SummitPost.org

@Marmaduke: Problem with that idea is that popular mountains would for sure be the top rated pages. That's some what the case right now, but at least well made pages on obscure places have a chance. In the system your proposing, a bad quality but famous mountain would have a much greater score than some of the best work posted here on SP. Trust me, this would happen.

On the bright side that system would create far less complains and less drama. But it does not have enough score integrity. That is the entire reason for having negative votes.

PERSONALLY I VOTE ONLY WHEN I LIKE, WHEN I DON'T LIKE I RATHER PREFER TO GIVE NO VOTES,

Sorry, but that's the whole problem. Most people only vote 10/10 on everything and everyone is afraid to give a "bad" vote on a page that needs work. It shouldn't be this way. Bad pages should be voted on, hopefully fixed by the maintainer (at which time the vote is raised), and if still poor quality after a long period of time, deleted.

Montana Matt wrote:But the problem is still the following: Someone votes a 10 on a page (that's all anyone votes now). The score is calculated based on that 10. If someone else comes along and votes a 7, how could that NOT lower the score? Again, if someone can provide me with a mathematical equation for a system where you count a 10 vote and calculate a total score based on it, then you count a 7 vote and calculate a total score based on the 7 and the 10, and that total score isn't lower than it was when there was only a 10, I'd be happy to try implementing and testing it.

Matt, it isn't so much that a 7 lowers the score but that it lowers it far out of proportion to how voting 10 raises it.

Many of us are used to the 10-point academic scale, so when we think of 8, we think of 80%, a B or B-, for example. But I just went and test-voted 8 on an image with no votes (and then canceled the vote), and the score was 63.52%, what many of us think of as a D or below average. I think the voting system would have worked much better had votes corresponded to the 10-point scale and page scores been calculated as averages. I realize the point of weighting vote power based on power points was a means to combat avatars and trolls, but it also had the effect of producing what many of us are accustomed to thinking are bad scores when we voted numbers that we normally would expect to produce good scores. There are many pages that are indeed decent or pretty good that deserve a 7 or 10, but I just don't vote on them at all because the number that results looks pretty brutal.

Since that system is hopelessly broken, maybe the best thing now really is to try the like/dislike idea and see how it goes, though I agree it might be nice to consider something like an "Okay" option as well.

Perhaps what people are looking for is an open-ended scoring system, rather than the current 0-100%. Score would then be something like: sum(weight1*vote1, weight2*vote2,etc)
If a like/dislike were used, a like vote might be +1, a dislike vote -1.
But perhaps the 0-10 scale could be retained since any vote will now add to the score.
The goal is still the same - trying to sort good from bad. Currently, the page with the most 10 votes pops up on top. The above scoring would pretty much do the same, I think.
It's obvious when a page isn't good even if people don't vote because it has only a few votes. So it would have a lower score in either system.
I'm not sure what the advantage is of keeping scores in the 0-100% range. Does it do a better job of sorting for the very best somehow?

btw, I think weighting should be a significant factor. It offers some sort of quality check and keeps the creation of fake avatars for the sole purpose of voting. Having a waiting period on new members weighting may only delay this. I think some sort of participation (it could even be in the forums) should be a factor, aside from just voting.

I don't know if my comments are helpful here, but I will go ahead and reiterate them anyway. I think the like/dislike option would work if there was a middle of the road choice. The middle choice need not be used to determine the score, but would simply be a marker indicating that the page needs to be improved. That is why I called it "abstain". In a sense, someone is not voting per se but indicating an opinion regarding quality that is in a specific point in a page's development.

There seems to be a consensus that some mid-level vote is desired, be it a third option or the current 10 point scale that exists, so finding some system that incorporates this would be key.

The 'abstain' (or whatever you want to call it) choice would simplify things since it would not have to be included in calculating the page score but would still give people the option of expressing a desire to see the page improved.

Bob Burd wrote:I think weighting should be a significant factor. It offers some sort of quality check and keeps the creation of fake avatars for the sole purpose of voting. Having a waiting period on new members weighting may only delay this. I think some sort of participation (it could even be in the forums) should be a factor, aside from just voting.

I concur.

I think weighting should be a significant factor. It offers some sort of quality check and keeps the creation of fake avatars for the sole purpose of voting. Having a waiting period on new members weighting may only delay this. I think some sort of participation (it could even be in the forums) should be a factor, aside from just voting.

I agree too.

Montana Matt wrote:I can't see any votes or scores on that page. Can you point me to exactly where those things are? Maybe I need to have an account and be logged in to see them?...Just created an account and still can't see the score or votes...

Anyway, without knowing how their algorithm works, you can't assume that they have something along the lines of what you're proposing. They may have implemented something similar to what SP currently does where outlying votes (votes too far away from the standard deviation) are thrown out or they have some other way of calculating the score.

So on that photo example there is a box on the left below the photo called "Photo Information". At the very bottom of that box it says "Points: 5". Most folks vote 2/2, but every now and then someone votes a 1/2. This is great! That means folks are being completely honest with their votes. Odd votes are not thrown out on TrekNature. That site is a great role model not just in the vote system, but how comments are supposed to be conducted. The site is built on being a critique. This was beneficial to me personally, people were willing to approaching me and tell me exactly what was wrong with my photos. They were nice about it too. We need more of that going on in SP. I personally don't settle for "the page is good enough".

Regarding Bubba's "abstain" idea: I think it's a great idea. I personally would like to see it. It may effect the how people vote, but it wouldn't actually be apart of the voting system. Right? (if this was actually added)

Scott wrote:

I think weighting should be a significant factor. It offers some sort of quality check and keeps the creation of fake avatars for the sole purpose of voting. Having a waiting period on new members weighting may only delay this. I think some sort of participation (it could even be in the forums) should be a factor, aside from just voting.

I agree too.

And I.

Matt, Dow's 8 is not much different from my 8, but compare my 1 to a new member's 1. It is a massive difference. You're right that the academic scale that most of us are used to is a big part of the dissatisfaction with the way SP's voting system works. You either have to fix it to align with what people are accustomed to or throw it out and try something else. And since it seems you and most others here want to try something else, let's enjoy the ride!

For those who have seen my profile, they would know that I don't care about my power points. After all I have "Unlimited". Anyways, I like most of the ideas presented in this thread. The like one seems to be the best suit for everyone. Lets roll.

Almost immediately after I joined I saw that there was rarely a vote other than 10. Rather than trying to use the whole scale, I followed suit, because despite the flaws of the system, I saw the distorting effect that votes of 8 and 9 had on some good pages.

I think it would be an improvement to discard the scale in favor of Like/Dislike. People are familiar with that. I still expect very few dislikes, as most people will simply refrain from voting if they don't like something, but I think that the option of saying that a page is bad would be useful. I see no merit in having more than two options. Too many choices leads to the same problems as with the 1-10 scale; most people won't use them.

As for calculating page scores, I'm against an open scale. As pointed out earlier, that would simply lead to popular peaks and routes having a higher rating, but it wouldn't reflect the quality of the page itself. Even now, popular peaks typically get more votes and hence higher scores than unknown ones, but with a 0-100% scale, the effect is not dramatic.

I would suggest all low (1 thru 5) votes are converted to Dislike, votes 9 and 10 to Likes and the others discarded. After that, the current page score calculation, wouldn't even have to be changed significantly: just substitute a 10 again for every Like, and a 1 (or perhaps a 2 or 3) for every Dislike and keep everything else the same.
While I believe this will lower the score for almost everything, I don't see any problem with that. Scores were supposed to help the best stuff rise to the top, so they are relative anyway, right?

Regarding comments about an "abstain" option.
I figured not voting at all would be the same (score-wise, it would), but I can see that there is some additional feedback provided to the submitter - it shows that someone has looked on it with at least some criticality (page hits would give you an idea as well, but doesn't mean that someone actually spent any time looking at it). Maybe instead of "dislike", it's just a "needs work" vote which has zero score effect instead of negative. I don't think having dislike negative scores will change the over rankings much anyway - something with no likes is in the same boat as a page with a few dislikes.

So, maybe "like/needs work" as the two options.

Secondly, it might be good if the "needs work" votes sort of dissolved over time, maybe 6-12 months. That way, no one has to go begging for old votes to be removed/changed. It wouldn't change the rankings much since pages still need lots of "like" votes to score high. I imagine some folks might like a "please revisit" button that can be used to ping "needs work" voters to reconsider if work has been done to improve it. I could see this being abused, but it might be worth a try.

Thirdly, things garner more votes when sitting in the "What's New" page, so it becomes important to some, *very* important to others. I think votes that come later after some one has stumbled upon a page or picture and taken the time to vote are more valuable as they're not just reacting to the newness factor. The voter's not just piling on when a page first gets submitted. I think there might be more weighting given to votes that come at a later time. Maybe cut it off at some point, like a year or two to keep the very oldest pages from having an advantage with this.

Ok, lastly (for now), perhaps add an inverse weighting based on the number of summit logs (or perhaps page hits), with the intent to keep pages like Rainier and Everest from popping to the top based solely on popularity.

So ..... when's all this supposed to go into effect

The Chief wrote:Why am I not allowed to see/participate in this Voting Thread?

"You are not authorised to read this forum."

You are registered as a Dem and a Repub, so they banned you from voting. Cheater!