::click::
Recommend
It is a simple thing ... yet it means a lot. It is how we connect to each other without words in a place where words are pretty much all that we have. It is part of the algorithm for promoting a diary to the Recommended list and is another way to express our opinion on an opinion blog.
For a blogathon like DK Feeding America; for an important community project such as a subscription drive, a quilt project or a cry for help; for IGTNT; for a vital link to activism like the Wisconsin diaries: it helps a diary get on and stay on the Recommended list.
It also appears to be a huge point of contention.
In the olden days (earlier this year), a single recommend on a comment did not lead to a loss of ratings ability. Here are some bits (carefully cherry-picked to make my points) from the DKos Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):
- Everyone has bad judgment from time to time. Everyone can have a bad day.
- Users are warned when they UPRATE insults
- Admin Moderation: Warning, suspension, banning.
J Town used to have a Rule #2:
2. We often recommend someone's comment just to say "Hi, I read your comment!". It does not necessarily mean "Everything you say is something that I can agree with 100%"
In March, the warning part of moderation, without warning, was suspended. In a series of moves, followed by edicts, followed by much discussion (and sadness), the "one bad day" guideline and the "warning" were replaced by the new designation: Permanent NR.
What is this NR? Technically, if you hover over the NR in the section related to Mojo on someone's profile, it says "No Rate". It indicates a loss of rating privileges for comments (you can still recommend diaries). It means that when you see a comment, instead of seeing this:
you see this:
(Note: Users who do not carry the site designation "Trusted User" will see a check box with only Recommend)
It means that the only way to communicate to a commenter is to leave another comment which can lead to hilarity but can also disturb the flow of a diary's comments. Or it can simply leave the commenter wondering why you are not recommending their comment.
About that molehill. According to blog history, the removal of ratings was intended to be a ratings time out and was generally intended to punish those who uprated previously hide-rated comments in order to encourage a continuation of a fight in a comment thread. Using that logic, it should not have overridden a mountain of previous positive commenting and comment uprating.
Last week, an excellent discussion about comments and ratings ensued in BeninSC's Top Comments diary Top Comments - Don't Read Top Comments! Thankfully, as one would expect on a Democratic blog, no one heeded his advice and many people read his diary. Here is his commentary on comments:
Meteor Blades, who in many cases does more in the day to day cultivation of the dKos culture than anyone else, has authored 66,723 comments! (That number will almost assuredly be higher by diary post time! True for all the people cited!) And he has rated a phenomenal 404,907 comments! Whoa!
To give a few more examples, bubbanomics has rated 218,258 comments, teacherken 336,396 comments, Nurse Kelly 213,583 comments, JanF 161,857 comments, Gooserock 429,284 comments, gchaucer2 has rated 520,786 comments! Top Comments' own noweasels has authored 52,393 comments, and rated 546,629 comments! (She is mostly blogging outside Top Comments nowadays, but we still proudly claim her! ::wink:: ) TomP has written 59,982 comments and rated 587,867 comments written by others. Hedwig has rated 603,332 comments! blue jersey mom has rated 626,712 comments! Floja Roja has rated 720,798! Finally, Yasuragi has recommended 812,482 comments! Well over three quarters of a million comment recommendations!!! (That is the highest number of comment ratings I have yet found! If you know of someone with more, let me know and I'll edit the diary, and credit you with the find!)
What do those numbers mean? To me (languishing far behind with a mere 91,820 recs) the meaning is fairly clear. It means that these people believe in exercising their political creativity both through commenting, and through endorsing and giving attention to the comments of others, thus extending THEIR voices.
It turns out that many people write many comments and rate many comments. Lots and lots and lots of comments. Was every comment that was uprated perfectly formed? I doubt it. Were some of those comment uprates on unkind or unpleasant comments? Probably. Were some of those comment uprates on pootie pr0n? You betcha. Did any of those commenters or comment uprates get a Permanent NR for a single uprate or comment? Why, yes they did! Some of those Permanent NR's
were removed and others were not.
Miss Mayta weighed in on the lack of comment rating nuance in her end of year subscription diary: Wringing Out the Old, when a kossack "wrote in" with this question:
Dear Miss Mayta:
I find the current options to rate a comment (Recommend and Hide Rate) limiting. Sometimes I want people to know I have read their comment but I would hardly want to recommend it (as if!). Sometimes I just want them to know I am in the general area of their comments. Can anything be done about this?
Signed,
Rec or Hide
Miss Mayta offered this suggestion:
Dear ROH,
I agree most emphatically! I would like to see a whole range of rating options for comments. For example:
- LMAO (with subset: Laughing Only One Cheek Off)
- I agree with the first paragraph but not the second
- Will you marry me? (with subset/addendum: Will you bear my children?)
- Indubitably
In fact, if we made the comment space smaller (perhaps 4 or 5 characters) in order to accommodate the list of possible ratings, one benefit would be eliminating quite a few of the problems that make a rating system necessary.
So unless (until?) we get a more nuanced comment rating system, we are left having to read every pixel of every person's comment before clicking Recommend. We are left not knowing that if we agree with 99% of what a person says but that we disagree with some of the wording or are unaware of the
intent of the commenter, we can lose our ratings ability if we recommend it.
Here is what I ask you to do. Don't recommend any comments for the next 8 hours. Instead, when you want to communicate with a commenter, reply. Or don't reply and see what that feels like to both you and the commenter. And, more importantly, how it impacts the tone of the discussion.
And then think about what might be a better policy of moderation related to comment rating. A good place to start would be with a warning. A reasonable place to continue would be taking into account a user's previous history and general contributions to the overall community coupled with that warning. And a perfect place to end would be community moderation where the community (those who read dozens of diaries and hundreds of comments a week and who actually know many of the users) moderates itself in ways that give us all an understanding of the guidelines for acceptable behavior. And a chance for redemption without having to wait for the next Jubilee.
Note: This diary is NOT to be used as an excuse to re-litigate any individual's rating removal, banning or other previous site moderation action. Any such discussion in the threads is discouraged and I ask that instead you write an appropriate response diary so that we may continue our discussion here.