Just for kicks I sorted by rating and found that very few posts have ever been rated and considering how many people we have here that says a lot. I don’t think there really is a huge risk of someone getting hurt because no one uses it and most don’t even know it’s there. :shrug:
I don’t think anyone had been abusing it. But, publicly announcing your intentions to… :shrug:
Most people don’t seem to know or care about it. That says something to me right there.
My “guess” is it is part of the forum software “package” and until this moment no one actually paid attention to it. If you participate in many online forums you know that many forums are run with the same software.
What ever the rating system is, and I cannot be bothered to search it out, it is not an itegral part of KH and the only reason I can see for stirring the pot about it is to create hard feelings.:shrug:
I say let sleeping dogs lie and drop it.
This seems like we are creating drama where it didn’t exist before. If people want to rate a thread a 1 they have the right to do it. I personally don’t care why they did it. It seems pretty clear that most people didn’t notice it before so what difference does it really make?
Sure it can be very high school-like but so is the drama.
Why is honest opinion not in your list Zip? Do you have proof that any of it was deliberate?
I am checking the rating logs for abuse. If there are signs of abuse a) it will be removed and b) it won’t be tolerated. The rating system is a tool for those who choose to use it. Please don’t ruin it for everyone else by abusing it.
Thanks,
- Sheldon
I’ve gotta say, I’ve been here for about a year and I didn’t even realize there WAS a rating system.
I can state that at least one of the ratings of 1 on the oddball blankets has been there since within a week of the new forum. I do not know who voted it there of course, but I do know that I noticed it a very long time ago. Because I do not know who voted it, I can not say what their intentions are, but I never saw a point to the voting as far as normal threads are concerned, so I just ignored it. :shrug:
Also, regarding the blogs, Well of course we go around voting for our friends blogs because we enjoy reading them and they are our friends. I have voted a 5 for all of the blogs that I read because they are fun and I saw the voting as fun, that is why I don’t rate any of the other threads, and I generally don’t pay any attention to what their rating is.
I don’t get why it is such a big deal, but it is your right to be upset about it if you want to be. I don’t mean any harm by this, but I did want to share my observations on it as an avid reader and participator in both the blogs and the oddball blankets. Take it for the 2 cents or less it is worth.
I think it’s new, along with other aspects of the most recent incarnation of the website that was introduced this summer. Or was it spring? That’s why there isn’t a multitude of ratings.
Risk? hmmmm… I think it promotes exclusionary tactics, probably even more so now that I’ve pointed it out, which I knew was a risk.
Maybe we could each ask ourselves how we’d feel if someone rated our thread with a 1, especially if the purpose of the thread had an all-inclusive purpose that would benefit someone who desperately needed it. Also ask yourself what reason ANYONE would rate such a venture as terrible… Because that person didn’t think of it first? Because that person has an issue with the founder? At first I was angry, now I’m merely baffled. KH is reputed to be bigger than that. So I have to ask, is it really?
I haven’t talked with my sister about it, but I believe she’s probably hurt by it. I hope she isn’t upset by my mentioning her threads. She likely isn’t because she has a generous, forgiving nature.
Thank you, Sheldon. I’m curious to know what, in your estimation, would constitute abuse?
I’m still of the opinion that the ratings are useless. If I use it as a tool to rate threads that I like as 5s, but others rate them lower, I’ll be unable to readily sort by rating to find them, thereby making it a useless tool. Perhaps each user could mark threads he or she deems to be 5s as favorites instead of relying upon the opinion of the few others who vote? Just a suggestion, of course.
I have talked to her about it, and I won’t say much, because I believe it is her place to speak for herself, but I do know that she didn’t even realize the ratings existed. :shrug:
I feel pretty safe in saying that I so deeply respect the rights of people, especially the people on this forum, to have and express their opinions, that I could not care any less whether anything I did received a rating of “1”.
I can honestly say that I wouldn’t and don’t care how someone rated any thread I had. I’m not here to be validated for everything or anything I do.
I can also honestly say that I don’t agree with every charity out there in the world. Does that make me a bad person?
Just because someone has a different view or opinion doesn’t mean there has to be something wrong with it or that by expressing a differing point of view I’m “abusing” something.
I think this subject strikes a chord with several of you who are proclaiming that it doesn’t matter, yet are seeking and finding validation by rating one another’s blogs with 5s.
Why are you making this assumption that people actually care what their blogs are rated. I, along with Carmen, don’t care what my threads are rated. I do not base my personal self worth on what other people think of me. I would rather have people feel that they could express their own opinions than care that they’ve rated any of my threads with a 5.
As GinnyG guessed, the rating system is a feature that came with the software.
We decided to keep it as a feature, because it allows recommended threads to be sorted to the top and browsed through.
I agree that the ability to rank threads a low number, does not serve a positive function in our community, and is indeed an “un-KH” feature. No thread deserves a low rank, in my opinion, except maybe spam, but we have a “report this post” feature for that.
We are removing the bottom two rankings from the tally, and the ability to use them. Perhaps at some future point, when Sheldon has time, we will replace the ranking system with a more appropriate, single-choice button that serves the function to recommend a thread for browsing.
I’m really not sure what you mean. I don’t really know you or your sister. I’ve never read her blog, or the charity postings. I’ve already told you I didn’t know about the ratings, which I’m sure Sheldon can and will look up. I can’t say that I understand why you are so very angry and agitated about this. But I hope you feel better soon.
They why fight me so hard on whether there’s a rating system?
I don’t rate other people’s blogs as a validation, nor do I expect mine to be rated. I do it because it is fun, just like this forum is fun (or used to be) and just like the smilies are fun. I don’t use any of these things to make me feel better as a knitter, or a person, I use them because I enjoy doing them.
That is just like saying that you are looking for validation which is why you started this thread.
And a side note, you can’t change your vote later if you change your mind, so How do you know that people who voted one way don’t now wish they had voted another?
Thank you, Amy & Sheldon! Sincerely. :cheering: