You're imagining kind of a worst-case scenario. Usually the impact of
ratings systems is a little more subtle. Facebook gives you the ability to
upvote (but not downvote) posts. Posts with a lot of upvotes are more
likely to show up on your news feed, but if you actually go to the forum
where that post was listed, you can read everything that has been posted.
Stack Exchange is a different type of best, because it's really tailored to
Questions and Answers, but when you go to a page, answers with a lot of
votes are at the top, as is whichever post was marked by the originator of
the question as most useful. If you keep scrolling down the page you can
find more and more answers. Usually the top 3 or 4 have useful information
and then it trails off.
Amazon keeps all the reviews for a particular product, but the first page
is always the ones that the most people said "this was helpful."
Done correctly, it can make information more accessible. I completely
skipped the recent "Dances for Weddings" thread, because it's not something
I'm really doing now, so I have no real expertise or need for this
information. However, if I'd been able to wait a couple of days and then
just read the 3 most helpful comments in that thread, I probably would
have.
On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 3:06 PM, Chip Hedler <CHedler(a)rumney.org> wrote:
The reason I didn't like the idea is because
I'm against voting, which I
think would prejudice readers toward a post based on its author as opposed
to considering the content of the post. The best way to honor respected
folks in an open forum is simply to feel respect toward them(and reply if
you feel so moved), not to make their soapboxes taller than everyone
else's. I don't want to filter out a voice just because it's seldom heard
and therefore slower to gather points. If the less-voted-for get filtered
out, how would anyone besides the favored few ever be able to gain votes?
Chip Hedler
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 08:40:52 -0500
From: Lindsay Morris <lindsay(a)tsmworks.com>
To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Forum vs email list?
Message-ID:
<
CAGNhc2Lm5iMA_fX3o9_2KZ2mJXFiVWdGb-G-0njNGFia02Fd6g(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Today its 29 hate-the-idea, 7 like-it, 7 not sure. I'll let it go.
Really, all I wanted was a way we could vote people up, so we could give
more weight to the opinions of the especially respected folks here (and
filter the email flood down to just those people).
I wonder if there's any other way to do that?
--------------------
Lindsay Morris
CEO, TSMworks
Tel. 1-859-539-9900
lindsay(a)tsmworks.com
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