Rating Comments
What are comment ratings?
Comment ratings are a way to encourage and show appreciation to people who contribute to a respectful atmosphere and an interesting discussion. Comment ratings also help protect the site against abuse.
We would really appreciate your help rating comments. For some of us the rating feedback becomes payment for the time-consuming work of writing good contributions. It's a valuable payment because it helps us learn to write better, a useful skill.
Also, discussion sites are always under attack by people who view disrupting or destroying discussion sites as a game. If there are many people rating comments the game becomes ineffectual and attackers get bored, so the forum is protected.
How should I rate people's comments?
We rate by attitude and content. The attitude is the most important factor, as it tends to spread and affect everyone. Choose among these alternatives for attitude:
- Something extra: Listening well and responding very constructively, or making a big effort to contribute, or unusually engaged, helpful, patient etc. -- Contributing something extra to a respectful atmosphere and an interesting discussion.
- Belongs on our forum: The comment isn't special, but it's fine, it belongs on our forum and is appreciated.
- You can do better: Not listening, letting off steam, irritated, whining, indifferent, insincere, zero effort, etc. -- Detracting from a respectful atmosphere and an interesting discussion.
- Hide: Destructive, harassing, bullying, aggressive, deceitful etc. -- Provoking escalating aggression; or otherwise destroying atmosphere or discussion unless constrained; or hurting or intimidating people; etc. This is a vote to hide the comment from public view.
You decide where to draw the line between the different alternatives.
The next step is to rate by content:
- Something extra: Very good explanation, very good arguments, very interesting information, very funny etc. -- Contributing something extra to an interesting, insightful discussion.
- Belongs on our forum: The comment isn't special, but it's fine, it belongs on our forum and is appreciated.
- You can do better: False information, improbable claims without proof, irrelevant arguments, tedious rants, failed humour etc. -- Detracting from an interesting, insightful discussion.
- Hide: Spam, copyright infringement, or any other contents that can destroy the site unless we hide them.
If you chose Hide in any of these two lists, ignore the other list, just click Hide in the rating selector.
That's all. You can now choose among the available alternatives in the rating selector:
- Something extra! -- Both attitude and contents.
- Something extra! -- Either attitude or contents.
- Belongs in our forum, appreciated, thanks.
- You can do better! -- Either attitude or contents.
- You can do better! -- Both attitude and contents.
- Does not belong in our forum.
- Hide.
Choose Does not belong in our forum instead of Hide if the comment writer is a newcomer to our site or if you don't have Hide in your rating selector. Details below.
What more do the alternatives mean?
Belongs in our forum can mean "Thank you for contributing", "Thank you for the information", "I have seen your comment" etc.
Hide is a vote to hide the comment from public view. The options above Does not belong in our forum are votes to display the comment in public view.
Only Trusted Users can vote Hide. When a comment is hidden, only Trusted Users can see it and vote to show it.
When a comment is hidden, its comments are also hidden, and their comments, etc.
How should I rate special cases?
Really good contents usually get Something extra not only for contents but also for attitude, because good writing takes a lot of work, and working hard to contribute shows great attitude.
However, if great contents are marred by irritation, accusations etc, this takes precedence and gets You can do better (or even Hide if it gets abusive etc.), since attitude is more important than contents.
Newcomers who misbehave badly should normally get Does not belong in our forum rather than Hide on their first few comments, because we* try to explain our system to them. If we hide the comment they can't see our reply. However, do hide the comment if it's too disruptive or abusive, if there are too many such comments, or if nobody has time to explain.
(Don't get angry if newcomers keep posting their texts again and again when we hide them. They may not know why their comments keep disappearing. In time they're likely to ask, probably less abusive, and we can explain.)
Please do not "soften the blow" by giving a higher rating than deserved. That would confuse people who use ratings for guidance, and it would weaken the reward for good contributions. Either give a correct rating or don't rate at all. If you wish to soften the blow, please do it in a helpful, explanatory reply.
Even a mildly bad comment can get hidden. This happens if it contributes to harassment, or if it's a reply to bad behavior and (perhaps unwittingly!) contributes to escalating aggression. The latter is sometimes unfair, but necessary to protect the site, so please be very careful when replying to bad behavior.
Abusive anger directed at the administration of The World Forum is normally not hidden, but we* may copy it to Site Talk and hide the original. Then we arrange links in both directions to show what we did. We hide without copying if the comment contains spam, is repetitive, is excessively abusive, contains no real message, etc., or if nobody has time to copy.
Is it okay to rate all comments?
Don't rate the comments of people who are abusive toward you or upset you. Leave their rating to others. Diverting and spreading the attention of an abuser lessens the risk of escalating aggression. If nobody downrates and you think it should be done, you can mention it in a comment in Site Talk as explained here. Avoid mentioning what happened, since that might trigger escalation. Just say "Please rate this", linking to or describing where the problem occurred.
Some discussion sites have rules saying that you shouldn't rate comments under your own stories or comments that you reply to. Such ratings are fine here at The World Forum. We have the above rule instead.
How do I use the rating selector and button?
You don't have to click the rating button every time you rate a comment. You can set all the ratings you want on a page, and at the end send all in one go, by clicking any rating button.
If you have rated a comment and later change your mind, change the value and click a rating button again. You can only change the value, you can't make the comment unrated.
On some browsers, if you select a rating and then turn the mouse wheel, this will change your setting. If your browser has this problem, make it a habit to always click just outside the selector immediately after selecting a rating.
Each comment receives a score that is the average of all the ratings on that comment. You'll find this score just after the comment title, in the form (score / number of ratings). Click there to see a list of all the ratings for that comment.
Where can we discuss ratings and responses given to newcomers?
When you want to discuss the ratings on a comment or the responses given to newcomers, please do it at Site Talk, unless it's just some simple help to newcomers or some other simple mention or very short discussion. Any long discussion about this should normally occur in Site Talk (or in a blog if the blog owner allows it).
However, don't create a special Site Talk story about a specific case, because people who don't know that Site Talk is for minor stuff may get embarrassed finding an entire story discussing a single case. Instead make a comment below a Site Talk story called Discussions About Ratings etc., and link to that comment from the original place. If you don't see a Site Talk story with that title, create one.
How should I reply to bad behavior?
Please be very careful when you reply to bad behavior, because in such replies even a mildly bad comment can get hidden for contributing to escalating aggression. A good reply, however, will often be rewarded for helpful attitude.
Always keep in mind that the misbehaving person may be a child. a socially handicapped person, or somebody else who just can't figure out what's expected of him.
On a separate page you'll find some very useful advice on how to reply to bad behavior. Please read that carefully before replying.
How should I handle exceptions?
If you encounter situations where these recommendations don't work well, make exceptions. The decision is yours. The goal is more important than the rules: To encourage respectful, interesting, constructive discussions where people with widely different opinions pay heed to each other's reasonings and respond to them, rather than talk past each other or hurl abuse.
Thank you for helping us by rating comments.
What can the ratings on my comments tell me?
The ratings on your comments can be useful to you. If you want, they can help you learn how to be funnier, how to be more convincing, how to gain more respect etc. As you participate in different discussions, if you check the score (the average rating) of each comment you'll get interesting clues about what works well and what doesn't.
But don't worry too much about ratings. You don't need to get high ratings all the time. And don't ever be offended by a low rating. They do not indicate any contempt, annoyance etc. They're more like advice about what to work on. Some raters will be more severe the more they respect you! Then they expect more from you.
Ratings indicate, very roughly, how people have interpreted your words, what emotion and information your text conveyed to those particular persons. If a comment gets a lower rating than you had expected, probably your words didn't get across what you wanted to get across.
Ratings are somewhat random, so don't expect too much consistency or fairness. Take them with a hefty pinch of salt.
We hope you'll enjoy participating at The World Forum.
we* - Throughout this text, we means everyone who wishes to help. The asterisk in we* is a little reminder that if you feel like helping, we'll be grateful.
If you have questions or opinions about this subject, welcome to Site Talk, where we discuss such things.
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