An idea for the new vb.org - mod ratings not anonymous

[BirdOPrey5]

I think it should be considered for the big upgrade to vbulletin.org coming next year that going forward all ratings of mods/articles are public with who voted and what they voted for. When viewing someone's profile you should be able to see all the votes they gave- we shouldn't let people who consistently give low ratings for no reason the anonymity to hide as they now have.

I know when I rate a mod I'm willing to stand behind my rating- others should too.

Just food for thought. :D

Also you should be able to change your vote.

[Paul M]

Sorry but I disagree. This would simply discourage rating, and cause arguments.

[Mark.B]

I agree with Paul. There'd be forum riots. It'd be entertaining, but not very good for community cohesion. Or non-violence pacts for that matter.

[BirdOPrey5]

I agree with Paul. There'd be forum riots. It'd be entertaining, but not very good for community cohesion. Or non-violence pacts for that matter.

What's not good for community cohesion is PO'ed coders because some anonymous user goes and rates all his or her mods 1 or 2 stars one night for some unknown reason.

[Alfa1]

But you assume that someone did, while its also possible that a number of people rated them low. So if your assumption would be wrong, then what does that make your suggestion?

I think any abuse of the system would be leveled out if the system is used by enough people. The thread rating system is outdated and does not stimulate users to rate. A 1 click jquery rating stars function works much better:
http://www.fyneworks.com/jquery/star-rating/

[BirdOPrey5]

If I could see a mod was consistently getting low ratings I'd know for sure the problem was with the mod and not 1 user. But when there are 5 ratings and an average of 4.2 stars and yesterday it was 4 ratings with an average of 5 stars you don't need to be a math wizard to know what person 5 rated it.

Even if the username of the voter was kept secret and I could see I had 4 "5-star" reviews and 1 "1-star" review it would tell me more than the system does now.

Amazon has probably the biggest most trusted rating community on the web and they don't allow anonymous ratings... Just something to think about. I knew this wouldn't be a popular idea...

[Boofo]

As much as this hurts to say, I have to agree with Paul on this one. It would encourage chaos and voting would be a thing of the past.

[vbenhancer]

ratings === overbloated

drop it completely, that's all... use a "Like" button for facebook, people will share their findings with their friends... THAT will bring people here.

internal ratings are pointless if they bring not more trafic on the site.

[Alfa1]

Like buttons are great. Especially if I can turn them off. :D

[Lynne]

I have absolutely no idea what any of my mods have been rated. And, I've never looked at any ratings on any other mods. I guess I'm just strange. :/

[kh99]

... use a "Like" button for facebook, people will share their findings with their friends... THAT will bring people here.

...to find out that they can't see anything if they're unlicensed. :) That may be a good idea for most other sites but I don't think it's needed for this one.

I agree that you should just ignore ratings on your mods, I think people are just happy to actually find something that might do what they want, I doubt they will worry about 4 vs 5 stars. (And BOP5, I thought you might have been talking about yourself, but a quick look shows that you still have quite a few 5 star averages).

If it were a problem then one possibility might be to use a better algorithm other than just the average of the votes, but I doubt anyone cares enough to bother.

[vbenhancer]

...to find out that they can't see anything if they're unlicensed. :)

unlicensed persons who visit here will be aware that vBulletin exists... this has an impact on sales. if they find the software interesting, they may be also willing to purchase it and come back to use the products that are released here.

[borbole]

I have absolutely no idea what any of my mods have been rated. And, I've never looked at any ratings on any other mods. I guess I'm just strange. :/

Same thing here as well. I haven''t bothered to check the rating on my mods too. Personally I do not see what all the fuss is about.

[Digital Jedi]

Our mods have ratings?

[Paul M]

Indeed they do.

[punchbowl]

I'd drop ratings altogether. The amount of times I've seen fine mods badly rated (obviously by cranks/competitors) makes the whole thing a farce. Downloads/installs is a far better indicator.

[Alfa1]

True. Ratings say very little, without specifying what exactly is rated. I'll bet that quite a few people rate mods that they have not installed yet, but simply (dis)like the idea.

[Digital Jedi]

Or we could be looking at the ratings thing wrong altogether. I once rated a guy's song on another website four stars because I thought it was good. He complained because I didn't explain why I "rated it down". See, people at this particular website seemed to think even if you remotely liked a song, anything less than five stars was a poor rating. I don't get that. That makes the whole purpose of having stars meaningless. Of course the rating will go down the more people rate it. Which would you prefer, 100 ratings that average three stars, or one guy who gave it five? I mean, if we're going to rate like that, we might as well just have a Like button instead, because we're not even paying attention to the overall averages. (Hence the reason why nobody on Facebook is ever going to get a Dislike button. No matter how much they complain.)

[Boofo]

True. Ratings say very little, without specifying what exactly is rated. I'll bet that quite a few people rate mods that they have not installed yet, but simply (dis)like the idea.

Or (dis)like the author, for whatever reason.

[Digital Jedi]

I think if you know how to read ratings, you know how to account for users who are just rating it to bash for no reason. Kind of like eBay. A user can have 800 positive ratings, but there's always those three to four people who think he's the Commerce Antichrist because their plate shipped broken or they were sent the wrong color Furbie.

[Paul M]

Ratings are nice to have, but I doubt anyone actually uses them to determine if they will install something.

[Alfa1]

I researched the international meaning of rating stars, to determine optimal setup for a reviews section on my website.

It turned out that people in different countries give very different meaning to star ratings. Its a cultural difference. In general, people from countries who are used to a 10 point rating system, will only give 5 stars for something that is excellent/can't get much better, while people who are from countries used to 5 point ratings will give 5 stars to anything decent. And there are many other variables.

People from Europe give much lower ratings than people from the USA. Simply because they are used to different meanings.

Stars really mean nothing in an international context. Unless you connect the stars to exact meanings.
Or (dis)like the author, for whatever reason.
Undoubtedly
Ratings are nice to have, but I doubt anyone actually uses them to determine if they will install something.
True. I only mind the star ratings, if there have been a substantial number of ratings and its still 2 stars or lower. That gives an indication that something may be off and is often reflected by posts in the modification thread.

[OldSchoolDSL]

First thing I did to my community

Turned the rating system OFF.

All it did was cause drama and give trolls something new to play with. Also I noticed the site load was so much faster with it OFF (less to query).

[Digital Jedi]

I researched the international meaning of rating stars, to determine optimal setup for a reviews section on my website.

It turned out that people in different countries give very different meaning to star ratings. Its a cultural difference. In general, people from countries who are used to a 10 point rating system, will only give 5 stars for something that is excellent/can't get much better, while people who are from countries used to 5 point ratings will give 5 stars to anything decent. And there are many other variables.

People from Europe give much lower ratings than people from the USA. Simply because they are used to different meanings.

Stars really mean nothing in an international context. Unless you connect the stars to exact meanings.

Undoubtedly

True. I only mind the star ratings, if there have been a substantial number of ratings and its still 2 stars or lower. That gives an indication that something may be off and is often reflected by posts in the modification thread.
And I find that kind of strange, considering we've used the five star rating system in the US for decades. Maybe more. We use five star ratings for the quality rating on hotels and restaurants. Star Search (the 1980's American Idol) used a five star rating to rate performers. Heck, even the rating system here says "Excellent, Good, Average, Bad, Terrible" next to the stars they represent. I don't get why it I run into such lack of clarity wherever I see this system used, internationally or otherwise.

[Alfa1]

Strange it is indeed. I checked the ratings of a large pool of members and compared them. Contacted members and asked for feedback. Americans where consistently giving higher ratings than Europeans. Even in situations where they agreed on the stores they rated. Even adding the word 'excellent' to the 5th star or Terrible' to the first star was not enough. I had to add 'cant get any better than this' or 'can't get worse than this' to these, before it did the trick.

I can't explain it either. Must be a cultural thing.

[Digital Jedi]

Strange it is indeed. I checked the ratings of a large pool of members and compared them. Contacted members and asked for feedback. Americans where consistently giving higher ratings than Europeans. Even in situations where they agreed on the stores they rated. Even adding the word 'excellent' to the 5th star or Terrible' to the first star was not enough. I had to add 'cant get any better than this' or 'can't get worse than this' to these, before it did the trick.

I can't explain it either. Must be a cultural thing.
I always laugh at the Android Market or Facebook App reviews when people say "I gave it one star, but I wish I could have rated it no stars...". Uh, okay folks. I hate to be the one to tell you...

[BirdOPrey5]

I change my request... instead of 5 stars we should be able to rate from 1 to 11 stars. Good mods can get 8 or 9 stars, excellent mods 10 stars, and beyond exceptional (like AME) can get 11 stars.

"It goes to 11"

[Boofo]

I change my request... instead of 5 stars we should be able to rate from 1 to 11 stars. Good mods can get 8 or 9 stars, excellent mods 10 stars, and beyond exceptional (like AME) can get 11 stars.

"It goes to 11"

It's bad enough at 5, let alone doubling it.

[BirdOPrey5]

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2010/12/4.jpg

[Dismounted]

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2010/12/1.png

http://xkcd.com/670/