Down Rating

Post by Daskies

(I have no idea where this best fits, so feel free to move it.)

What's with people that down-rate everything they see? I haven't made many comments, but of my comments, some have a high rating that I didn't think would get it, and others the opposite. For example, this. I was replying to someone posting math on the two. In a day he was rated down like 10 times and I found myself rated up 1. Not only that, but now it's negative and hidden. I just don't understand it. It's a pretty clear situation where people read my comment and said "yes, he's right" and used that to rate someone else down, but didn't click that little button to rate me back up.

Now obviously this isn't only a problem I have. I've seen quite a few comments that are very good get rated down for no reason. I'm not sure if people don't understand that they actually need to rate up good comments to get them to stay, or if a bunch of people just like rating down comments for fun.

My friend posted an article on Wikipedia (the real one). The article was 100% factual, and well formatted. Within 10minutes it had the "this article may not live up to our standards" tag, and within an hour it was deleted. This means that someone just sits there refreshing the "new articles" page and tried to police them for fun.
Now, obviously, this isn't the exact same situation, but they remind me of each other. Why would someone take time out of their day to destroy good information?

I suppose this is more of a rant than anything else, and I know very little can be done by staff. I guess my hope is that maybe a couple people read this and think "yeah, I should start rating up good comments more." I know I'm guilty of reading something helpful and not rating it, but I've been doing my best recently.

Sorry that's it long, and sorry if this isn't the place.
Have a good day all.

Post by hordy

I know what you are saying, I'm noticing this worrying trends myself too.

One reason wowhead became the favouriate wow site for many of us, over thottbot, was that the comments here were much more insightful than those at thottbot. But as wowhead gains its popularity and increasing number of readers, the average quality of readers also feels like deteriorating.....

If it only takes 2 less knowledgeable readers (I tried to avoid the word n00b here..) to give a -1 rating to a comment and hence make it hidden, it is very easy to have some good posts destroyed that way, unfortunately...

I believe that this is something that both wowhead moderators and users should pay attention to.....

Post by NeoBlackheart

Move this to the suggestions forum and turn it into anything over 200 characters can't be downrated. because yes I know I have posted a few.

One was about the Albino drake. They were talking about how to get him but no one said anything about the white chocobo.(windstrider). I posted that and they downrated it like 15 points.

Post by Blackboy0

Yes, this is really annoying me lol. I have like... 180 Comments out there, but alot of them are Down-Rated, and I have no idea why. All the ones that're Downrated (except for like... 2) actually have meaning/reference to the thing it's Posted on.

Once, for the quest Lupus Pupus, I said "watchout for the annoying Robots and Wolves, they can stop ye" and it got Downrated -3, like wtf?

Post by 150366

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Daskies

Move this to the suggestions forum and turn it into anything over 200 characters can't be downrated. because yes I know I have posted a few..
I'm not sure that's the best idea since you could just copy-paste "this comment sucks" until you hit the 200 character limit.

Perhaps make it so it take more down-rankings to hide something. If something should be hidden more than 2 people will let you know.
Also a notice that says "remember to rate up good comments" above the comment list.

Post by 17744

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Corveroth

People should remember that just because a comment is correct does not necessarily make it useful.

Quoted for truth. And since there's this worrying trend of people not understanding that correctness does not imply usefulness, I'll even make it my sig.

Oh, and:
Perhaps make it so it take more down-rankings to hide something. If something should be hidden more than 2 people will let you know.

Really? You think so? I would wager that a relatively miniscule portion of Wowhead users are registered and logged in at any given time. What are the chances that someone is going to see a comment, care enough to rate it, be registered, and be logged in? Hardly worth it to bother with those last two just to downrate/uprate one comment; therefore, the overwhelming majority of ratings come from that tiny portion of users that are already registered and constantly logged in. Apply a second selection effect based on the popularity of the page in question... you might be lucky to get even a single hit on that page, daily!

Post by Tyrsenus

Overall, I think the comment system works great and has managed to hold up while the community has grown rapidly.

I've found that comment rating has a lot to do with basic principles of web design & usability. People tend to scan web pages, not read them word for word. That being said, here's a few tips on commenting:

Keep it concise.
Use lists or bullets.
Use formatting. Important things should be bold or underlined, but don't go overboard.
If you have a lot of details in your comment (such as theorycrafting math), consider using the small font size.

Don't Make Me Think is an excellent book on the subject of web usability if you're interested. And judging by Wowhead's design, I would suspect that Skosiris has read it once or twice. :)

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