ottawa foodies

Hey folks! I'm introducing a new rating system... here are the highlights:

* Thumbs up/down for any comment or forum posting
* A comment gets greyed out when the thumbs down far outweigh the thumbs up
* You can't vote on your own comments.
* No more Inappropriate/Questionable labels -- the thumbs tell the story
* No more newbie/bronze/silver/gold badges or restrictions -- any registered user gets one vote per comment.

This fits much better with my original philosophy that every user gets one vote, and the numbers all work out in the end. It has worked out well with food/vendor ratings so it should work well with comments.

Now I'm watching for glitches! :-)

If the little thumbs are one above the other on the left rather than side-by-side on the right of the comment box, then your browser hasn't yet seen the updated stylesheet.

I'm not sure how to force it, aside from doing a SHIFT-Reload of the stylesheet: ottawafoodies.com

Thanks Mark!

Doesn't look like I have the new stylesheet: might it have something to do with me accessing everything from www.ottawafoodies.com rather than ottawafoodies.com? Mine are one above the other on the right :\

LOL... if they're on the right then you have the new stylesheet. If they're one above the other, then you probably aren't using Chrome/Safari/Firefox (what I tested with so far). I'll test with IE later today. If you're an Opera/Camino kind of person then you're probably used to sites that look a little funny. ;-)

[EDIT: It seems that, in addition to having to do a SHIFT-Reload on the stylesheet, you also need to do it on the web site itself (at least in Chrome).]

I like it.

I never used the inappropriate button, because I felt it was too heavy a hammer (and was oft abused by a few board members).

I do like the option of at least tagging comments from fly-by posters and those with obvious grudges.

Wonderful, I think that should make every one happy, even if I _can't_ lord it over the masses with my Gold badge.

Thumbs up already provided.

Oh no! I lost my gold medal-;)

I'm still on the fence about the thumbs up thumbs down rating system though. I was reading the "Interview with Mark Tjissen" thread and someone gave Woten's comment a thumbs down although I am sure his comment was tongue in cheek.

Pasta lover, if you think someone's comment got an undeserved thumbs-down then just give it a thumbs up to offset! That way they'll feel better about it. :-)

[EDIT: People *will* get thumbs down undeservedly, and I may even do something like hide the first few down-thumbs. In the end, if someone is getting many thumbs down for many of their comments, they likely need to change how they represent themselves. Vice versa for thumbs up!]

Does this mean that all the reviews that were previously rated 'inappropriate' are now no longer flagged that way?

Pete-In-Ottawa, all "Inappropriate" posts have been grandfathered. The nobody user gets more than one vote, and is a placeholder for all those older cases.

Is Opera what's causing the overlay text on the thumbs?

I vaguely remember something having to be fixed in our profile pages with favestars and whatnot, to accommodate my perverse taste in browsers.

And, yeah, I don't know what I'll do without my gold medal. Maybe I'll just have to make myself feel superior to others by earning as many fan stars as possible.

Only 39? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.

I'm dizzy with my new found power. Bwahahahahaha.

I did quite like the old newbie/bronze/silver/gold user ratings though (not that I made it to the upper echelons). Might be fun/interesting/elitist to replace that blank space under the user name with some other metric. It could be based on total # posts, # fans, # ratings etc., but in keeping with the way vendors are scored, it could be the sum of thumbs up minus down cast per user (combined for buzz & forum posts).

If you are asking 'what would that achieve?', the answer is probably nothing. It's purely for fun. A popularity contest (which I won't win). Although it might might encourage people to be thoughtful of their negative posts.

Thumbs work fine on iPhone Safari by the way (after a reload).

Good change. But did you know in the Roman Colosseum thumbs up meant "kill him" and thumbs down meant "spare him"? We got it backwards !

Hey, but now I'm having trouble navigating back using the back button on the browser (I'm using Chrome on ubnutu).

I think this is a great addition to the review section but seems out of place in the forum where commenting takes on a more casual nature. I think it's a bad idea here.

Also, in terms of real estate, would it be possible to put the thumbs up and down icons on the same line?

Thanks for your hard work Mark! Have to balance out my comment so it doesn't get a negative vote. ;)

ollie, the forums may be more casual, but I believe there is a benefit in promoting high quality contributions and a respectful tone here.

The thumbs up and down *are* on the same line. The picture I've included here is how they should appear to you... if they do not, then it likely has something to do with your browser's caching of the CSS file. (See my second post in this topic for a potential fix.)

Cheers!

At first my thumbs were over by the avatars (pictures of users) and one on top the other. I had to "shift-reload" the page, and even that did not fix it. But I followed the link that FF provided about to the new CSS, and once I clicked on it and then did a "shift-reload", all was well.

This seems like a good system. I see we have lost some regulars (like Food & Think). I look forward to this new way. Tx FF for all your work. I only check in every week or 2 but I do enjoy the rating systems. Hope this all works out for the best.

i really love the thumbs up/down feature. good job :D

The only problem is that any one character word at the beginning of the first sentence seems to be split up for me. The "I" starts on the same line ner the top right of the avatar, but then the rest of the sentence follpws two lines lower. Cait's post is a beautiful example of this.

That does not happen for me Jagash. Sounds like you have to shift-reload something. What browser and OS versions are you running?

Posts that begin with a one character word appears on my screen as Jagash describes. Shift-reload doesn't work. I am using Internet Explorerer.

Internet explorer is my only option at work, so it might be the problem. It often is.

This will probably be a good system but I had long hoped that I would rise to gold status. I guess will remain silver for life now. ;-)

The statistics related to Bronze/Silver/Gold are still being tracked as before, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of bringing them back sometime... :-)

But we need something more than just Gold - make it go up to 11!!!

Platinum memberships are not yet available for purchase. ;-P

Back on topic, I have to say that the rating system appears to be wonderfully effective so far. Democracy rocks when the voters are awesome. :)

I really like the new rating system. Are people allowed to vote on their own buzz/forum posts? Just in case I have to rescue something grayed out, natch ;)

No, you can't vote on your own stuff. :-)

Heck, I didn't even build in a mechanism to allow an administrator to mess around with votes! Benevolent dictatorships are the best but they can be a lot of work for the dictator. Democracies spread the labour around nicely.

Note to self :

Be careful who you thumb, especialy FF ... The Dictator/Administrator can read who did the thumbing.

Cap'n - You might want to wear one of these: en.wikipedia.org
;)

Haha... Rest assured that I disrespect those who abuse power. I was actually a little disappointed that there were no thumbs down for my announcement of the new system. Democracies are rarely unanimous!

[Edit: One thumb down now. That's better!]

There you go, I'll be the turd in the punchbowl. I like 'metacommenting' where you can comment on comments, generating more conversational/social content kinda like the Gizmodo commenting system. The 'metacomments' in said system are hidden, keeping the visual clutter down.

Yeah, I like the idea of commenting on comments too. And now that I've figured out the dynamic AJAXy stuff required for the thumb rating system, a usable implementation becomes a whole lot more feasible...

a (figurative) thumbs-up echo on Chi's idea of a threaded meta-commentary approach. I rarely post on Restaurant Thing, but i appreciate the "low-tech" approach its taken to sidelining the meta-commentary out of the direct "review" stream. So, i can only imagine an Ajax-driven method would be even more effective and aesthetically streamlined. Or, perhaps even a "simpler" collapsible divs method (as you've already implemented in other sections of the site)?

On the thumbs up/down feature, not to channel the spirit of Pej, but one of the ideas he posted a while ago seemed prescient and resonates with my perspective on the thumbs here - why not link back to the people who voted? Might bring a bit of accountability back into the "democracy"?

anyway, while i'm not a huge fan of the feature itself, i do appreciate the spirit of our benevolent technocrat.

I second that idea Itchy Feet and yes Chimimi's idea for more comments and I did search back and agree that Pej's comment for accountability are great. Just like social networks Facebook, tumblr etc.. likes and flags show exactly who did them. Accountability is always good for business and hope people stand behind their votes rather than hide behind being anonymous or even fake users. But I like Fresh Foodie's hard work and we should appreciate his ongoing efforts.

XOXOX KC