Why do those silly content providers not give users as much control as possible? I mean, the user certainly knows what kind of stuff he wants, why don't they just let him filter it?

Because the user doesn't know. While there are a few broad predictors, the amount of interest a particular news story (or link) generates in me is generally independent of any facile categorization. Newspapers have human editors that can provide context and highlight the the cute odd stories that by themselves don't seem important but end up being very popular with readers (I'm thinking of a front page feature the USA Today did a few years ago on a real life Santa Claus in NYC who goes around handing out thousands of dollars of his own money to people). And this unpredicatbility is even more important for something like MeFi, which is based on serendipity to begin with. This is why I think that letting users self-select certain post categories they like would be counterproductive.

Voting is a little better, but I'd rather have an expert decide whats worth reading rather than a mob. Specifically, in webmutant's implementation, I worry that the first positive votes will draw extra traffic to it, prompting additional positive votes for simply statistical (or lemmingish) reasons. Not to fault webmutant, I'm quite impressed by his industry and glad that he brought this up. Already, the large numbers of comments that trolls like IP and Bush posts bring, I think, has encouraged more posts of this nature (at least, until the NF backlash, its been better recently). But, in short, if the signal must be extracted, I'd rather it be done by people smarter than me. That's admittedly undemocratic of me, but, to revive the analogy, most publications aren't edited by their readers, except in a long-term feedback based sense. I prefer option one.
posted by gsteff at 3:57 PM on October 28, 2002

Exounding on mss' thought: why not just organize posts by category, a la Kuro5hin?

Why not just visit Kuro5hin, then?

perhaps it would be a good idea not to display how many votes a particular post received. Just so it doesn't turn into a vote-getting contest...

Then what's the fucking point of voting?

Honestly, what do some of you have against "vote-getting contests"? For those of you who are Americans, I take it you're not planning on voting next week? Is democracy a dirty word, and vote-getting a dirty business?

Somebody please tell me what is so wrong with making it easy for members to indicate that they liked a post. All we're talking about is adding a little something to the site. If the votes differ from Matt's vision of the site, so be it -- if nothing else, it will tell us a lot about what people think they're coming to this site for, apart from the guidelines and our guesswork. It's not that big a deal, people!

Compared to some of the rather totalitarian proposals that have been made for the purpose of "improving" the site -- limits on the number of comments that a person can make on each post, for example -- this strikes me as pretty goddamn benign. Sheesh.

On preview:

Voting is a little better, but I'd rather have an expert decide whats worth reading rather than a mob. . . . if the signal must be extracted, I'd rather it be done by people smarter than me. That's admittedly undemocratic of me

No fucking kidding. Granted, MetaFilter is hardly a sovereign state, but what you just wrote, gsteff, is pretty chilling to me. Anyone who refers to a pool of voters as "a mob" is not undemocratic, but anti-democratic. "Mob rule" is the shibboleth of technocrats and aristocrats who think they know better. That's never been the spirit of this site. Lots of people have complained that MetaFilter has suffered because Matt hasn't been authoritarian enough; I think it's been abundantly clear that Matt does not want that role.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:08 PM on October 28, 2002

One reason I like the [this is good] idea is that I want to see what the great amorphous beast that is MetaFilter thinks are good posts. And if I wind up hating the posts that MetaFilter likes and liking posts that it ignores, then that's useful information too.
posted by timeistight at 4:14 PM on October 28, 2002

I worry that the first positive votes will draw extra traffic to it, prompting additional positive votes for simply statistical (or lemmingish) reasons.

The Filepile test proves gsteff right. Although I'm a compulsive clicker and judge-for-yourself apologist I find I'm invariably drawn to the links that have the most positive votes.

If I actually take the time to look at the less or zero-voted links, it's always the case that the number of votes has nothing to do with their quality. It's not the opposite either, i.e. voted links aren't the worst. It's just irrelevant - the sum of the few members who bothered to vote. These do tend to be in favor of tits and bum; easily understood stuff and cool, webby curiosities. Bad with the good; tawdry with the noble. A waste of time - but very influential, click-wise. It stands mistakenly for "public opinion", "majority view" and other deleterious, falsely based concepts.

I'm not a political scientist, just a political philosopher and yet I know enough about the many democratic electoral systems now extant, to say that they severely condition the results and are easily contested in terms of representation - absenteeism being the main problem. It would be here too.

All a voting system would achieve would be to count the subjective opinions of those users who bothered to vote. But it would be influential in a bad way, leading inexperienced or submissive users to go along with the pseudo-consensus.

MetaFilter should be flipped through and browsed like a big, fat good newspaper. A click here; a peck there; taste this; delve into that and make up your own fucking mind what to read and what to like. It's a method which has stood the test of time and MetaFilter, as it is, admirably preserves amidst the wankeria and pissantism of the junior community weblogs. Not to mention the comment length. Anyway, they don't have MetaTalk to rid their systems of populist or elitist-authoritarian impulses. ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:15 PM on October 28, 2002

After preview(?!): Electing who's going to govern one's country and affect one's beliefs and interests directly is not the same, not the same at all as deciding which links on a weblog are better than others.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:18 PM on October 28, 2002

Thank you webmutant, but I would vote "No" to the voting/grading idea. (Should we have a vote to vote?)

Most of you, and especially mathowie, have a much more discerning eye than me, but I fail to see the need for change at this time. Certainly the fairly recent rush of new members (me included) is going to cause some shift in the amount of the so-called "noise", but over time this too will be filtered out and MetaFilter will continue to very, slowly evolve into something that still looks like it does today. I think it was the venerable Miguel Cardoso that mentioned that we already vote with words. I also think that is effective.

Whoa! After preview: What Miguel said!
posted by jaronson at 4:28 PM on October 28, 2002

Miguel, I agree, but found some of the rhetoric against voting, taken at face value, rather jarring.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:30 PM on October 28, 2002

Unusually, for me at least, the Voice of Reason^TM seems to me to speak with a Portuguese accent: "MetaFilter should be flipped through and browsed like a big, fat good newspaper."

It ain't broke: don't fix it. Folk need to practice some old fashioned discrimination - as in, read what they like, and ignore the rest. At this huge buffet, who can eat something of everything? Self-policing has worked for many here - we've many of us adjusted our style to the community standards, I think that can continue to be a successful model. God save us from incomprehensible interfaces and biased moderation!
posted by dash_slot- at 4:32 PM on October 28, 2002

It ain't broke: don't fix it.

The bottom line is that even given the range of drawbacks, I know, and you know that MetaFilter can't last forever as-is. Eventually, it will no longer scale (if it already isn't bursting at the seams), and something will have to be put in place to keep it readable.
posted by timeistight at 4:43 PM on October 28, 2002

I worry that the first positive votes will draw extra traffic to it, prompting additional positive votes for simply statistical (or lemmingish) reasons.

Actually, that's exactly what I'd hope for: I'd like it if positive votes would draw extra traffic to a post that might otherwise be overlooked -- otherwise, what's the point of posting votes? I don't necessarily believe that extra votes would follow for lemmingish reasons -- not unless I was presented with evidence to the contrary, that is. I have confidence that someone who didn't like a post would withhold his/her vote even if it was getting lots of other votes.

I'd like to add (since dash_slot-'s comment on self-policing reminded me) that I think of voting as just another form of self-policing, except that we're rewarding positive behavior rather than calling out inappropriate behavior. I think a valid criticism of the self-policing model is that it's simply too negative -- it's all stick and no carrot.

If nothing else, let's see how this experiment of webmutant's turns out, at least, before we start predicting the Imminent Death of Metafilter^TM as a result of enabling voting.

I'll try and shut up for a bit now.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:44 PM on October 28, 2002

Who broke the first rule and told Miguel about FilePile?
posted by machaus at 5:08 PM on October 28, 2002

[this is confusing. stop. please stop!]
posted by monkeymike at 5:09 PM on October 28, 2002

My mama always told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all.

...

posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:10 PM on October 28, 2002

Seriously, though, doesn't the idea of a rating system make anyone else shudder, just a little, in fear of a PopStars mentality? ... Do you trust the masses?

No, I don't trust the masses, mainly because I have the sneaking suspicion that the masses want something other than what I want. The constant NewsFilter et al arguments show that there is a considerable portion of the membership here that want lots of news links, despite the fact that the site was not intended to be that way. My fear is that, with a voting system, MetaFilter may evolve into something that I don't like (what will I do with my work hours then?). Of course, that may happen anyway but, without voting, I can put my hands over my ears and pretend everything is still the same.

The term "lowest common denominator" comes to mind here...
posted by dg at 5:11 PM on October 28, 2002

I think people who have problems with number three are not self-consciously anti-democratic, but they do not trust MetaFilter's members.

What, those self-same members to whose posting patterns you object so strenuously that you want to introduce measures to override them??
posted by rushmc at 5:16 PM on October 28, 2002

The possible problem is that by rewarding what the majority thinks is "good", we encourage the lowest common denominator and end up getting a lot of posts about a very narrow range of issues.

The reason is that what is "good" is subjective and people will always try to reward what they agree with, and this compounds over time.

What we want is some mechanism to help us sort the wheat from the chaff.

Why not, then, make more specific, clear-cut guidelines for the kind of post--NOT the kind of subject for a post--and then have a button that says [This fits the guidelines]. You would then be categorizing things by their place in the community.
posted by Hildago at 5:26 PM on October 28, 2002

Having just cast my first vote, I can see that it would be easy for me (and for anyone with dynamically allocated IP addresses) to stack the vote on one thread by re-dialling and getting a (probably) new address. I guess that, in a system implemented "in-house", that would be addressed by logging user names when they vote, only allowing members to vote or something. I must admit, I am coming around to this idea, providing I can choose to see MeFi in its wild, untamed state if I want.
posted by dg at 5:42 PM on October 28, 2002

What, those self-same members to whose posting patterns you object so strenuously that you want to introduce measures to override them??

So much for my shutting up, I'm afraid. Time for me to try everyone's patience and go on at length again.

Lookit, adding voting doesn't override posting patterns. Compared with the other two lines of thought I sketched out above (strong editing, filtering), voting overrides posts the least. In fact, it doesn't touch the posting patterns I supposedly object to so strenuously. The front page remains unchanged. Instead, it rewards the good rather than chastizes the bad -- a new concept that some of you are clearly having trouble with, and seem to distrust by default.

Has it occurred to you that it might cut down on the snarking? Someone unhappy with a post, instead of snarking about it in the thread, simply declines to vote for it. Self-policing is more than bitching about substandard posts in the thread itself or taking it to MetaTalk; give members new tools to conduct their self-policing and they will not have to resort to public shaming -- as much! -- to get their point across.

And if nothing else, it's about as intrusive as tracking the number of comments or trackbacks on a post -- in other words, not very.

Voting only indicates what an aggregate of MetaFilter members (who bothered to vote) think is good. It's useful, it's interesting, but it will neither save nor doom this place. Keep it in perspective.

Complaints about the lowest common denominator, or statements that you don't trust the masses, reveal an attitude that says that if the masses say something is good, and I don't agree with them, well, they're just wrong, and we can't allow this data to be collected and -- horror of horrors -- revealed for all to see, because the masses are just wrong and their opinions will just ruin MetaFilter. If they're wrong, and they're all posting crap and newsfilter links and they're going to vote for crap, these masses that neither you nor I belong to, then, you know what? MetaFilter is already toast. Voting won't change that; it'll only reveal it.

To paraphrase Churchill, voting on posts is the worst possible solution -- except for all the others. The perfect is the enemy of the good. [insert another appropriate cliché here]
posted by mcwetboy at 5:56 PM on October 28, 2002

Anyone who refers to a pool of voters as "a mob" is not undemocratic, but anti-democratic. "Mob rule" is the shibboleth of technocrats and aristocrats who think they know better.

Not at all. Or maybe so. It's exactly this apathetic, uncaring mob that ruins my election days, when they blindly accept the idea that they only have a choice of two parties. (Frankly, I blame the mob for reality TV, PopStars, and the post-Genesis success of Phil Collins as well. These are crimes I won't soon forget.)

Why am I bothering with this? It's self-evident. This is silly. I'm not a "technocrat," and how many aristocrats are there left these days? Call me Baron Von Elitist, or better yet somebody show me the way to another galaxy...

Re: "Shibboleth" -That's an impressive word. I'll have to look it up tomorrow. I think I'll assign it my own meaning, though--something similar to Snark, or maybe the Jabberwock.

Have a good night, all. This thread is getting old.

dg, that's cool what you did with your profile page.
posted by Shane at 6:13 PM on October 28, 2002

What harm is it to try this, particularly while it is not integrated into the main site. Is it true mefi would devolve to the lowest common denominator, all t&a? Um, I would like to think not. I am a new member but I've been in the wings for some time and it seems to me that one of the interesting things about Mefi is that it self-corrects. It absorbed huge numbers of people last year, and eventually bounced back. This is again an awkward phase, but I believe it will level out.

Perhaps this experiment won't work, but I second what mcwetboy said about rewarding positive behavior as opposed to just flagellating the bad. Maybe it's a "thank you" instead of a "this is good." For all the carping that goes on about newsfilter, that's what gets all the comments and posts (and from tried & true vets, not just the newbies). One might easily view this response as an endorsement, no? When quality posts like y2karl's often get less than ten comments, absent any other indicators, one might think there is no interest.

Maybe this isn't the way to do it, but it seems harmless enough to give it a test run for a few weeks in a separate venue - - particularly in light of the terrific effort webmutant went to. If it turns into a beauty pagent or a divisive tool, scrap it, it will have proven out. If nothing else it would be an interesting social experiment to see what comes of it. If it doesn't work, there's always the tried and true flagellation method to fall back on.

posted by madamjujujive at 6:29 PM on October 28, 2002

I vote no. I don't want other people to be responsible for what I read at MetaFilter (i.e.:"this or that post sux/rox"), I can figure it out for myself, thank you very much. And what Miguel said, yo.
posted by Lynsey at 6:31 PM on October 28, 2002

MetaFilter should be flipped through and browsed like a big, fat good newspaper.

No, MetaFilter should filter the web to find the very best that's available. Under the current system, Joe User goes about her normal surfing, finds a site she likes and thinks might be good for MetaFilter and posts it.

It goes right on the front page, right away. The only filter involved in the process was Joe Users (hopefully) good judgment.

That's fine if Joe User is correct about what makes for a good MeFi post. What if she isn't though? What if she's horribly, horribly wrong. Some people may shout at her (gee, and doesn't that make for a pleasant reading experience - is it any wonder that people who don't regularly participate on MeFi think MeFi are a bunch of whiney complainers?).

If we add in another layer of filtering, then once one member finds a site they believe is appropriate for MeFi, all the other members have an opportunity to say yes, you were right. This does belong here. Maybe most won't. It doesn't much matter as long as a few will.

If Joe User was wrong, it's not like we delete her post. It's just that for people who are scanning, we provide a way to highlight Mary User's post as possibly worthy of attention and stand it up a little over the noise of Joe User's post.

The problem with well just ignore the stuff you don't like is that there is now too much stuff to consider. Often in scanning down the page looking for stuff I think I will like (freely ignoring the stuff I think I won't), I skip over and miss a post that I would have enjoyed. I don't care all that much about the stuff I hate except in so far as it causes me to miss the stuff I love.

And, if voting doesn't work -- so what? It's not like we're dealing with a human being here where we could kill it so the first responsibility must be to do no harm. If it doesn't work as Matt hopes it will work, he can just remove the feature and experiment with some other method of raising the signal out of the noise. Experimentation - that's how you grow and improve.
posted by willnot at 6:37 PM on October 28, 2002

If y'all want to vote on posts-- that's fine by me, but it won't change a thing. I'll still continue to scroll down through the whole page hunting for "the good stuff". What, the voting is supposed to help me find the good stuff? And what makes you think I would ever trust your judgement?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:45 PM on October 28, 2002

Metafilter already has a voting system: the comment count. Many people consider that count when deciding whether to read or avoid a link, and a link with lots of comments is more like to get attention and responses than a link that's sparked little discussion.

I don't see how the site would be harmed by adding a second metric: a recommendation count. Users would still be free to ignore it as they are free to ignore the comment count. Others would have some more information available to them. How's that a bad thing?
posted by rcade at 6:46 PM on October 28, 2002

"My fear is that, with a voting system, MetaFilter may evolve into something that I don't like"

Exactly. We seem to like the current voting system - Matt gets the only vote. I trust Matt, the rest of you are suspect.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:47 PM on October 28, 2002

Experimentation - that's how you grow and improve.

That's what Noelle Bush said.
posted by gsteff at 6:48 PM on October 28, 2002

I appreciate your enthusiasm, mcwetboy, but I find your arguments almost entirely unpersuasive. To me, this is one of those ideas that sounds great at first blush but quickly wanes as one considers the unintended consequences.

MetaFilter should filter the web to find the very best that's available.

According to whose criteria?

And what SLoG said.
posted by rushmc at 6:53 PM on October 28, 2002

because the masses are just wrong and their opinions will just ruin MetaFilter

I'm not saying they are wrong, just that I suspect I don't agree with them.

Shane, I stole the idea from internook via this comment.
posted by dg at 7:11 PM on October 28, 2002

I have an idea that would help prevent the 'lowest common denominator' situation: only Users with id numbers below 1783 allowed to vote.
Yes.
posted by Catch at 7:18 PM on October 28, 2002

can I suggest that someone post this on the front page? Maybe in the sidebar. Lots of MeFites don't read MetaTalk and I think this thing deserves a good test run. I'd post it as a regular FPP, but I think it would be a snark feeding-frenzy.
posted by condour75 at 7:21 PM on October 28, 2002

I have an idea that would help prevent the 'lowest common denominator' situation: only Users with id numbers above ~~below~~ 1783 allowed to vote.
Yes.
posted by dg at 7:31 PM on October 28, 2002

dg: swords or pistols?
posted by Catch at 7:33 PM on October 28, 2002

MetaFilter: I trust Matt, the rest of you are suspect.
posted by yhbc at 7:48 PM on October 28, 2002

Swords at 100 paces would be appropriate for a MeFi duel, I think.
posted by dg at 7:50 PM on October 28, 2002

MetaFilter should be flipped through and browsed like a big, fat good newspaper.

Newspapers tend not to organize their stories in reverse chronological order by when they were filed. Someone makes a judgment as to what's most important, and that stuff goes on the front page. There's no paid editor here; let the users express an opinion.

I really can't see the potential harm in this suggestion. Not everyone who visits here has unlimited time to read everything, and having other people point out things that they like best is one helpful way to make using a scarce resource (time) easier. There's no censorship. Nothing's going to disappear. Those of you who have the time and inclination to read the entire newspaper can certainly still do so.

There's a sense I'm getting from your tones here that you consider yourself better than the so-called masses because you're willing to slog through more noise. Well, good for you, but for those of us who can't or don't want to do that, what harm will it do to give us a way of prioritizing? Unless what you're really worrying about is a blow to your egos when not enough people vote for your thread.
posted by anapestic at 8:04 PM on October 28, 2002

can I suggest that someone post this on the front page?

Done.
posted by timeistight at 8:06 PM on October 28, 2002

I think people are jumping to a lot of conclusions here.

First off, I'm flattered that everyone trusts my judgement, but I can't read everything on the site at all times, nor can I compile a list of everything I recommend. So, I've got to do something to let everyone else have a say, so if you trusted me before, keep that in mind if I move forward with some sort of voting system. It doesn't have to take the form of every other voting system you've seen before. I've seen many in my time online, and I'd like to make it as unintrusive as possible, but also allow the benefits of its data collection.

So while I'd love to do some sort of recommendation system, the jury is still out on whether it would be all positive (I recommend this) or include negative (I don't recommend this), and there might even be qualifiers attached (I recommend then due to good ___ link/discussion/etc).

As for how to handle the masses, perhaps the votes wouldn't be pooled together. Perhaps you'd only get to vote a small number of posts as good per day so mass voting wouldn't be as much of a problem. Perhaps you could elect to sort the site based on how you and only you voted. Heck, maybe you could pick a first degree of trust™ that would only show you votes that your five favorite pals selected. Of course, I only have so much processing power to offer, and only so much SQL knowledge to get it done.

The site will default to ignoring votes, so people can read the site as is. The display of strongly recommended posts may or may not include a raw number, and probably will not include usernames who voted (although it makes voting transparent, it's messy to display).

And remember that anything like this can be turned off or removed if deemed unsuccessful.
posted by mathowie at 8:15 PM on October 28, 2002

can I suggest that someone post this on the front page?

Done

MetaTalk is the place to discuss MetaFilter matters, and I think this discussion has given me plenty of material to go on when designing a recommendation system, so I deleted it.
posted by mathowie at 8:17 PM on October 28, 2002

I also trust Matt. The rest of you are suspect.
posted by Stan Chin at 8:22 PM on October 28, 2002

Upon review: yay!

Metafilter already has a voting system: the comment count. Many people consider that count when deciding whether to read or avoid a link, and a link with lots of comments is more like to get attention and responses than a link that's sparked little discussion.

I'm thinking Why post then?

The possible problem is that by rewarding what the majority thinks is "good", we encourage the lowest common denominator and end up getting a lot of posts about a very narrow range of issues.

Thank goodness that's not yet a problem.

posted by y2karl at 8:25 PM on October 28, 2002

Maybe you could do something like on amazon: when you recommend a post, you'd get a page that said "Members who liked this post also liked these ten posts" with a list.

And a pony.
posted by timeistight at 8:28 PM on October 28, 2002

Now if only someone cleverer than me could figure out the ideal comments-to-votes-to-trackbacks ratio, then we might discover the secret formula which will lead us to where true goodlinkedness lies.

In the case os plep's wonderful Donald Evans post, it was 15 comments/12 votes/I trackback, so that ratio would be... ;)

Hee hee, dear timestight: you've just fallen victim to the old "Someone should post this to the front page" trick. There's a reason those who propose it don't do it themselves, you know...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:33 PM on October 28, 2002

Sticks and stones may break my bones but deleted posts will never hurt me.
posted by timeistight at 8:41 PM on October 28, 2002

You know, I was thinking, someone should really post this to the front page...
posted by gsteff at 8:43 PM on October 28, 2002

That's an idea too: along with the votes, tag users with the number of deleted posts and call-outs in MeTa! ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:44 PM on October 28, 2002

That would be me and timestight down the drain, for starters!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:45 PM on October 28, 2002

Are any sociologists reading this thread? They should. I smell a doctoral thesis. There have been, among these posts, recommendations for (And fears of) every form of rule. We could have Monarchy (a Matt-only approach), Oligarchy (a Matt-led deputizing approach), representative Democracy (an electorate of deputies), real democracy (simple majority vote), and anarchy (the big fat paper analogy).

In this discussion there are also strains of elitism, anxiety over mob rule, fear that newcomers will change the community. "There goes the neighborhood." There have even been some suggestions to "love it or leave it." These aren't entirely unfounded -- a more structured approach, whatever it may be, would change the experience of the site for the user. And to offer a whole range of approaches leads to a broader question, namely, what makes this site, this site?

Many of these strategies could be implemented at once, offsite, since the site is available through XML syndication. Such a strategies could easily also incorporate other big metablogs, linksites, memepool, slashdot, kuro5hin, fark, what-have-you. In theory, one could set this up through amazon-style collaborative filtering, so that each person only got the stories he or she was almost guaranteed to like.

How boring that would be.

It's still unclear what makes a person choose a particular blog, or meta-blog, or set o blogs. But I think we gravitate towards the ones that have content that most interests us. This should act as a basic filter on tastes, but it might wear down over time, like a profile being eroded. And it's also unclear how different views to this site's content will affect its community. But man, what an experiment!

I for one, welcome our lowest common denominator overlords -- Well, at least, I'd like to see votes be a data point available for the user to sort with. I think this feedback will help newcomers keep their bearing. It will be a true test of the community to see where it goes. If it goes downhill, well, it happens to every society eventually. If the quality rights itself and remains high, then we would have a truly democratic, self selecting web community. And that would be far more valuable than one fraught with neo/xenophobia.

I dunno, I'm ramblin' again.
posted by condour75 at 9:29 PM on October 28, 2002

That would be me and timestight down the drain, for starters!

I'd be proud to go down the drain in your company, MiguelCardoso.
posted by timeistight at 9:32 PM on October 28, 2002

Asking for more info about this comment, adamgreenfield recommended me a book called "Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks" by Mark Buchanan. It is a very good summary of recent scientific articles related to (social) networks, and I definitively recommend it to any one person interested in community building (yes, that includes mathowie :-) ).

Main ideas from the book:
- power law ( x^-alpha ) distribution seems to characterize many aspects of our society: income distribution, # of personal connections a person may have, internet traffic, etc.
- the main difference is in alpha: higher the alpha value, higher the inequality in the system, example: few web sites get most of the "hits" on the net.
- such a distribution is not a bad thing, as for certain configurations they appear to be immune to certain disturbances (internet will still work after, let's say, all the computers in Europe stop working).
- however, we are interested in distributions that have lower values for alpha since they represent more egalitarian systems. In some cases, they might be the result of a well connected network, so called "small world".
- it has been observed that when there are new opportunities to be explored and the society does not have rules for these situations (since they are new), the discrepancy increases. Examples: wage discrepancy after 1980 due to technical workers, wealth distribution in Russia after 1990, and something we are more familiar with, Google Bombs.

What does that have to do with MetaFilter?
- right now, each post receives the same amount of votes
- with votes, few posts will attract most of the readers, thus getting more and more votes. Also most of the posts will get close to zero votes. It happened on slashdot, I expect it will happen to the voting MeFi too. The pattern is too universal to simply dismiss it.
- clearly this is associated with PopStars, celebrity contests, etc. as previously described. Please (re)read the article posted by fuzz, as it is a nonscientific description of the above theory, applied to our case.
- indeed, a high alpha value indicates a very powerful filter, but, in the same time, it means we are going to miss a lot of interesting other posts.

Assuming that we want some sort of egalitarian vote based filtering on MeFi, here are my suggestions:
(1) make it more difficult for threads that already have a large number of votes to gain votes. One way of doing it is by displaying some sort of transform of the # of votes, i.e. log(# votes). Of course, it may backfire! :-)
(2) if the alpha value gets to high, increase, at random, the index value for the less significant
threads. It might make people discover something interesting.

I'll be glad to provide further details / explanations if needed.

On Preview:
mathowie: The display of strongly recommended posts may or may not include a raw number
hmmm, I think truncating the # of votes will have the same effect as (1), as the popularity of a
thread cannot grow unlimited.
posted by MzB at 9:56 PM on October 28, 2002

Anyone who says that the number of comments is an indicator of whether the post is good or not is misinformed. Threads about things like the Oscars can get 150+ comments, whereas good threads often don't get a lot of comments.

The quality of a good post is subjective -- it's not an issue of being informed or misinformed.

I don't think it's possible to use Metafilter regularly without judging a link positively or negatively based on comment count. When I've posted a link here and received almost no comments in response, I take it as a sign that I've laid an egg. When I see a new thread on a political or news topic that has 30+ comments in an hour or two, I'm much more likely to skip the link and spare myself the trollfest.

That's why I don't grok all of the hysteria about this suggestion. We're already voting, using a metric that tends to reward people who enflame controversy, link to emotionally charged topics, or fish for responses with questions.
posted by rcade at 10:06 PM on October 28, 2002

MzB: WOW. I think i'll have to read that book. Excellent post.
posted by condour75 at 10:10 PM on October 28, 2002

I suggest a TiVo-style voting system, with thumbs up and thumbs down. TiVo is designed for one user, whereas this must be designed for multiple users. Here is how I imagine it might work:

1) Each member who has posted at least one comment in the past week gets a limited number of votes per MeFi day. That is, for each day's MeFi posts, you can cast only a certain number of votes, although they don't have to be cast the same day the post was made. I suggest 3-5 votes per day.

2) Your vote can be either thumbs up or thumbs down for a given item. Only one vote per item.

3) If a post has at least 10 votes AND the number of thumbs-up votes outnumber the thumbs-down votes by 10%, the post or comment thread gets a thumbs-up icon. The other way around, it gets a thumbs-down icon. If the number of thumbs-up and thumbs-down votes are within 10% of each other, or if there are fewer than 10 votes, there's no icon at all.

4) A post might get multiple thumbs-ups or thumbs-downs based on the ratio of votes, say, up to three.

5) If a front page post you make ends up with one or more thumbs-ups after a few days, you get that many extra votes for the next few days (never more than three extra votes per day even if you're a posting fiend). This way, people who have shown the ability to recognize a good post (by the standards of the community) get extra power to flag good posts.

At no time should the actual score be displayed. Posts would just be flagged with icons, there would be no suppressing or sorting of posts by score.

The UI for this might be a bit complicated, but it could be made workable. Especially if, by default, voting is disabled and must be enabled in the preferences. At this point you would have an opportunity to explain how it works.
posted by kindall at 10:57 PM on October 28, 2002

kindall: this sounds good. Something like this could also be made an optional feature, which would reduce clutter on the screens of opt-outies and non-members. Members who wanted it could then request it, and the icons would appear, filtering options could be made available, etc.

Since Metafilter is syndicated, this is not something that needs to happen onsite. Various voting methods could be piloted offworld, so to speak, as webmutant did.
posted by condour75 at 11:45 PM on October 28, 2002

Kindall - might be interesting. I'm not sure what tying voting privileges to comments gains you though. I'm sure there are plenty of people who read but don't comment. Do we want to encourage somebody to make a comment they don't feel contributes to the site just so they can gain voting rights?

I'd also prefer the ability to sort thumbs up - up to the top and thumbs down down to the bottom. Not allowing that ability seems geared towards preventing people from overlooking threads that don't get voted or get voted down, but isn't that really up to the individual user to decide for themselves. Somebody who's going to make that filter is going to do it anyway. Why provide the tool without providing access to the tool as conveniently as possible?

I might also tweak the percentages so that you need a larger spread than 10% (or more likely Matt could experiment to find the optimal blend). I guess it depends on how many votes these threads will get (tough to know until Matt tries it). If 100 people think a thread is good, and 89 think it's bad, then I think it's still too close to call. Seems like you'd want a ratio of at least 2:1 to make a call one way or the other. 4:1 gets you 2 and 6+:1 gets you 3.

Thumbs might be a bit of a mess graphically. What about something like what the Daypop Top 40 does?
posted by willnot at 12:04 AM on October 29, 2002

Negative voting tends to bipolarise communities, so I don't like kindalls idea.

I'm slightly amused that the main argument against positive voting appears to be that people will miss stuff, especially in light of the fact that many people want such a system precisely because the high noise level is already making them miss stuff. If you're of the "big newspaper" opinion (and btw I love the web precisely because of how unlike a newspaper it is), how is adding an optional display of positive votes going to stop you looking at threads?

Nonsense!

And rcade, I currently pick out the choicest threads using a strategy of looking for well-worded posts with few comments, because the signal ratio tends to be exponentially higher. If it has more than twenty comments, it's probably a news or opinion-seeking post. Takes all sorts, though.

An additional observation: the current users of webmutants filter appear to be rewarding posts in the "classic" Metafilter style and ignoring newsy posts. Predictions of imminent doom retracted ...
posted by walrus at 4:58 AM on October 29, 2002

rcade: Metafilter already has a voting system: the comment count. Many people consider that count when deciding whether to read or avoid a link, and a link with lots of comments is more like to get attention and responses than a link that's sparked little discussion.

I respectfully disagree. Using that criterion would mean that Postroad's latest War-on-Irag trollfest was of significantly more value (roughly twelve times more value) than Carlos Quevedo's link to the online literary quiz. If that's how we're going to determine "quality," well, I'm no veterinarian, but I'll stop flogging our ride now because it's obviously already dead.

It has been my personal experience, particularly in the past six or nine months, that a comment count below 3 probably means "Oops": a double post, or limited interest. That's really not much different than the way it's always been. On the other hand, a comment count over about 10 or 12 means the piranhas have smelt a bit of blood in the water and we can all just settle back and watch the fun, like rubbernecking on the freeway, or watching tumor surgery on Discovery Channel.

Those posts in between tend to be the ones that are actual links to actual Internet content - and where the point of the post is, in fact, the content. A couple of people, perhaps, add secondary links; a couple of people stop by to say, Hey, great link. And then we all move on. Filtering the web, bringing interesting and heretofore unseen content to the community - sounds like a great idea...
posted by JollyWanker at 5:22 AM on October 29, 2002

"the main argument" in my comment above should have read "one of the main arguments". Concerns about MeTooFilter noted, but I think it's inevitable that we have favourites, and the consensual majority is the basis of democratic society, which seems to work better historically than the various types of oligarchy, or (I'm guessing) than having no system at all. Even in todays mass-media-led culture, I'm personally having no problems finding all the (non-mainstream) art, music, literature and conversation that I like. As pointed out, people can use ratings in various ways.
posted by walrus at 5:28 AM on October 29, 2002

JollyWanker: The comment count can be viewed negatively or positively. A large count is a measurement of attention, not quality, but lacking a better metric users tend to appreciate the attention. One thing I'm finding on Sportsfilter is that when you post a link and 0-2 comments in response, it actively discourages you from making similar posts in the future. When no other user feedback is available, you tend to rely on comments as an indicator of interest.

If you're using the count to find the stuff with around 3-12 comments on the likelihood those are worth a look, that makes sense. I'm not trying to claim that flamebait like the latest Israel/Palestine thread is better in any way than a post like this Donald Evans stamp art link, which is currently the highest rated link on the Remixed site.
posted by rcade at 6:15 AM on October 29, 2002

[sarcasm]
"The year is 2020 and MetaFilter is in chains. A brave band of freedom fighters use guerilla tactics to break the bonds of CensoredFilter and FilteredFilter and ThumbsUpFilter, and give MeFi back to the People..."
FIGHT DA POWA!!

[/sarcasm]
Ratings? No ratings? It's all good. A fine experiment, fun to watch.
posted by Shane at 6:52 AM on October 29, 2002

A large count is a measurement of attention, not quality, but lacking a better metric users tend to appreciate the attention

Precisely. That's what webmutant and others are about here: devising a better metric. Comment count is (a) coarse, (b) deceptive in the sense that JollyWanker points out, and (c) impossible to correlate directly with quality. (I mean in (c) that you can have absolutely no confidence that a post with 12 comments is better than one with 10, or 120 is better than 118; you might argue that one with 120 is better than one with 10, but see (a) above.)
posted by gleuschk at 7:46 AM on October 29, 2002

It's slight recant time! Er, I have to admit, looking at webmutant's cool application, that the voting pattern is reassuring and seems to ~~conform to my humble opinion~~ make sense.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:34 AM on October 29, 2002

I'm not sure what tying voting privileges to comments gains you though. I'm sure there are plenty of people who read but don't comment. Do we want to encourage somebody to make a comment they don't feel contributes to the site just so they can gain voting rights?

I basically wanted to tie it to contributions to the site. If there's some other metric that would be more useful, one could use that instead. I doubt many people would start posting just so they can vote, but if that became a problem, it could be dealt with through a waiting period or some other mechanism. Actually, a decent substitute would be to just allow voting on posts for 24 hours or maybe 48. The vast majority of votes would then be cast by the most active members.

Negative voting tends to bipolarise communities, so I don't like kindalls idea.

Negative feedback is one of the most effective means of eliminating undesired behavior from a system. That said, I'm not advocating a karma system or anything that would actually punish users who post bad threads. The number of votes your thread gets would only increase (never decrease) the number of votes you get to cast over the next few days, which is an entirely positive reward, but it goes away a few days after that, encouraging you to post quality material in order to keep that benefit.

If you look at my posting history, you'll see I'm really fucking myself with this proposal, as I rarely post to the front page, and my idea has no way to reward good comments inside a thread.
posted by kindall at 12:02 PM on October 29, 2002

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October 27, 2002
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