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Do you feel that the ratings on articles that are more than a couple of months old are wildly misleading as to their actual value as an article?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Here's what I feel: the voting system is the #1 thing that causes complaints like John's. It's the #1 thing that confuses and distresses new authors. It's the #1 thing that causes negative feelings toward Codeproject and Codeproject members.
What should replace it? A simple up-vote (thumbs up, if you will). You will still be able to see how many people voted "up", and so there will still be a "rating". Don't like an article or post? Don't vote. Very simple.
I don't know what's on the current to-do list, but IMHO this is absolutely the best thing that could be implemented right now, in terms of improving members' experience with the site.
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For a while now I was opposed to this point of view. Now I'm inclined to agree with you on this.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx
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The problem with this is you are effectively asking everyone here to give up their e-peens.
One of the perqs of having a high rep is the fact that if someone like that uni-voter hits an article, someone who HAS contributed, who HAS done things for this site and has attempted to make this site better (and not just by telling people when they suck) can demolish that 1 vote with a 5.
I can always tell when a certain uni-voter hits because my 5 against their 1 results in a 4. The weighing of the vote is a major benefit to being high in rep.
Changing it to an up/down vote loses that weight.
If you think codeproject is bad, go over to stack overflow. They don't let you comment on answers until you have gotten enough rep. Getting that rep was nearly impossible because of some strategic voting they had for a while and they had to change how votes were tendered because of it. About their only good point is that you get x number of downvotes a day, and doing one makes you take a hit. Even with this, good luck getting rep at all.
If I have accidentally said something witty, smart, or correct, it is purely by mistake and I apologize for it.
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Sorry, I don't see how you would be giving up anything. You would still get rep points for an up-vote. And you wouldn't have to bother with all that nonsense about down-voting, because there wouldn't be any.
Also, there would still be "Report" buttons for articles and posts, which would bring an article/post to the CP admins' attention, just like they do now.
So again, what would you be giving up?
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I'm not disagreeing that a lot of members get upset when they see a 1-vote.
My question is purely: are the actual ratings that articles get sufficiently inaccurate as to be of little value to new or casual visitors looking to see which article is good and which is bad?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: are the actual ratings that articles get sufficiently inaccurate
For most articles with a lifespan of N months or more, I believe the answer is no.
N is probably at least 3, maybe 6 or 12.
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Chris Maunder wrote: are the actual ratings that articles get sufficiently inaccurate
that may well mean exactly the opposite of what I think it means, so I'm not gonna answer this.
In Dutch it is very wise not to include one or more negatives in a question (you'll get the complete opposite answer when moving 50 km east or west, even when talking to respondents who share the same opinion); and I would assume the same holds true in many languages.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.
I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).
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Luc Pattyn wrote: In Dutch it is very wise not to include one or more negatives in a question
Generally this is true, but the point of my question is "are ratings as awful and broken as you say they are". Hans feels the rating system is completely broken. If, however, articles achieve (on average) ratings that are a good reflection of their merit then I would then propose that the rating system is, in fact, working.
Yes, a poorly formed question. I'll admit it.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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My answer is: not broken at all. It works well. I seldom, if ever, find an article with an average score I don't agree with. Sometimes I think I would do things differently, sometimes I would hope to get a better explanation, sometimes I wonder if we needed yet another article on the subject, but overall I agree with the votes, once the article voting has settled a bit. The very early votes may be off IMO, and that is why I don't pay much attention to them when they are few (and make sure to compensate if I read and disagree).
I know some people are very sensitive as far as receiving (low? non-5?) votes goes. And yes, the very first 1 can be painful. It is a pity the new article is likely to disappear from the "latest best picks" on the home page as soon as it gets a less-than-5 vote; which reduces the likelihood it will get a lot of extra votes any time soon.
Here are some more ideas, all trying to make the situation more acceptable:
1.
to ease the kicked-from-homepage pain: you show 5 best picks; OK; you might show 10; or make it somewhat selectable. You also turned that header into a link. It leads to the "Top Ranked Articles" list, which is an all-time best, not recent on average. My suggestion is:
Make the header "Latest Best Picks", do not make that a link; add a "More" next to it (so it stands out more), make that a link to a list that shows maybe the top-100 of latest best picks, so if and when a new article gets kicked from the home page, it probably is still high in that list.
This list is different from the "Latest Articles", which is strictly chronological. So the author, having to digest a 4 (or less), can still see his article shine (and later fade away) in the "More Latest Best Picks" list. Of course, the "Top Ranked Articles" should continue to be available somehow, probably as a menu entry on top and/or in the left pane.
2.
to better show the effect of the voting weights: the little histogram graphically shows unweighted votes; so an article with a bronze 1 and a platinum 5 shows two peaks with equal height, although they represent quite a different importance in the score. Why not make the graph reflect that? Give it say twice the height, and show weighted counts (that would be a height of 1 for the bronze 1, and a height of 8 for the platinum 5). Alternatively, give each column a width that corresponds to the weight it has, so in the example the 1 is much narrower than the 5.
And I would use twice as big a font to display the score, as that is the one number that matters IMO.
score: 4.56
3.
I don't believe schemes would work well that remove say the 10% most extreme votes. It is not clear how they should work early on, with few votes cast; and if a first low gets hidden, it may well invite another undeserved 1 (or 5). However, you could consider using such a scheme for time-limited competitions: simply apply the filtering at the end, but make sure all entrants are aware of it, so they know sporadic extreme votes will not influence the outcome at all.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.
I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).
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Chris Maunder wrote: Hans feels the rating system is completely broken
Actually, I never mentioned the rating system being broken. I said the voting system was broken. And yes, the ratings are determined by the voting, but we can continue to rate without the godawful voting system.
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I couldn't disagree more. Yes there are ways to improve the voting situation; several have been suggested recently. IMO your proposal is not one of them, I even call it irresponsible, and here is why:
When I see an article with a bad score (i.e.several votes, low average), I probably won't read it.
When I see an article with a good score or with few or no votes, on a subject I'm interested in, I will probably read it; if my conclusion is it is a bad article, I vote it down, to signal others they are likely to waste their time. And if it deserves a comment that isn't present yet, I'll add it. All that is part of community responsibility.
If people can only up-vote, one can't easily see the difference between:
- a very good article with a few up-votes (don't know why there aren't more up-votes, is it a recent article, is it classified in the wrong place, is it too specialized, ...);
- a bad article where a couple of morons (or the author himself, having created 10 more accounts) up-voted the work.
You should not try and force people to read all the comments before they start reading the article itself.
The average vote should reflect the opinion of past readers, not only of past readers who liked it.
You also want traffic lights that are either green or off? You want movie reviews not to mention the movies they consider bad, and only say good things about the ones they consider good? that would be a big disservice.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.
I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).
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What about a thumbs-up / thumbs-down system?
I like awarding a 2 or a 4 because I like accuracy, but I am willing to forgo this if it means more people will be tempted to vote.
Alternatively we can go the added-complexity route:
Provide thumbs up / thumbs down, and also provide a fly-out voting bar like we currently have the provide more fine scale voting (1-5) for those who wish it.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris, you know I want to be able to express myself in both directions and with room for nuance. So I have always been in favor for your 1-to-5 voting scale. Everywhere. I do not really appreciate the up/down thumbing, 1-to-5 is just fine. If some people choose to only use 1 or 5, that's their choice. I see no need to complicate the GUI, if anything I would simplify it by joining together the 5 and up symbols, and the 1 and down symbols, as it looks as if there are 7 choices here. The thumbs are good to make clear that 1 is low and 5 is high though.
for articles, I am in favor of removing the voting thingy from the article page, and put it on the "New message" edit page, so one has to comment no matter what vote one wants to cast; of course that would mean the widget has to change into "Add a message and vote". I don't mind commenting when I have spent the time reading the article in the first place. That of course is different for forums.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.
I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).
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Chris Maunder wrote: What about a thumbs-up / thumbs-down system?
This is just as bad as the current system. Look back at the three problems I mentioned; which problems are fixed or even addressed by this solution? Zero.
I must admit, though, that Luc's schemes have the advantage of being so baroque that most members will stop complaining about the voting because they won't be able to figure it out. There is no magic voting system that will tell you at-a-glance if an article is worthy of your attention; you will always have to look at article comments. Why? Because a reader may low-vote an article because the code is not available on Platform X in Language Y, which has nothing to do with the fact that for the intended platform, in the intended language, the article is excellent. So you have to read the comments and not just glance at a number.
I have described the problems of the current system, and also described a solution that addresses those problems. Bandaid fixes are just not going to help.
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If I click the vote button without selecting any of the radio buttons (why is that possible anyway?) I get the message "0 votes for this There was an error while trying to rate this item. Please try again later."
edit: for the trick I tried to vote, there are actually some votes, so the 0 votes part is incorrect
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Exactly the same happens when you click "Vote" on real articles without any radio button checked.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.
I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).
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Thanks for the report. I'll add this as a high priority bug.
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Cool! 
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Why isn't the "My Vote of 1" message posted in the forum for the tip/trick?
How can a 1-vote be rebutted and/or removed if it's not handled the same as articles?
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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Along with Questions & Answers, Tips&Tricks now use the new Comment system.
I'm assuming that it is in regards to your Tip on Observable Dictionary. If you notice the comment you responded to :
Reason for my vote of 1
links are not tips - SledgeHammer01 4 hours ago
starts with, "Reason for my vote of 1".
This is the message for the down vote. If this had been removed, so would have the vote.
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So you're saying that if I delete the comment, the 1 vote goes away too?
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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Are you saying a recipient can simply delete the comments and votes he doesn't like?
does that apply to Q&A? and T&T? articles? forums?
and unconditionally? or when he matches/exceeds the commentator's rep color?
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.
I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).
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