Appeal to change ratings....please

[burleyman]

This is an appeal to Dan as I know if anyone can make this happen it is him 

Recently which you may have seen is that someone rated an esteemed member a 1 for what was clearly very helpful information. This was clearly a snipe rating and almost caused them to consider stop posting. I think this community should remove the rating levels 1 and 2 as they serve no purpose except to give some a way to degrade a poster. If someone does not like the response to their question than they just need not rate them. If there is some logic as to why they should remain please let me know.

Now you may say it gives a way to flag an incorrect answer or a bad recommendation. Well there is a way this could be handled, someone who see that could send that information to the moderator to be removed if it incorrect information or if it would cause damage. or if that were too much to have to deal with which it could be I am sure the experts here would catch that and flag it by posting a warning.

If this is possible please lets work on that.

Thank you

Mike

[George Stefanick]

LOL.. Thanks Dan!

Let me ask ... Sometime i may get points out of the blue but not sure what post they came from. Is there anyway to see what post these came from?

[Daniel Bruhn]

George,

No, there is no way to tell which of your posts have been rated unless you search for them.  You aren't the first to ask for this one.  I'll add it to the list of possible future enhancements.

Cheers,

Dan

PS:  I can see who rated you as well as what they rated.  It looks like the tooth fairy has been rating you lately

[marikakis]

Ok Dan, I'm falling into the trap: who's that tooth fairy? You mean we have many fairies around?

George, when you receive points out of the blue, the tooth fairy is one possibility. Another possibility is the FFOF (Forum Fairy Of Fairness). The FFOF uses various criteria to rate posts and doesn't feel the obligation to reveal them, nor does she feel the need to post +5 on every thread (she wouldn't like to be considered that she expects something in return). The FFOF tries not to discriminate among members. She tries more to care about what someone says (not who says it). She told me she has rated lately posts of the following members: Paolo, Jon, Giuseppe, Rob, Aaron, Jaime, Robert Burns, Fred Niehaus (post from 2008), Laurent, Jerry, Joe, Leo, Peter, Lucien and others. This might include you George, but she's not 100% sure. Although the FFOF tries not to discriminate among members, she admits a preference for members who do not complain about their points all the time. Given that she has given out so many points lately and people are still not satisfied, she feels her efforts are fruitless, she is tired, and she seriously considers of becoming an EFW (Evil Forum Witch). EOFT (End Of Fairy Tale).

So George, let me get this straight: you are saying that you don't get ratings anymore and simultaneously that you do get ratings out of the blue and you wanna know where those came from?

If a TAC team starts rating posts instead of the FFOF or the tooth fairy, will people be satisfied or would they start complaining about the fairness of the TAC team?

BTW1: Years ago, in a thread in this section, I had said that the general case with a member seems to be 1 point for every post on average. That is if you post 700 times you have close to 700 points. Some exceptions exist (such as Rob), but are not many, and you can expect the more experienced people to be more effective with their posts and to balance the unfairness by participating in many sections. They are also usually very friendly with authors, so don't look at them only as experts at the top of the board. They are much more than an awful lot of points. I don't think this 1 point per post average has changed much. So, do not assume you are the target of unfairness. When people are treated equally unfairly, then the game looks fair to me. And if we do something so that authors start giving out more points, can you guess what the distribution of points among members might be? My guess is that we will see the same people at the top of the board as long as they keep posting.

BTW2: The FFOF might have given out more points if only she wasn't logged out so often lately. This thing happens at least the last couple of weeks (if she recalls correctly) and even when she is actively browsing the site. If that happens to authors as well, good luck with the ratings.

Jon, I can see you going straight to step 4. Nice move!

[Jon Marshall]

Maria

She told me she has rated lately posts of the following members: Paolo, Jon,

Ahhh i thought i'd be been getting a few more points recently and here was me thinking fairies just didn't exist, many thanks

Jon, I can see you going straight to step 4. Nice move!

Well, like you, i don't think i can face another "what to do about ratings" thread from the start again, they are just so tiring and we do seem to often end up going round in circles.

By the way, just to add a bit of balance to the ratings issue i just got rated a 1 in a thread i was involved in and it was absolutely deserved ie. the info i gave was total rubbish !!

Jon

[Jon Marshall]

Dan

Just a quick thought which i can always start a new thread for if needed.

Is there a way in each forum to have a sticky thread at the top so that thread is always there regardless of all the other threads moving off the first page ?

Just a thought but if there was we could i suppose have a thread that covered ratings  - a bit like the one Mike posted recently but obviously that has disappeared off the first page ages ago. It might be more likely to get read if it stayed there and was in each forum.

As you probably have realised by now , i'm fairly reluctant to change the ratings system too much so not even sure if it's that good an idea, just thought i'd see what you think. Feel free to be brutally honest, the rest of us are so i don't see why you shouldn't be

Jon

PS - George, i have also given you a 5 to make up for lack of points in wireless forum

[Daniel Bruhn]

Hi Jon,

Sticky threads would be great.  Unfortunately, the current version of software we are on doesn't offer them.  That said, we will likely be upgrading in March to a version that does offer sticky threads.  At that point I think it would be a great idea to utilize that feature to highlight the importance of ratings.

Cheers,

Dan

[Rob Huffman]

Hello all,

Such thoughtful and funny responses to a tricky subject

Very good stuff indeed. I will not comment on rating the (Forum Fairy Of Fairness)

but I know she deserves much praise

Jon ...great idea on the "sticky" posts! As always, you come through with

some nice rational thinking....sweet!

In reference to the (Forum Fairy Of Fairness) I believe there is also a

(Forum Linebacker Of Fairness) who rates threads that are deserving

but does not want to be referred to as a Fairy.

Cheers!

Rob

[Richard Burts]

In the continuing discussion about ratings I offer this question and response as an example of why we need a rating that says "bad answer".

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2045252?tstart=0

As I write this there has been only one response and I think it is pretty awful. Not only is configuring a secondary address not an effective solution to the question, but the original post is quite clear that he has already got it configured as a secondary address.

HTH

Rick

[marikakis]

Hi Rick,

If a person suggested to an author to throw their expensive router out of the window in order to fix it or suggested the author looked into the light coming out of a fiber optic port to see if port works or anything similar, I might agree with you.

One of the biggest problems in online communities is that the vast majority of visitors are lurkers. These people read and do not post for various reasons, usually because they are afraid of being wrong. From own experience I know that most of my first posts took me many hours to cross check and a few of my current ones still do. I personally do not like the feeling of being irreplaceable. Most of the times such a feeling is not true and in the long run doesn't benefit anyone. It might boost confidence for some people, but in the end it leads to more and more work that cannot be sustained. We have people in this community such as you, Rob, Jon, Paolo, Giuseppe, and others that have a lot of knowledge, but sometimes even you people cannot post during certain periods of your time. What should happen then? Maintaining only an elite group of people doesn't benefit the community and is certainly not at the best interest of Cisco who maintains this community.

So, for the above reasons, my approach in such circumstances would be to post the correct answer and be polite with the person that made the mistake. Quality of posts is an important ingredient of this community, but quality can also be maintained by helping people to learn and discouragement via the rating system does not seem necessary to me in such cases. Helping others to learn is one of the main purposes of the community and that includes not only the authors, but people who post answers as well, right?

Kind Regards,

Maria

[Jon Marshall]

I think Maria makes a very valid point here. Personally if i ever was going to give a 1 (which i honestly can't remember whether i have or haven't) it's important to note how many posts the person has made. For example both Maria and myself were recently involved in a resurrected thread on BGP (Maria's favourite apparently !) where a new poster was somewhat "aggressive" with his initial comments but in no way would we want to deter that person from posting because they are obviously very knowledgeable.

However the opposite does apply i think ie. there must be a way to deter a person who continually posts misleading or incorrect information.

Jon

[Jon Marshall]

Rick

As you probably know i am also in favour of keeping the 1 & 2 (well the 1 anyway) but it is interesting to note that even though you highlighted this thread as not helpful you haven't marked the answer as such.

This is not intended as a critcism because i don't think i would mark it as a 1 either which makes me wonder if there actually is any point to having the 1 mark. I still think there is, where i think the answer given is actually dangerous but it does make me wonder that if both you and I would not mark this as a 1, even though both of us argue for the 1 rating, what exactly is it's use.

Perhaps because we have been on the receiving end of a few too many 1's we are reluctant to use that mark ourselves ?

Jon

[Richard Burts]

Jon

Your response came as I was thinking about what to do with the item: 1) just give the rating 2) just give a response in the thread 3) or do both, as I ultimately did.

I have been thinking about Maria's comment that so many who read the threads are just lurkers and wondering how that enters into how we react to posts. In my mind the fact that so many are just reading but not posting and so many do not have enough experience to really recognize posts that are truly good or posts that are truly not good makes it all the more important that we (who do have more experience and perspective) use responses and ratings to help differentiate the truly good from the truly not good. Sometimes it is appropriate to post a response in the thread and point out deficiencies in other responses and sometimes it may not be worth posting a response but just making a rating may help to flag helpful or not helpful responses.

HTH

Rick

[marikakis]

Hi Rick,

I am sorry my previous response did not seem relevant. People might learn when certain wrong posts are marked with a 1, but that still does not encourage participation. And if author's question turns out to require additional expertise (say Microsoft DHCP as an example), then not many people will dare to enter a thread that already has a 1 rating. We will probably remain in disagreement, but is the author actually helped in such cases?

Kind Regards,

Maria

[Richard Burts]

Maria

Perhaps my choice of words was not optimum. I did not mean to imply that your response was not relevant. Quite the contrary - I thought it was quite relevant. When I said that I was "wondering how [your comment about how most readers are lurkers] enters into how we react to posts" I do not wonder IF it affects our view of ratings. I believe that this DOES affect our view of ratings and am wonder just HOW it affects.

I believe that in this discussion we are looking at ratings (and posts) from slightly different perspectives. It seems that you are looking at ratings (and posts) primarily in terms of how to use them to encourage more people to post. I am looking at them more in terms of how can we provide guidance to the lurkers about what posts to read and trust and what posts to not trust. I do not think that either perspective is not relevant.

HTH

Rick

[marikakis]

Hi Rick,

Your analysis of our points of view actually helped me a lot to clearly see exactly where we disagree. I believe there can be a middle ground. If anyone feels they should ultimately rate some posts with a 1, then they could probably wait until a thread is near resolution (or after). This way people can keep responding. Also have in mind that some 1 ratings might be wrongly attributed to the author and this could lead to fights inside the thread. In addition, some people might never respond (again) to authors that possibly gave a 1 rating (in the past, even if not actually to them, but to somebody else).

Kind Regards,

Maria

Message was edited by: marikakis