SummitPost.org

chicagotransplant wrote:I like a straight 5 star system with the quick voting, and like Scott suggested having the half stars display in the average only.

Upon thinking about this more, I don't see the need to display half stars for the score. Instead wouldn't we still rather see the literal score? Because SP's vote is dynamic in the sense that you can change your vote on a whim, have the ability to see your vote, and don't want to be too influenced by other people's votes, it only makes sense to not display the average stars. However when viewing the vote page it could show the stars instead of 10/10.

A simple way of explaining it is that the votes themselves should behave the same way they do now (vote below, score above).

chicagotransplant wrote:Like Scott mentioned, images with few votes might end up at the top of the heap, not sure how to resolve that, but at the very least still show the total number of votes a page/image received.

That shouldn't be an issue considering that the current method is cumulative in the sense that it collects score rather than averages it. The star idea is not to use the old method, but to enhance the new method to look like the old one. But with slightly better looking stars too. And yes, images/pages should display their number of votes. I wouldn't want that to go away.

If the point is to change the voting system so that everything and anything doesn't get a 10/10, just make the voter anonymous

If the point is to change the voting system so that everything and anything doesn't get a 10/10, just make the voter anonymous

It was already tried. There was way too much revenge voting, fake voting, etc. It was way too much work for the elves. People can't behave themselves.

I think the real challenge will be differentiating between images that get large numbers of 4's and 5's... at least here in the USA, my impression is that we're all too afraid to give anyone 1's, 2's, or 3's because everyone is worried about playing nice... I personally think it's a function of grade school, A's, B's, C's... etc (i.e. in this day and age, a teacher really has to have some balls to give a kid an F) --- I think we all think that way to a certain degree.

5 star system is great. Just dont be afraid to vote 1's and 2's and don't be offended if someone does the same thing to you...

Otherwise, Josh, you'll have to figure out where to stop the numerical place value with which to round up or down... sounds... not fun.

Thanks for all your hard work on this Josh...

I too like the 5-star idea. I have no preference on how the 10/10 scores get converted back and forth with the stars. Any voting system will, or has the potential, to be abused, and I am sure that there will be complaints against the 5-star system down the line too.

The more famous mountains, such as Everest, Rainier, Matterhorn, etc, will continue to receive the highest ratings regardless of page quality. It's unavoidable to not confound the page quality versus the "quality" of the mountain itself. Some very well-constructed pages for lesser-known peaks will accordingly receive fewer overall votes. It often reduces to a popularity contest.

That being said, in broadest terms, whatever system in place will "work", in that the better overall pages stratify to the top, and the lesser-quality pages sink. There may be no way to explain the difference between an 84 and an 85 page, but that's not really important. The system does work to coarsely separate the pages by quality, not finely.

We still see too many pages submitted with no additional text. Some clearly misunderstand the intent, treating the page as a "checklist". Perhaps a script can be written that catches these pages, going by something as simple as how many new words were typed in, or whether the placeholder phrases like "Add Getting There Text" here are removed or not. The goal would not be to trash the pages immediately, but to alert the submitter of the page's lack of details and in some friendly way to suggest it may need a little more information.

Fletch wrote:I think the real challenge will be differentiating between images that get large numbers of 4's and 5's... at least here in the USA, my impression is that we're all too afraid to give anyone 1's, 2's, or 3's because everyone is worried about playing nice... I personally think it's a function of grade school, A's, B's, C's... etc (i.e. in this day and age, a teacher really has to have some balls to give a kid an F) --- I think we all think that way to a certain degree.

5 star system is great. Just dont be afraid to vote 1's and 2's and don't be offended if someone does the same thing to you...

Otherwise, Josh, you'll have to figure out where to stop the numerical place value with which to round up or down... sounds... not fun.

Thanks for all your hard work on this Josh...

The 10 or nothing voting habit developed because of the algorithm that was implemented when SP2 was rolled out. If an object with a score of 76 received a 9/10 vote, it actually lowered the score. That algorithm was tremendously flawed. It didn't average votes as one would expect and it forced people to vote 10/10 on everything or not at all because they didn't want to lower the object's score.

IMO, that is the most important issue regardless if we have a 10 scale rating system or a 5 star system. If you vote higher than the object's current score, the score should go UP slightly. If you vote lower than the object's current score, then the score should go DOWN slightly. It's very simple but that is not how it worked with SP2.

I like the idea of greater simplicity--5 star system, no half stars.

Some of the most useful articles I've found on SP had 0 votes. Truth be told, people don't generally vote on how useful an article is, because they have no way of knowing, especially if the article describes an obscure goal. But most savvy searchers will check all information, regardless of whether the votes are high. Most people vote for an article based more on the author, the pretty pictures, or they simply give a courtesy vote when they go to sign the log. That's just the way it is.

The Mount Whitney Trail description on SP has a pretty good score. Does anyone really think that is because the description really changed someone's thought process? If people ask me about the Mount Whitney Trail, I send them to the Portal Store Bulletin Board. I have absolutely nothing against the page or the author; it is a necessary page for the sake of completeness.

awesome. I think this will encourage people to vote more often. I often find myself forgetting to vote---hope this system will enable everyone to vote like it was 2012 president elections (pun intended. maybe not)

Honestly, I'm one of those who gets offended very easily.

If we went to the 5-star system, I would be seeing stars which would shrink my enormous ego over time.

As long as I'm not completely blinded by stardom, I could rely on logic and most likely survive the nastiest of bumps in the road of Life.

Fletch wrote:5 star system is great. Just dont be afraid to vote 1's and 2's and don't be offended if someone does the same thing to you...

Exactly! At the very least down vote some of the worst pages of SummitPost. I admit that sometimes when I am feeling too nice, I sometimes flag the page instead. This way the author knows that I voted that the page needs work.

surgent wrote:The more famous mountains, such as Everest, Rainier, Matterhorn, etc, will continue to receive the highest ratings regardless of page quality.

Definitely true. Same principles with power points. While power points gives us a rough idea of how much of a contributor you are, it obviously does not give us a true to detail view of what that member has done. As an elf I know this all too well.

surgent wrote:It's unavoidable to not confound the page quality versus the "quality" of the mountain itself.

Certainly a lot of truth in that. Right now when voting on a page it says "Your Vote". Why not change it to something like "Page Quality"? This would at least enforce the idea that the vote should be about page quality. The word choice might not change anything for a while, but future members who join would get a better idea of what it is intended to be used for.

surgent wrote:We still see too many pages submitted with no additional text. Some clearly misunderstand the intent, treating the page as a "checklist". Perhaps a script can be written that catches these pages, going by something as simple as how many new words were typed in, or whether the placeholder phrases like "Add Getting There Text" here are removed or not. The goal would not be to trash the pages immediately, but to alert the submitter of the page's lack of details and in some friendly way to suggest it may need a little more information.

Neat idea for sure. I personally would like to see an actual report feature for pages/images. A thread "works" but most folks don't want to have to do the extra work. I can't blame them. But an easy report button with a optional text field would be great. Especially if a multi image uploader tool is added someday. Anyways, I'm getting off topic.

I either like a photo or an article, or I don't. If I like it, I vote "yes", 10, or equivalent. Splitting votes, 7, 8 or 9 out of 10, 5 or less stars, or whatever system that prevents me from voting up or down (so to speak) on a photo or anything else, will only result in me not voting at all. You asked...

In your case, simply vote 5/5 stars. We want to encourage users into using the full scale appropriately, but we do not by any means want to force people to vote a certain way. In short you will be able to vote the same way as before, but with a simplified look.

I like the idea of the 5 star voting system. Thanks for all the hard work.

BC

Josh Lewis wrote: We want to encourage .... but we do not by any means want to force

Thanks for your consideration, Josh! Was beginning to think you might be using a Cattle Prod on the back end of our hides ...