Abusive Ratings

[apotheosis]

Could you possibly appoint a moderator (someone who frequents the site) who can delete abusive ratings? This includes ratings that are specifically designed to insult the author without actually taking the story into consideration and ratings that are incredible low compared to the average rating without any explanation simply as a way to discredit the authors work.

I know many of the hardest working authors here have been the victims of abusive ratings and this is not what these ratings were designed for. Clearing all the ratings is not a viable option because that may eliminate upwards of 20 or 30 legitimate ratings.

[Vesnic]

I see what gojo did to HoID and I agree it's awful. However, let's keep in mind that many of us write and relish really abusive ratings (albeit for stories that deserve it). I don't think there should be any limit to the amount of abuse heaped on, but this does point once again to the need for a weighted rating system. Apoth, perhaps you could figure out a formula for determining weighted ratings and submit it to Sev. Maybe I'm not remembering, but as far as I can recall, we've all done a fair amount of bitching about this but no one's actually put forth a solid solution yet.

[End Master]

A weighted system really still seems too complex for this place, not to mention we've got "elite members" that routinely give abusive ratings more often than several of the more reasonable lurkers. Not to mention all those lurkers/noobs/etc that are giving your stories 10s rather than 1s would end up never amounting to a whole hell of a lot since you know most people rating aren't even writing stories and just pop in every now and then. It works both ways you see.

I'd rather just put up with the occasional idiot, and if your story is good enough, you'll eventually be vindicated by other giving you good ratings.

Personally I can tolerate abusive ratings, it's usually the stupid comments that accompany such ratings that you can't actually respond to directly, that are more annoying. Sure you can PM the fucktard or "revenge rate" but the fact still remains that you've got an idiotic comment on your story section.

Given that it's YOUR story, you should at least be able to slam detractors all you want on it. You've still got the 1s and 2s, but at least you can defend your crappy story with verbal abuse.

Not to sing a praise of our hated enemies CYS, but they've got a good option for that with their rating and comment system. You can respond back to comments. Worth1000 allows you to do it too.

EDIT: Not to say Apoth's idea is a bad one, but you'd be bound to get some complaints of mod abuse and the slight possibility of mod "corruption".

[apotheosis]

There are some ratings that are obviously abusive. If they give a 1 and no comment or give a 1 and just put up profanity and insults, the rating should be deleted. I think complaining would be minimal if we had a good moderator. It would have to be someone who is on the site a lot. End, DEP, myself, Ves, or Usoki are all good candidates.

[Usoki]

Hmmm...yes, but unless you wanted to have a "flag for moderation" command, it would also have to be someone who's constantly looking at stories and checking out new ratings. Without such a command, the candidate list goes down to you, End, or DEP.

[apotheosis]

It could just be by PM request.

[Locke]

I believe Worth1000 had a decent rating system. Perhaps there could be some sort "flag as abuse" button to alert a moderator or automatically remove the comment when flagged a certain number of times by unique users (necessarily logged in users, not different IP addresses). In that way a truly abusive comment would be taken care of in short order via one method or another. As someone who doesn't care much what ratings or comments a story garners (my own included), it's really not an urgent matter to me, but as some care a great deal for that validation these are my thoughts.

[Usoki]

That's actually an interesting point...we wouldn't even need a moderator in that case- we just need a certain number of people to flag it... Except, maybe the owner of the story has to approve of the flagged comment getting removed? Let's say, we get 10 people who are like drums to flag an awesome rating of DEPs solely because it has the word 'fuck' in it. DEP does good ratings, and the number's probably accurate. But if it gets removed, then that story has just lost an accurate rating- probably dropping its score- because of its content, not whether or not it was accurate.

So, in other words...it takes a bunch of people to remove a rating, but the owner has to agree that he wants it removed before it actually happens.

[apotheosis]

I think a moderator would be simplest. This site isn't that active or that big where it would be an issue.

[donteatpoop]

While the weighted system would be ideal (and has been submitted twice), a moderator would be the bast alternate solution. If this site were larger and had more people who would bother to hit the flag button, I could see where it might be removed. But with traffic here, it'll be years before a comment gets flagged. Someone sends a message to the mod, mod wieghs it out, maybe brings it to the infinite council, and decides whether it should stand or not.

[apotheosis]

We could also use infinite council as a way to weight ratings.... sort of...

Like, lets say DEP gets a 1 on one of his best stories. He would post it in an infinite-counil thread, the other members of the infinite-council would decide if this rating needs to be offset because it was from some newbie who wrote no reason for his rating what so ever and never contributed to the site... if we all agreed then infinite-council (the account) would rate the story a 10 to compensate.

[Nappi]

We could also use infinite council as a way to weight ratings.... sort of...

Like, lets say DEP gets a 1 on one of his best stories. He would post it in an infinite-counil thread, the other members of the infinite-council would decide if this rating needs to be offset because it was from some newbie who wrote no reason for his rating what so ever and never contributed to the site... if we all agreed then infinite-council (the account) would rate the story a 10 to compensate.

would this moderator also adjust the ratings from people who give you a ten then describe all the story's shortcomings?I have read quite alot of stories and even rated a few,and though I havent "contributed" I feel my ratings are still as valid as the ones given by the old timers here who score a story a ten but dont give a comment or a reason why.Why dont you just take your fukkin lumps and move the fuk on you whiney ass little twit.You have started nearly every thread in this section with your pointless contests.You fuck heads go on and on with me in the old forum about the sanctities of the freedom of speech but yet here you all are debating the best way to water down the opinions of others so as to preserve what you think is your story's rightful position (a position based solely on the opinions of others,hence a rating system).The guy that rated your story gave a good reason why he rated it,he may be erroneous in his mindset but nonetheless its his fucking opinion and his right to post it you leftwing little fart.

[apotheosis]

No of course, this is only for ratings with no rationale whatsoever or completely irrelevant comments such as "Feeling Froggie?"

[End Master]

Lol.

Actually Michael’s ratings and comments were sort of expected during that little incident, so those particular ones I cheerfully laugh at. If anything they serve as a nice little monument of just how bad I (and Katie) got to him. “Furries” on the other hand was much more irritating. (Which is why I’d like an option to at least write responses on your own story to cuss people out for leaving idiotic comments)

However that’s exactly why I don’t want a weighted system here either. There are tons of lurkers whose opinions I would “value” a lot more than certain “vets”.

Ignoring the obvious and serial culprit here, let’s use another example: Cab.

Cab isn’t a “vocal” member but he’s been here a long time and written a few stories. He went and rated Drag’s From Darkness Story a 5. Which is pretty low considering that it’s a solidly written story. However perhaps Cab found it boring, dunno, he never gave a reason. But in any case that’s his right.

Take the same story and someone called Vash who just joined earlier this year gave the story a 10 and explained why he liked it. Again completely their right.

You start weighting the rating according to “seniority” and you’re going to end up with a lot more “unfairness” than you have now. Get a 10 by someone who just joined the site? Means nothing and barely registers. Get a 1 by someone who wrote a couple stories back in 2003 and hasn’t been here since until just recently? Your entire story rating starts going down the drain.

That’s why I say let all the ratings be equal. No, it’s not perfect, but I think it’s better for this site’s purposes.



As for the mod thing, like I said I can deal with abusive ratings since I’ve only gotten a few and most of the time, people (Active members and lurkers) are rating my stories high so it usually balances out anyway. So whether we had a mod or not wouldn’t make any difference to me. (Unless the mod turned out to be a complete dickhead.)

I can see where some ratings would piss some off, but I can see what Nappi’s talking about as well. So I’m fairly neutral on the rating mod issue, but I doubt if we’d have one anyway, since as far as I can tell Sev likes to have total control over this site and is reluctant to hand over a little power to anyone.


Locke, go give Apoth’s HOID story a high rating and some praising comments, he’s probably just sick of looking at the 1 on the top of his comments list. (Yes, Apoth I sympathize and it is very annoying. I have to see "furries" at the top of Alpha Wolf anytime I check the ratings. Ves, go rate it!)

[JJJ-thebanisher]

A weighted system really still seems too complex for this place, not to mention we've got "elite members" that routinely give abusive ratings more often than several of the more reasonable lurkers. Not to mention all those lurkers/noobs/etc that are giving your stories 10s rather than 1s would end up never amounting to a whole hell of a lot since you know most people rating aren't even writing stories and just pop in every now and then. It works both ways you see.

I'd rather just put up with the occasional idiot, and if your story is good enough, you'll eventually be vindicated by other giving you good ratings.

Personally I can tolerate abusive ratings, it's usually the stupid comments that accompany such ratings that you can't actually respond to directly, that are more annoying. Sure you can PM the fucktard or "revenge rate" but the fact still remains that you've got an idiotic comment on your story section.

Given that it's YOUR story, you should at least be able to slam detractors all you want on it. You've still got the 1s and 2s, but at least you can defend your crappy story with verbal abuse.

Not to sing a praise of our hated enemies CYS, but they've got a good option for that with their rating and comment system. You can respond back to comments. Worth1000 allows you to do it too.

EDIT: Not to say Apoth's idea is a bad one, but you'd be bound to get some complaints of mod abuse and the slight possibility of mod "corruption".

Just a bit harsh.