Your Opinion: Ratingsystem for Posts?

[Future]

IMHO it would be so much more convenient for us users if we rated posts (eg. with stars) in this forum - eg. the more stars we give the more valuable the post would be.

This way it would help everybody massively to save a lot of time and to concentrate on posts that really matter.

Or what's your opinion on that?

 

[Follically Challenged]

I voted yes. Sounds like a good idea. Of course a lot of posts start of as a question and eventually builds into a good thread but this idea of yours does have merit, imo.

 

[Cassin]

Most people will never use it and if it is a great post you will know because of the number of pages and views it has. We have tried sub features within posts before and it didn't work..........

people are simply lazy.

 

[Future]

I fully agree that people are lazy and don't want features that make a forum more complex to navigate.

However for exactly the same reason I believe that there are many users out there - in particular the less knowledgeable ones - who don't want to spend hours and hours scouring through innumerous posts but instead filter out the best thread and save a lot of time.

As such I also strongly believe that a rating system would be a very helpful add-on to this forum to make it more user friendly compared to other competing forums. In particular it would be very benefical to newcomers...

So, in the end it would simply be a benefit for the creators of this forum
if you want this forum to grow further.



PS: Your suggestion that the number of views and replies is a good indication of the quality of a thread... unfortunately at the moment it isn't possible to re-order the posts based on these criteria.

And then - I just tried out a random posting called "Immortal hair" based on your criteria . Well, it didn't work for me.

 

[Cassin]

Well, another problem is some people may assume that thread is the end all be all and this may discourage new posting.

Also, assuming the user looking at the forum assumes that everything based in the 9.5 star is accurate, what if someone posts something really stupid in the thread amongst the rest of it?

What happens to all of the old threads before the rating?

I could go on and on...and all of the reasons are the same why polls don't work.

There is great benefit to someone spending time searching posts and learning new things they didn't expect to come across.

I appreciate you taking interest in improving the forum, I'm just disagreeing with you.

 

[Future]

Cassin,

I fully understand your objections. Changing an extensive forum like this needs first of all thorough evaluation of pros and cons since any modification involves re-programming from your side and which means investing time.

And of course, nobody can tell you beforehand whether a suggested rating system will be useless (as you think) or welcomed by most users as I strongly believe ( I outlined various reasons for the why, including benefits for yourself). One thing is for sure: as many arguments we exchange - only if we try it out we will finally find out.

Let me just respond to your last post including your legitimate arguments, to give you final thoughts:

I am sure you have visited the very popular amazon.com. In my view this is an excellent website how a rating system has been implemented successfully:

People can see on the spot the amount of stars based on how many people have given their rating. And this is an ongoing, growing process.

Discouragement of new postings?
Now you argue that people looking at rated postings in this forum might assume that there is nothing to add to them. Now when you imagine eg. a separate column or line on top of a posting saying "current rating"...I can tell you that people are not stupid. We aren't dealing with kids but with adult people who are hungry for information or/and want to pass on their experience. Of course, if you stil feel uncomfortable it's up to you to have information about this feature introduced in your introductory section.

Accuracy of Rating?
Of course regularly it happens that we find more or less "weed amongst the crop" and which results in the rating we give to a posting. So, with a rating of eg. 9.5 I expect to find rather little weed. And that teh stupid stuff will be somehow dealt with - either be ignored, corrected by other contributors or that it simply is so insignificant compared to the rest of the thread's high quality content that it really doesn't matter.

Old Threads?
Referring again to amazon.com it says something like: "this article hasn't been rated yet". And the same could be applied to this forum just by giving every thread a virgin state.


A final thought:
Have you ever thought that a rating system might improve the overall quality of postings?: Who wants to get bad marks?


Anyway, I accept whatever decision you make since you seem to be one of the creators of this forum.