SummitPost.org

ZeeJay wrote:How about if likes are anonymous but dislikes aren't?

I agree - that sounds like a fine idea. People are still free to leave comments on objects if they want to give kudos openly. It seems like it would cut down on the tit-for-tat voting clubs that some dislike.

Bob Burd wrote:

ZeeJay wrote:How about if likes are anonymous but dislikes aren't?

I agree - that sounds like a fine idea. People are still free to leave comments on objects if they want to give kudos openly. It seems like it would cut down on the tit-for-tat voting clubs that some dislike.

I fell prey to "tit-for-tat" voting two years ago. It's kinda like watching the boob tube, except the popcorn is free; and it's so easy to become addicted.

Please consider me AGAINST "tit-for-tat voting ," please ..

I still think it would be preferable to be able to help a page score, but not as much as a full like or a 10/10 if the situation warranted. When a new member puts up a marginal page I'm not going to give it a full like, and won't dislike. But I'd like to acknowledge via their score that it was better than nothing if an honest effort.

lcarreau wrote:

Bob Burd wrote:

ZeeJay wrote:How about if likes are anonymous but dislikes aren't?

I agree - that sounds like a fine idea. People are still free to leave comments on objects if they want to give kudos openly. It seems like it would cut down on the tit-for-tat voting clubs that some dislike.

I fell prey to "tit-for-tat" voting two years ago. It's kinda like watching the boob tube, except the popcorn is free; and it's so easy to become addicted.

Please consider me AGAINST "tit-for-tat voting ," please ..

7 Psychopaths Eye For An Eye

I couldn't help it. The flavor of the forums demanded it.

I still think it would be preferable to be able to help a page score, but not as much as a full like or a 10/10 if the situation warranted. When a new member puts up a marginal page I'm not going to give it a full like, and won't dislike. But I'd like to acknowledge via their score that it was better than nothing if an honest effort.

I was thinking the same thing. Something for a mediocre page, as in an "OK, but needs improvement". People might shy away from giving such pages an "unlike", especially if everyone else already clicked "like". I've voted a lot of 5's on such pages and hopefully no one is offended when they automatically turn to dislikes.

Example:

http://www.summitpost.org/ellison-mountain/698979

I hope whoever is deciding this consider the following...

if describing this in terms of Likes and Dislikes, also give the ability to give half a Like, or half a Dislike. Maybe even go to thirds or quarters but not beyond that. A Dislike could erase a like in the score calculation, but have no more weight than that (unless there were more total Dislikes). Under this scenarios no matter what fraction you liked a page it would still help their score, and nothing to be upset about that.

As far as how to count existing votes, it is a trivial matter as 96% of them are 10s and I'd bet most of the rest are 1s. There aren't enough other votes for it to be worth debating.

But Matt- look at the current system and compare it to what I proposed.

Currently if three people vote 10, a page might have a score of 87 or something. If the fouth votes a 9 then this LOWERS the score to a 75 or something dramatic like that. If they vote a 10 then it goes from 87 to 87.3 or so.

What Scott and I propose is quite different. If the fourth person votes 'half a like' then the score goes from 87 to 87.15, instead of 87.3 for a full like... but it doesn't ever DECREASE the score the way a 9 currently does when everyone else voted a 10... regardless of how many full Likes the page had.

If a system were implemented like this, the effect would be very different than the current system. Sure some would still only use the full Like, heck most next even vote... but a lot more than 4% would vote in another way.

Think about it. Granted... there are a lot more examples of the two option system in place than this proposal... and based on that I can see using two... but this is definitely not the same as the current system at all.

I think the 10 point system currently in place is good in theory. The problem is the calculating method that ends up dropping the score if anything less than 10 is voted. This is what has pushed the 10 or 1/nothing i.e. the like/dislike paradigm. Even a 9 is going to lower the score, despite that seeming like a pretty good vote. Now, I know nothing of what has gone into the calculating but it seems that people would be inclined vote 6's or 7's if they helped the score marginally but did not lower it.

If the desire is there to simplify the voting then a like/dislike system could work if a third option was 'abstain' or something like that. Obviously that may not be the best name for it but it works for the discussion. Voting 'abstain' would not change the score but communicate to the page builder that someone has the opinion the page is coming along but needs to be improved. One could even install a mechanism that would notify someone to review their 'abstain' vote after so much time has elapsed. If the page has not improved then one can dislike it. If it has improved, one can like it.

By the way, does all of these changes being discussed mean the launch of a SPv3 or just majoring remodeling on the current SPv2?

Going with a Like/Dislike system makes the most sense to me. Going with any extra categories just seems to complicate things...and no system is going to make everyone happy.

If one of the goals of voting is to improve page quality, under the current system (or Like/Dislike), giving a low vote (or Dislike) is not the best way to accomplish that goal. Page quality improves via communication with the submitter. I would recommend that for any Dislike, the voter is forced to submit a comment (or PM). Giving a submitter constuctive criticism and recommendations is what will improve page quality. If the submitter does nothing, then the issue could easily be escalated to the elves for action from there. This could easily be accomplished by having the Comment box pop up with a Dislike.

And as for page scores, I take no stock in them and personally do not think they are necessary. The value of the beta submitted lies in mind of the user!

Montana Matt wrote:...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.

I think this is what needs to happen. Either we go with the like/dislike system, or someone comes up with a new algorithm for the 0-10 system. The reason you don't get more 5-9 votes is that even though the person is trying to say hey, your work is pretty good but not perfect, the page score gets lowered. Lowering a page score is seen as a negative thing even though you were trying to say something positive. The new algorithm should improve a score if if the vote is 6-10 (by varying degrees) and lower the score if the vote is 1-5 (by varying degrees). Hopefully someone who is good at math can come up with such an algorithm. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

My two cents: A non-anonymous "like / dislike" vote sounds like a good idea, but we will most probably end up having over 99% of votes being "like", so the whole purpose of having a "dislike" button is lost. Almost nobody is voting less than 10/10 now, do you really think more people would be ready to vote "dislike"? If the votes are kept anonymous (especially the negative ones), this would certainly trigger some manipulations and revenge votes as it occured in the past.

A slightly modified version of the "Like / Dislike" button could be to rephrase it as a "Good page / To be improved" button.

1) "Good page" votes would increase the page score. I would support the proposal of having the "Good page" votes undisclosed in order to reduce vote begging, but this is not essential (the comments do already often serve that purpose of inducing reciprocal voting).

2) "To be improved" votes would lower the page score. These votes should not be anonymous.

Personally, I would almost never vote "Dislike", but would not hesitate to vote "To be improved" on many pages as the wording is much more constructive. There are for example a lot of pages that are reasonably good, but which need a serious update. A "To be improved" button would better serve the purpose.

It is good to keep different voting weights according to the member power, or at least keep a certain threshold as now. This prevents people creating avatars to vote on their own contributions.

My point of view about:

1 - IF THE SCORE IS NOT IMPORTANT AS SOMEONE SAYS, WHY DOES THAT ONE EXIST ON SP AND WHY DO SP MEMBERS WISH TO INCREASE IT ?
PERSONALLY I VOTE ONLY WHEN I LIKE, WHEN I DON'T LIKE I RATHER PREFER TO GIVE NO VOTES, IT SEEMS TO ME INCORRECT TOWARDS THE PERSON WHO HAS DONE THE WORK; I PREFER EVENTUALLY TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR, IF THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG IN THE PAGE.

2 A CHANGE TOWARDS THE LIKE/DISLIKE SYSTEM VOTE INSTEAD OF 1 TO 10 SYSTEM IS WELCOME, BUT I THINK IT'D BE BETTER THE DISLIKE VOTE DOESN'T LOW THE SCORE OF THE PAGE. ONLY THE LIKE/VOTE CAN MODIFY THE SCORE, INCREASING IT. IN THIS WAY WE CAN EXPRESS OUR VALUATION ABOUT THE PAGE WITHOUT DAMAGING THE AUTHOR AND SIGNALING HIM THE PAGE HAS SOMETHING TO BE IMPROVED

3 ANONIMOUS DISLIKE VOTES MUST BE AVOIDED BECAUSE OF THIS WAY IS INCREASING THE REVENGE-ACTIONS.

Bubba Suess wrote:If the desire is there to simplify the voting then a like/dislike system could work if a third option was 'abstain' or something like that. Obviously that may not be the best name for it but it works for the discussion. Voting 'abstain' would not change the score but communicate to the page builder that someone has the opinion the page is coming along but needs to be improved. One could even install a mechanism that would notify someone to review their 'abstain' vote after so much time has elapsed. If the page has not improved then one can dislike it. If it has improved, one can like it.

Great point. This is in the direction I was proposing earlier. A system to push folks in the right direction when a page is alright or of lesser quality. There are a lot of great contributions to SP, however I've seen some good mountains that deserve a lot better of a job done to them. I wouldn't hesitate to use the button Bubba proposed (I'd think about it of course).

MarkDidier wrote:Page quality improves via communication with the submitter. I would recommend that for any Dislike, the voter is forced to submit a comment (or PM). Giving a submitter constructive criticism and recommendations is what will improve page quality. If the submitter does nothing, then the issue could easily be escalated to the elves for action from there. This could easily be accomplished by having the Comment box pop up with a Dislike.

Great post Mark! You hit the nail on this one. I wouldn't mind publicly saying why I thought a page needed improvements. If I was worried about my reputation, I wouldn't get involved with the politics of SP.

Montana Matt wrote: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.

I'm pretty sure there is a way to deal with this. Make 5/10 neutral, less than 5/10 negative, and everything above 5/10 positive. In some sense TrekNature pulled this off. In this example someone voted 1/2 on my photo. This did not bring down the score. They don't have any negative points, but I'm sure they could have. With a 6/10 you could have it designed so that it's not the actual vote weight that is given, but is the one that we (SP users) see. Behind the scenes it could add the appropriate number based on your vote weight (it would be minor in this case). If this kind of a system was made, a 4/10 would do little to bring down the score. That would be a good thing! This would make it possible to down vote without being "too mean". And of course if the content is actually of poor quality you would vote less than 4/10 which would bring down the score to what it should be according to the votes.

MarkDidier wrote:And as for page scores, I take no stock in them and personally do not think they are necessary. The value of the beta submitted lies in mind of the user!

The value of the beta on a page is subjective whether the page is good or bad. The quality of a page, on the other hand, is an objective standard. Consequently there are good reasons to maintain the use of the page score. As long as only one page is permitted per peak (a good thing) the score helps measure whether the pages are good or bad. If SP is to have any quality standards there must be a mechanism for that standard to be sustained. To do this, one can either have admin nuke bad pages on their own, which is labor intensive on the elves part or permit the SP community to sink bad pages. The score permits the latter and when something sinks low enough then it is brought to the elves attention and then, usually, deleted. The mechanism for the voting is obviously something that can be improved, hence this thread, but doing away with the page score dismantles the means by which the general SP community polices the site.

It seems like this is something that can be fixed without making it into solving a world peace isssue. Why should there be a dislike option, that would just bring on problems. If there is a photo or a page that needs work a vote of 2 or 3 let's say should still give a positive increase to the score but is sending a messsage that more work is needed. There are many pages that are good pages but not great, those pages deserve a 6 or 7 vote let's say but again the page score should go up not down. Keep it a 1 - 10 with even a 1 vote increasing the score but obviouslsy just ever so slighting with each number being weighted with a gradual increase of the percentage.