Honesty in voting

by **ExcitableBoy** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:55 pm

I've noticed that many the votes on my contributions are 10/10. I'm not so naive that I believe that all of my work is perfect, that is to say no room for improvement. I always appreciate constructive critism. I often follow up with voters who give me lower than 10/10 with the person who voted. This has fomented productive discussions that ultimately improve my submissions. So please vote honesty, nobody's feelings are going to get hurt. If you have specific critisms let me have it.

Thanks,

EB

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Josh Lewis

by **Marmaduke** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:08 pm

You will always get a 10 vote but may also receive constructive critism. As you know the voting method is very poor. It's not right to give a 9 vote when that actually downplays the overall score. I would think the submission would have to be very bad to receive a 9 or less based on the way system is currently set up. It's a 10 or nothing.

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lcarreau, Silvia Mazzani

by **goldenhopper** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:16 pm

Only one thing worth voting for as 10/10 every time:

Praise be Allah!

by **mrchad9** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:20 pm

Marmaduke is correct. The way the scores are calculated, if you give a 9 you might as well give a 1. To say nobody's feelings will be hurt by a 9 is incorrect. If they did a decent job, either don't vote or give them a 10, because if you give a 9 then you are putting them down under the current system.

This has been discussed at length in the past. We need a system where 7, 8, or 9 can improve the score, but not as much as a 10. However, Matt has advised that we shouldn't expect any changes with respect to this anytime soon.

/thread

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Silvia Mazzani

by **butitsadryheat** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:21 pm

so now he wears a lapel pin?

Yeah, the fact that giving a 9 actually drops the score kinda sucks.

by **goldenhopper** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:32 pm

mrchad9 wrote:Marmaduke is correct.

Sorry Duke, I had to...

by **Montana Matt** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:42 pm

Marmaduke wrote:It's not right to give a 9 vote when that actually downplays the overall score.

mrchad9 wrote:The way the scores are calculated, if you give a 9 you might as well give a 1.

butitsadryheat wrote:Yeah, the fact that giving a 9 actually drops the score kinda sucks.

That's only the immediate impact. There is an automated script that runs on the server every night that updates all of the scores and user voting weights. When that script runs, I believe it is possible that that a vote of 9 could change the overall score of the page in a positive way.

And the main reason that anything other than a 10 drops the score is because nearly everyone always votes a 10. If people voted honestly and used the entire scale from 1 to 10, a 9 wouldn't always lower the score.

Josh put a lot of time and effort into trying to make the voting system resistant to abuse. I recall that it's fairly complex math that goes into calculating the score. I also remember that it was intentionally designed to not count a person's votes as highly if that person always votes 10 or always vote 1 and it "throws out" votes that are "outliers" compared to other votes on the same page or that the person has given.

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silversummit

by **surgent** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:49 pm

No system is perfect unless everyone treats it identically. Despite the tendency to either vote a 10 or not at all, the overall stratification of page scores roughly correlates with quality. The better pages get more 10 votes, so it seems.

A 1-vote is still valuable, in knocking out the occasional crap page that is submitted. However, it would be very difficult to explain the difference between a 4-vote and a 5-vote, for example.

I would lean toward fewer choices: a 1-5 scale perhaps. But getting everyone to buy into it and use it as intended will be impossible. So we use what we have. It works in the broad sense, perhaps not in the micro-sense.

The following user would like to thank surgent for this post
lcarreau, silversummit

by **mrchad9** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:03 pm

Matt-

Under normal circumstances it is not possible for a 9 to improve a page score, even after scripts are run. The only way a 9 can improve the score is if the score also includes other votes between 1 and 8. If a page has some quantity of 10s then a 9 will ALWAYS either lower the score, or not be counted.

The mechanism definitely does not throw out a member's vote if they always vote 1 or 10 or anything else. The only votes that are discarded are the outliers that are low (if a page has more than 10-12 votes that are 10s, then a single vote that is a 1-9 will be discarded). Similarly if a page has a couple dozen votes, then two could be discarded, etc...

I agree it is complex math that goes into the score, but as someone who has observed the impact for some time I can confirm is it not good math (as evidenced by the number of complaints about it and how it has affected people's voting). If people voted honestly (which they do) then they expect to see a 10 raise a page score, and a 9 to raise the score less. That doesn't happen.

by **Marmaduke** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:05 pm

Montana Matt wrote:
Marmaduke wrote:It's not right to give a 9 vote when that actually downplays the overall score.

mrchad9 wrote:The way the scores are calculated, if you give a 9 you might as well give a 1.

butitsadryheat wrote:Yeah, the fact that giving a 9 actually drops the score kinda sucks.

I believe it is possible that that a vote of 9 could change the overall score of the page in a positive way.

And the main reason that anything other than a 10 drops the score is because nearly everyone always votes a 10. If people voted honestly and used the entire scale from 1 to 10, a 9 wouldn't always lower the score.

I recall that it's fairly complex ........

I'm not doing this to beat up on you Matt, truly it's to understand the system. You stated, "I believe it is possible...." Is it or not? Then your next paragraph you state, "a 9 wouldn't always lower the score" So you seem to, not be too sure then you are sure. And you state a 9 wouldn't always lower the score, it should be consistant, it should always raise the score, as should a 1 vote.

Then, "I recall..." that's not being very sure of the voting process. Can you supply a link that shows how voting works? I think most of us agree the system could use some tweaking.

by **Baarb** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:11 pm

There's also the votes cast using the SP1 voting system (1-4 star) being considered in the existing mechanism somewhere. Based on how some SP1 era photos have quite low %s despite being of considerable worth I can only conclude the ethos was somewhat different back then (perhaps part of that was abuse, not sure). (Edited for clarity)

by **mrchad9** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:31 pm

Changing the system from 1-10 to 1-5 or 1-4 wouldn't accomplish much. What we have now is a 1 or 10 system anyway. What needs adjusting is the complex calculation mechanism. However there are other things that could and should be done to improve SP before that.

by **Montana Matt** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:16 pm

mrchad9 wrote:they expect to see a 10 raise a page score, and a 9 to raise the score less. That doesn't happen.

Right, because everyone votes 10s. If people considered a 5 an average page and voted accordingly (i.e. less than 5 for a below average page, more than 5 for a better than average page and a 9 or 10 only in rare circumstances when there is little to no way the page could be improved), a 9 would raise the score of such a page. But almost no one votes 1 through 10. I usually only see 8s, 9s or 10s. The voting system wasn't written with that voting style in mind. The original intent of the system was much closer to what EB is asking everyone to do (vote on a 1 through 10 scale and offer feedback).

Marmaduke wrote:You stated, "I believe it is possible...." Is it or not? Then your next paragraph you state, "a 9 wouldn't always lower the score" So you seem to, not be too sure then you are sure. And you state a 9 wouldn't always lower the score, it should be consistant, it should always raise the score, as should a 1 vote.

Sorry to not be more clear. A 9 can definitely change the score of a page in a positive way if all of the votes on the page aren't 10s. The part I wasn't sure about (and still am not) was whether or not when the script runs, if it takes into account the person's other votes at that time and adjust the scores based on them.

by **mvs** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:17 pm

That would be really far out if the system did dampen a voters power by looking at their past voting pattern and seeing too many 1s, 10s, whatever. It would seem like we need another score by our names next to Power, which would be something like...credibility.

I can see it now...at the end of a month people start being mean and voting a bunch of 4,5,6s for a couple of days because they know the monthly credibility calculation is about to happen. Then it's back to treating the votes as a "Like" button, which is (like it or not) what we usually do. :p

by **Montana Matt** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:40 pm

mvs wrote:treating the votes as a "Like" button, which is (like it or not) what we usually do. :p

Well said mvs. That's really how the "voting" system is treated (like a "Like" button), though not how it was intended to be used, which is why it isn't really working all that well.

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