New Rating System

[Cromcruaich]

I am confused.

Can we exchange points for prizes?

[OohhoO]

WTF?!?!?!
I hit "Close" on one of my ratings & immediately lost almost all my assets
If I wasn't so daft I'd think I might be too daft for this rating system

[Kallima]

apart from not getting the extreme complexity I just wanted to ask what the point of this actually is?

Yep, that is what lost me. Admittedly, I haven't tried it, I just read the explanation and went into brain death. I must admit I tend to lose it somewhere about half way through Lairiodd's explanations on probabilities of crafting masterpieces too, and I actually know what he is talking about there. I must be just dim.

Anyway, what is the point of this new rating system? The first one seemed aimed at giving a good rep to people who posted stuff the community liked or whose assessment of posts was in line with the opinion of the rest of the community, and a bad rep to people who do the opposite. I wasn't sure it was a good idea, because people wouldn't like negative ratings. Changing it so people couldn't see how a post was already rated, and vote the same way sheep like, improved things. We did still get people upset by negative ratings of posts. In the odd case this was about a post that was pretty well bound to get a negative rating. In other cases apparently people were just having all their posts rated negatively by some sort of forum foe. Equally I suppose others were having all their posts rated positively by buddies. I know mods were trying to artificially correct the forum foe situation, though presumably the opinion of the rest of the community should have been some sort of correcting factor.

Now the new rating system baffles me entirely, perhaps because I am clueless on betting. Is this is some sort of betting on how other people will rate the post, so it is rewarding people for agreeing with the community? If so, how does the mod rating the post and setting the correct answer fit in? It then becomes a reward for agreeing with the mod. That seems to have a few problems. One is that the only purpose of rating systems I've seen on other forums is to provide feedback of the opinion of the community. This feedbacks whether a person agrees with whichever mid happens to rate the post. Second is that it seems to stop mods expressing their own opinion as a member of the community, since their vote effectively auto finishes the rating of a post. Third is that there has been a lot of debate from some people about the moderators, and this seems liable to set it off arguments whenever a moderator rates a post as to whether they rated it correctly.

And this may be an entirely misguided post, because I'm completely confused by the explanation. I haven't tried the rating, and won't when I don't understand it. Oohhoo says "I find it somehow disturbing to vote on a scale where a flame is the worst & informative is the best." Like I say, I haven't tried it, I guess some sort of scale comes up. On the old system, I rated pointless flames, private warfare, and obscene posts negatively. I rated informative, funny or organising good stuff for the realm positively. That was my own private scale, expressing my personal reactions about whether I felt good or bad that I had seen the post. I suppose it is not out of line with this scale.

[Aran_Thule]

umm, im a bit confused.
i love trading but i dont really like the idea of this.
the result of any bets is reliant on the mods viewpoint, add to that that you want mods to check and rate every single post...
the level is too extreme, if it was rate a thread then it would make more sense but every post <shakes head>
Also what is the point of it? if its just a game then fair enough but from past experiance it will end up with someone getting offended/upset i dont really see the point of it.

[Finolin]

In this situation, everyone was rating it low, but I rated it correctly, so I made alot.

You make the most profit by disagreeing with the market price and being right.

Uh, it sounds like you get the most profit by disagreeing with people who rate posts and agreeing with the mods, where agreeing with mods is termed both "correct[ly]" and "right".

So if you don't agree with many people on the boards, but do agree with mods, you get rewarded.

I find I often agree with the mods, but still, I find the system as described incredibly creepy. I don't need mods to tell me what's "right" in terms of my opinion about a given post (or anything else for that matter).

[OohhoO]

On the old system, I rated pointless flames, private warfare, and obscene posts negatively. I rated informative, funny or organising good stuff for the realm positively. That was my own private scale, expressing my personal reactions about whether I felt good or bad that I had seen the post. I suppose it is not out of line with this scale.

Yes I usually did too, but some flames were well thought out & funny & occasionally I voted one positively. On the other hand, not all informative posts were either interesting or good, so I didn't always post them positively. For instance, if I posted "Did you know there are more than 27'000'000 different forms of insect in <insert jungle here> which fornicate in 16'243 different ways" it would be informative but not worthy of a positive rating.

I guess I just don't see "Flame" & "Informative" as some kind of dichotomy which I can cross-associate to all other posts. For instance, how do I rate a post which is neither a flame, relevant, irrelevant, or informative, but for instance funny?
Are all flames by definition bad?
Are all informative posts by definition good?
<confused>

[Tare]

To be honest, best system is the one used on Freddyshouse:

-only able to rate posts positive
-after rating a person you have to rate other people to avoid PLing someone
-Each rating gives one point to the poster
-At a certain amount of points the poster is given different titles
-Rep farmers (who, for example put "give me rep!" in their post) get their rep points reset.

The way it's implemented on FH, it doesn't interfere with the posts and it can't be used for personal vendettas, but you can still let someone know you approve of their way of posting.

[Xest]

Personally I don't care if someone approves my way of posting or not I doubt very much I'll be using the sytem at all anyway so people need not worry about any conspiracies involving having to agree with me personally at least

[Lairiodd]

I really don't understand a word of it, especially the mod bit. Does it mean that when a mod rates a post their opinion is automatically the right answer, even if the rest of the community disagrees with them, and even if a different mod might have rated it totally differently?

<Edits post to change mid to mod, brain is so dead>

Yes, it is assumed that the mod will rate fairly.

[Lairiodd]

Yep, that is what lost me.

Currently, no major reason. The plan would be that your average rating would be shown when you post to encourage quality posting.

The theory is that it would not be possible for mods to rate every single post, but this system allows the community to do the rating.

If you move the rating of a post closer to what a mod would have rated it, you will gain credits. If you move the rating away from where a mod would have rated it, you lose credits.

Overall, people who rate well will end up having more credits than those who don't rate well making the ratings more accurate.

Another change would be that you can specify how many units you want to buy by default. A person with more credits could bet more on each post increasing their effect on the price.

Admittedly, I haven't tried it, I just read the explanation and went into brain death. I must admit I tend to lose it somewhere about half way through Lairiodd's explanations on probabilities of crafting masterpieces too, and I actually know what he is talking about there. I must be just dim.

Equally I suppose others were having all their posts rated positively by buddies. I know mods were trying to artificially correct the forum foe situation, though presumably the opinion of the rest of the community should have been some sort of correcting factor.

Giving buddy's good ratings when not needed will lose you credits if the mods moderate that post.

Now the new rating system baffles me entirely, perhaps because I am clueless on betting. Is this is some sort of betting on how other people will rate the post, so it is rewarding people for agreeing with the community?

Yes, you are betting on how a mod would rate the post. Each unit is worth whatever a mod sets it to.

If I think a post is worth 600 credits, then I would pay 600 for a unit of sell a unit for 600.

For every person who buys a unit , a person must sell one and you can gold a negative number of units. The moderator buys all the units for the rating they set and then charges that amount to those who have sold units.

If so, how does the mod rating the post and setting the correct answer fit in? It then becomes a reward for agreeing with the mod.

It is a reward for correctly betting how the mods would rate the post. This effectively increases the moderator coverage.