Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

I mentioned this in my vanity thread (:D) but in the spirit of qgil's hot community discussion I decided this topic warranted its own thread.

I'd like to hear some feedback on why people are voting "thumbs down" on some Maemo articles/feeds. I am removing myself from the discussion and don't really care why my silly posts get voted down-- I'm more interested in why valuable posts are being treated so poorly.

Check the current page two of Planet Maemo for examples:

http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/?...g_index_page=2

------------------------------------------------------
Henri Bergius informs us about Midgard and receives 1 thumbs down for his efforts.

Gustavo Barbieri writes about netbooks and garners 3.

tko warns us about a problematic vendor and gets 5 negative points for his trouble (!!!)

Marius Gedminas tutors us on MS Word exports and is hit by 3 strikes.
------------------------------------------------------

Folks, I don't get this. I realize feedback can't all be sunshine and roses but I have focused here on examples that don't deserve it. Have trolls infiltrated the glossy halls of Planet Maemo? Am I seeing jealousy? Spite? Sociopathy? What???

I really hope someone leaving those bad marks can explain... maybe I'm just missing something...

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

I guess it could be a manifestation of 'What would I like to see as part of this feed about Maemo'. Do I want to see warnings about package companies in UK? No. Do I want to see information about BBC Radio 3 on tablet, Community updates, Interview with GeneralAntilles? Yes. Especially since planet ends up on the front page of maemo.org, it is very important to keep the feed relevant.

Example - Facebook: A lot of crap in the news feed, some things you are interested in, some things you are not. You can regulate this through "Show me more of this" "Show me less of this" - and it's very useful to avoid seeing what plants your childhood classmate has planted in their virtual sandbox..

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

(Your message box is full Texrat.)

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Thanks Stskeeps, that's good feedback and hopefully helpful.

From your response I get the idea that the "thumbs up - thumbs down" voting is too simplistic. What looks like abuse may be disinterest.

However, I would counter that disinterest should be represented by no vote at all, especially given the binary nature of the feedback system *.

Going forward, I wonder if we could move Maemo to a better richer post ranking system...

EDIT: I'd like to see something like Youtube's system, where you have both a multi-star rating combined with a Favorites setting.

*EDIT: I was wrong. The system is NOT binary, but trinary. The Null state is still a state. Recognizing that validates my original complaint that the "thumbs down" appears to be abused.

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Stskeeps has it.

It's partially about what people want to see more or less of (e.g., on-topic stuff about Maemo is desirable, random stuff about summer cabins, postal carriers, or even other Linux distros is not) and partially about opinion (e.g., ThoughtFix's post about a more Canola-like UI is on-topic, but many people don't like the idea, so thumb it down).

Arguably, some of the first stems from ignorance (people may not realize Midgard is what runs maemo.org, or that GUPnP is an important part of Fremantle), and some of the second is sometimes more vindictive than anything else.

People will heart or thumb what they will for the reasons they choose, which is why we don't leave it up to just one person. ;) In the end, interesting, on-topic stuff goes to the front page, off-topic and uninteresting stuff doesn't.

So, make Planet more fair, don't forget to rate the articles! ;)

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

You bring up another good point GA: part of the problem as I see it is that there are far more views than votes. I hate to bring up my own examples but they're all I have data for: based on the click-throughs to my blog from feeds on Planet Maemo I see over 200 views for one article but only a handful of votes. It's hard to gage anything with a ratio like that-- almost zero statistical significance.

So, until Maemo gets a better system, I'll echo your advice: vote people! One way or another.

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Yes, but disinterest combined with scarcity (of front-page space) requires opposition. So I understand why people would thumb down those articles.

I agree that perhaps a more expressive system would work better.

/\ serious
\/ humor

We need a three-option system:

• http://static.maemo.org/net.nemein.f...s/favorite.png Favorite
  • Good, relevant stuff
• http://static.maemo.org/net.nemein.favourites/bury.png Thumbs down
  • Junk
• :mad: Get off my lawn!
  • Stuff I don't mind, but it doesn't belong here

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

As much as you may be joking about the system, I like it! :D

But, yeah, when I posted this I wasn't thinking about the filtering aspect, just the negativity ascribed to articles that have no malicious or otherwise time-wasting intent. Given that, I strongly believe a different system is called for.

EDIT: but back to disinterest-- doesn't no votes at all bump articles down below those with positive votes? It certainly should, which solves the page real estate problem without the perceived antagonism of a thumbs down.

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

That reminds me, we should see abou a prettier set of smilies for Talk. The artifacting around the edges of these continually grates on my nerves. ;)

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

https://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Improving_Planet_ratings

Hop to it!

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Indeed. I wonder if IE's PNG support is where it ought to be yet? (If not, can't we just assume users don't use IE?)

But even if they stay as .gifs, antialiasing against the dark background from the N810v2/Minimalist themes would be much less obtrusive against Classic than vice versa...

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

O boy, a project! :D Just the thing an unemployed IM guy needs.

However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the current system is already essentially doing what Benson proposed:

Heart: get this on the front page!
No votes: Eh.
Thumbs down: completely inappropriate

So... can anyone answer if the prioritizing/filter is currently working that way? If so, maybe this is more of an educational opportunity...

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

The thumbs are bit... they're very judgemental, and with only 2 options to judge with...

Perhaps

:) <- Like (maybe with a thumb up with it)
:( <- Don't like
:| is the smiley for indifference. However, 2 hands in air, like "i don't know" might be better option.

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

By default, indifference is a null. That's why I'm pedantic about the no vote option (which means we really do have three states, so I was wrong)...

Oh, and the inbox is cleared. :D

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Shout out to GA:

A cursory examination of Planet Maemo and the Maemo news page appears to bear out my suspicions: a neutral rating (no votes at all) is enough to keep an article off of the main page (as long as there are articles with hearts, but then, if there were none at all the point is moot anyway). I wanted to confirm that date/Time was not a prominently contributing factor and a post by Thoughtfix did confirm it.

So for now I would like to blog next about a best practice where voting is concerned, but I don't have enough info on the Maemo system's mechanics to say for sure that I'm correct. So... are you or someone you know able to provide that verification?

My goal here is to let people know this is actually a 3 state system and not just binary as I mistakenly said previously (I should have known better... I blame a headache).

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

I guess we only need an option for indifference if we want to count how many are indifferent to each post.

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

The neutral option records the numbers. However, if you are looking for metrics, that's a separate issue... but it's as easy to count nulls as it is values. I have not seen a visible stats reporting page for Maemo news but it would be nice to have!

And measuring indifference could be simple:

Total views - (hearts + thumbs downs)

However, I am not sure if the Maemo system is counting click-throughs in order to get the view count. Also, I see that some blogs are reproduced in their entirety (no click-through needed) whereas others are represented solely by excerpts (thus requiring a click-through).

...

gawd, I need a job...

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Probably it would be enough (or even better) to only have an option to vote interesting/relevant posts up.

If it's true that the whole rating system is only meant to help a machine decide what's relevant and what's not (in order to make it visible on the front page or base karma calculations on the numbe rof relevant posts...), telling the machine that a post is relevant should be all that's needed.
I don't see the need for "not relevant" if "not voting" serves the same purpose much easier.

The downside of the current system (heart/thumbs down) is that with controversial posts, it makes people vote for or against the opinion expressed by the author rather than saying anything about how relevant it is for the community.


Example:
I have to admit I could never ever get myself to voting positively for a posting that suggests jPhone-like changes to the Maemo-UI; if I find somebody voted this down before, I will happily click 'thumbs down', too, only to express my negative feelings. The more votes there are in general, the more people will feel this is some kind of poll and they want to express their opinion, too.
Votes shouldn't be about opinions, though, and they certainly aren't polls. In this example, even if I still don't vote for this post, others will and thereby mark it as relevant (which it is, not matter what I think about it).

Re: Planet Maemo ratings: why the hate?
 

Benny that was very useful, thanks.