Gav:
Thanks for clearing that up!
Dur:
I had a more "global" issue in mind.
I participate in a photography site where--after years of hurt feelings, mud-slinging, account hacking, members being banned, etc.--the administrators decided that the only way to maintain civility was to implement anonymous ratings.
The problems with pubic ratings were:
1. rating inflation... in the hope of receiving high ratings, many members only gave out top ratings (i.e. reciprocal rating);
2. cliques... when administrators tried various methods to counteract "rating inflation," members merely formed cliques or affinity groups, doling out high ratings to friends, low ratings to "outsiders;"
3. hostility... the tenor of the site became downright nasty as members sniped at each other for what they perceived to be slights and insults due to ratings disagreements.
I was wondering if these potential outcomes have been considered?
That said, there are important differences:
1. at the photo site, a summary was attached to each uploaded photo displaying all rating and ranking info. Here a writer would have to dig around in Profiles to learn that same information;
2. competition was more central to the site function--many members posted photos for critique on a daily basis. Thousands of photos were posted and rated each day;
3. it's vastly easier to rate images--and the differences between an excellent photo and a poor one is far more subjective than with writing.
In my brief time at LS, members and administrators have been extraordinarily welcoming, thoughtful, funny and, above all, respectful. My question: could a public rating system undermine these qualities over time?
--jason
jason, you've raised some interesting points. the original intent was to show what your friends had been doing on lush, including voting on stories. this was more of a recommendation, for good stories to followers of that member.
i think this would be an issue if we kept the votes public, permanently, but we dont. what you see on the recent activity is a fraction of actually whats going on. there is no way to view historically the activity of a member.
if there are still concerns im happy to make this configurable, so an individual can hide their story votes. this should please catnip the control freak!
I don't seem to be able to get the local time to display correctly when viewing my profile, even after setting time zone information.
"I can resist everything except temptation." - Oscar Wilde
yep, i've been meaning to remove that timezone selection. its legacy stuff left over from the forum membership.
Jason, you really ran into a negative photo forum, eh? I'm proud to say we've not encountered those same problems here, although we've had thorough discussions about ratings before. Everyone has their own view about it and I can say there are no "groups" or cliques of voters I know of here. Nic and Gav took measures to try to control any voting abuses and the site is better for it.
Gav, showing every action a member takes just seems like a lot of clutter. I don't know if enough people care to see what Joe Cool did last week. That's my opinion.
