I love the idea of "minus points" ... unfortunately I'm afraid we'd end up with the same kind of extortion experienced on eBay ("if you as a seller don't jump through every stinkin' hoop I throw up, I will whack you with negatives")

If someone thinks you *could have* answered their question but didn't (ignored them), they could hunt down your posts and drop a negative on you.

Seeing who rates you is a great idea (IMO), but I think it's a good idea to keep it so the worst thing that people can do to you is not rate you (as opposed to negatively impacting your scores).

It's not often, but we do occasionally get an attitude case and "negative points" might end up causing more problems than it's worth.

FWIW

Scott

On second thoughts, maybe negative points isn't such a good idea...

However, I think the ratings system could be tweaked as follows:

5 - Solved the issue or answered the question

4 - Excellent info, but didn't quite solve the issue/answer the question

3 - Provided useful info

0 - Didn't contribute to the issue at hand

I don't think I've ever seen a 2 rating and it seems a bit unfair to award positive points for unhelpful answers.

What do people think? Another option would be to only use ratings 3 to 5 and not have the 0 option.

Andrew.

I love the '0' rating idea!

This way, someone could anonymously show their dislike for your post, but not necessarily have it count against the poster. Also, a '0' should not count against your average, or in other words really even count as being rated at all.

Good one andrew!

There are really two different viewpoints at work here, the first is view of the OP who really justs want his/her question answered. The second viewpoint is the reader who maybe doesn't contribute but finds the information really useful and thinks it should be rewarded (whether or not it helps the OP). I'd have to agree with the previous posts about disallowing rating others with low marks, but I feel that the OP should still have this ability, after all, that's the only person qualified to judge.

So, how about the OP being able to rate 0,3,4,5 and anyone else only gets 3,4,5? or even a separate value such as U (for useful) and we count everyone's U's. That way if a thread had a bunch of U's attached we see at a glance that it would be worth reading..

just an idea..

Andrew.

p.s. OP = Original Poster (someone's bound to ask ;-)

Hello,

Although I do prefer the strictly technical discussions, I decided to express my own opinion about ratings. In short, I think there is too much rating given to the ratings.

I have been frustrated myself once or twice in the past about some 2.0 rating or something like that. I have even suggested in a way (not really seriously, more of a joke) the "who rates whom" or the "0 rating not being possible" (in another sense, "the thank God sense"). That was temporary and other community members support you in such cases. In the end, I believe the way the things work is fine. That's life. You can't expect everyone to appreciate your work. Often people just do not have the knowledge to appreciate your answer (I cannot rate something if I do not really know whether it is correct, unless it is very well documented). If somebody says "you helped", I am ok, even if person doesn't rate me (often because doesn't know how things here work). I am more disappointed when somebody does not say anything, no feedback, no reply, no nothing. But then again, you can't force others to notice you and to reply. Some people will recognize your efforts, some will not, some will be kind and some will be rude. This is the hard part of offering technical support. To be polite when others are rude (or they will never trust you in the future, they will think you are just bored or mean), to keep working behind the scenes, while other people just enjoy the generally acknowledged fun part of the Internet (although to me the fun is in building it). Be patient guys. We are not movie stars, just the poor guys behind the scenes :-)

Kind Regards,

Maria

Hello,

After some thought I could say I am strongly against the idea of zero rating even from the original poster. I do not understand the reason to give somebody that much power. The irrelevant answers are not that many. In many cases irrelevance will be analogous to how accurately the original problem has been described by the person who opened the conversation. We do not get any money for this and I do not believe that there are so many people here that deliberately want to mislead others. Some people suggest this zero rating maybe because they consider impropable to be rated with a 0.0, but I am not that confident. Those who are should try to be prepared when they see the 0.0 in their own post in front of their eyes. Not geting any points for our posts, as it already is, should be enough. Unless we try to find a way to tell a person "why don't you just go away?".

Kind Regards,

Maria

Maria,

As always, two excellent postings, and two well argued positions. As the person who originally suggested the 0-rating, I guess I should comment.

If I understand your second posting correctly, your position is that you believe tha a 0-rating is more likely to be abused that to be used properly, and therefore it should not be implemented. No ... not exactly that, but more: if a 0-rating is abused then the damage it would cause would outweight the benefit of the system being used properly. Also that whoever supports a zero-rating should be prepared to accept the abuse of such a system.

I can understand that argument, and you may well be right. What it comes down to is how such a system would be used in reality. That is something I am still reflecting on. My faith in human nature varies depending on recent events.

(If I may comment on your argument: you show faith in human nature in "I do not believe that there are so many people here that deliberately want to mislead others", but less so in "they consider impropable to be rated with a 0.0, but I am not that confident".)

I suppose, we already have the option of ignoring postings, just as we have learned to ignore Spam.

Regarding the 0-rating, I would say the jury is still in session.

In your first posting, you argue that too much rating is given to the rating system. I fully agree with you on that. At the end of the day, it serves the useful purpose of flagging helpful responses, as well as being "just a bit competitive fun". As you point out, we are not pop stars, and if we manage to seperate technical content from ego, then the forum would be the better for it.

That is why I do not solicit ratings except in very rare circumstances.

Kevin Dorrell

Luxembourg

Kevin

Thought i'd chime in because at the moment we seem to have a problem in the Firewalling forum with 1 ratings which are occurring rather too frequently at the moment.

I have never asked for a rating and won't but if i am being honest i think for a lot of the people on NetPro getting rated is an added incentive to participating. It does help people find relevant answers and it is rewarding to be appreciated.

I really don't think it is about ego, certainly none of the experts on the forums i participate in seem to have an ego at all. They are all very open to being questioned, challenged and are the first to admit when they have made a mistake.

On the idea of removing points from "old-timers". I am not against this, indeed we could have 3 tables

All time

This month

This Year

which may give appreciation to the active members on the site.

As for the ratings, well i guess it is all down to human nature. Some posts do actually deserve a 1 so i see no reason to get rid of that score , everybody will now rate this 1 to make a point :-), but i think as has been pointed out any system is open to abuse.

I think the only way is to self-regulate ie. if you see a post that has been rated 1 and the mark is completely inappropriate then mark it 5 to readjust. That is what i do in the forums. Giving people the ability to see who rated them although tempting at times would as Scott says just lead to more problems ie. someone rates a post 1, i readjust by marking it 5, then they find one of my posts etc..

I would support the removal of 2 because it's very subjective "somewhat helpful".

Jon