The dailykos comment post rating system sucks! Read below the
fold to find out why.
I have been a reader of dailykos.com for a long time, ever since it
originally went online. I also have been (admittedly and embarrassingly)
a very poor contributor for a while as well (as you can see from my
user number). I have not contributed many diaries, have not commented
on many posts, and have essentially gone as far as I know unnoticed,
and have stayed on the sidelines, passively observing, reading, and
enjoying the blog posts, diaries, commentary, and discussion that
people have been having.
Overall, I think the site is fantastic. The kos community is one of
the best if not the best Internet based discussion systems I have seen
on the Internet, on any topic (I've been an avid Internet user since
the early 1980s, and (not so) fondly remember the days of Usenet
netnews when 1) people always used their real names and email
addresses, and 2) easily got embroiled in violent flame wars more
caustic than much of what I've seen here. Much of what was originally
posted on netnews in the early days you might think you could find on
google's netnews index, but I think that much of the choice flame war
text has been removed (probably on request from the original posters,
once they, 10-20 years on, read the stuff that they posted).
Of course in those days, what you said was never rated by
anyone. There was no chance of censorship, no chance (other than what
people responded to you) to get a feeling for either the quality of
your post, nor the amount of agreement or disagreement that existed in
the community. It was total unfettered anarchy. Every once in a
while, you might get a direct email from someone who would either
strongly agree or (more often) strongly disagree. The Internet was
very different back then. If things got really bad, you might even get
a phone call :-)
These days, on dailykos.com, things are different. People mostly use
anonymous names, and the only way to get in touch with a poster is to
post a reply, or perhaps send email to an email address that has no
indication of who the poster really is. On the one hand, you would
think that anonymity would encourage even more creative and open
postings. It might also encourage more abuse. But the kos rating
systems have kept that in check, and I think have for the most part
done a fairly good job.
But one issue always comes up that I think is damaging to this
blog. The problem is that when someone posts something that people
disagree with, they get "troll rated". There has been quite a bit of
discussion about troll ratings. Some people have said that they worry
about posting unpopular opinion (such as H. Clinton is a good person,
J. Lieberman is not the devil, G. Bush should not be assassinated,
etc.) for fear of getting troll rated, and if they get too many troll
ratings, they will suffer a horrible blog death by being kicked off
the site (and needing to start again from scratch with a user number
greater than 1,000,000 or whatever we're up to at this point :-). The
reason I am posting this now is that someone recently asked a question
of the form "if Lieberman is so bad, and has been for 8 years, why did
Gore choose him for his running mate in 2000"? A fair question that
deserves fair discussion, but one of the leading diarists (and former front
page blogger) troll rated this questioner, something I think is wrong.
Difference of opinion I think should be encouraged and fairly
discussed. When someone posts something you strongly disagree with, it
should be a challenge to others to convince them otherwise. A troll
rating will only make people think "wow, what an asshole, trolling me
just for posting an unpopular question". It moreover will keep posters
from posting less popular posts, and could possibly encourage
sycophant yes-women type posts (which I don't find very enlightening).
Anyway, if you've made it this far, I think there is an easy solution.
Why not have two separate rating systems, one based on overall
quality, and another based on collective agreement. The quality
rating system can effect your kos capabilities (i.e. are you a
privileged user, are you likely to get kicked off, etc.). The
agreement ratings, on the other hand, would not.
High quality would mean the post is informative, it provides new
information, it is funny/amusing, it is thought-provoking, it leads to
lots of discussion, it brings up a thoughts and ideas that have not
yet been discussed in the current section, it asks a genuinely curious
(even if controversial) question with hope of some answers or ideas
from the community, etc.
Low-quality would mean the post is just an insult, it is meant just to
inflame, it blatantly provides false information, it is inconsiderate
to others, it gives a undeserved troll rating,
it is personally threatening, illegal, racist, sexist, or homophobic,
etc. We hold this definition of low-quality to be self-evident.
The agreement level would mean simply that you agree or disagree with
the post. A few weeks back, I suggested a set of levels of
agreement/disagreement that would allow people to fully express strong
passion about particular posts. In particular, the agreement ratings
could be "None", "In Violent Disagreement",
"Strongly Disagree", "Disagree", "Neutral", "Agree", "Strongly Agree",
"In Violent Agreement". The agreement scale would not influence
your kos capabilities. I.e., even if you post something unpopular,
as long as it is a high "quality" post, people can freely
"violently disagree" with you, allow you to know it, but not make you
afraid to post something unpopular.
So, at long last, we are at the end of this diary. Many apologies to
anyone who has suggested this idea before, and many thanks to those
who have read this far. Please let me know, and I'll either update
this diary (or delete it if need be).
If you want to discuss this diary, then please recommend it.
Thank you.