What? You mean we don't get to vote them off of the island? Dang it!

Questions that are beginning to creep into my mind:

What keeps a person from voting for themselves, say 100 times?

What about a friend that is blinded by the light that is flashed in his eyes? Could he vote for that kind of "friend" over and over out of shear craziness?

If the post were without any other merit than the ability to beep one's own horn, wouldn't it look a little funny as it rode its' way to glory around the Scouting circuit?

I am sure there must be some type of limits on the voting other than pushing one's own button over and over.

FB

Yes, there is logic to prevent people from artificially inflating the ranks. Most notably, you can click on "rank this post" again and see a list of users that have voted. Over time, we'll refine the system to eliminate any artificial inflation that creeps in.

"Voting off the island"
Well, the island is preparing to grow pretty significantly... you'll soon see some additional improvements to the SCOUTER Forums that include the ability to syndicate them out to many other Scouting sites. As the "island" grows, these rankings and filtering will help moderate the quality of the resources posted.

TERRY HOWERTON

"other than pushing one's own button over and over"

Actually Fuzzy, there are some posters I would just rather have push their own button's rather than push the buttons of other posters...

Scouter Terry,
I have noted an increase in decorum overnight. The quality of the posts has increased and new people are writing. It's like the inspections at Summer Camp. Everyone gets busy and cleans up their mess when the evaluators are just over the hill. The stars under the names are like little lamps that inspires the writer to check the content before pushing the button.
FB

We're still tweaking the process... we'll be adding some logic to prevent personal vendettas from factoring into the User Ratings, and we're going to be making it easier for everyone to vote on posts.

We'll continue to keep how you vote (Thumbs Up or Down) secret, only that you have voted.


These User Ratings are VERY dynamic... they are very heavily weighted to the quality of posts made recently by a user. The wild swings up and down will balance out a bit within a few weeks, but there will still always be an ability for a User Rating to go up or down based on just a few recent posts.

TERRY HOWERTON

Vote me off the island to the sandbare.

Bt

Terry,
It seems the ability to view who voted on a post when there is more than one vote isn't working. It says ya can't see who voted when there is on one voter even when there is more than one voter.

Ed Mori
1 Peter 4:10

The votes are also squelched if all the voters have voted a certain way.

TERRY HOWERTON

I'm noticing the beginnings of a disturbing trend in the rankings of posts. It was my understanding that posts are to be ranked on their merits. I took this to mean that a post that has an interesting insight or well articulated statement or message should receive a "Thumbs Up." Meanwhile, posts that are personal attacks or trying to incite other posters or just causing trouble should be given a "Thumbs Down."

However, I've noticed that some people appear to be posting based solely on whether they agree with the post or not. I have seen some well-articulated posts and arguments that have received negative votes. The only reason I could think of for the voting is because the posts were controversial.

I thought the rankings were to distinguish interesting and important topics. Unfortunately, it looks as if some voting is being used to merely discredit a poster whom people disagree with.

What exactly are we voting on?

Zahnada makes a good point, one that I've noticed as well. When there were "issues" posts going into Open Discussion: Program, if the post was controversail *and* about the BSA, then I'd vote them down. My reasoning? To me a post that mixes all sorts of opinion up with BSA programs would have no merit. However, if that same post were to begin in Issues & Politics, leaving the BSA out of if, then I personally am more likely to simply ignore it or even to think it is worth reading again, passing on, and therefore with merit. Some post that get judged puzzle me completely: questions asked right here, "I agree" statements, things like that that would appear to be comment or question only, not something one would judge. If I understand correctly, a thumbs down indicates that the post has nothing of value to offer, and a thumbs up indicates that the post has something of value to offer. To each of us that value will be defined differently though. Scouter Terry, I'll second Zahnada's question. TIA!

p.s. One thing that truly bewilders me is that a certain poster has received numerous negative responses and thumbs down, yet this poster has more stars than those who post helpful responses. The stars have me thinking "Star Search" (out to post for all the stars you can get!) or "Star Wars" (out to do a thumbs down and remove other's stars!) (This message has been edited by Laurie)

Terry, I like much of the new stuff you have put in, but also have a few problems and they may just be me

--Scouter.com is lots slower than it used to be and any other pages. Because other pages havent really changed and that I have DSL, I realised it must be the server some how.

--The squelch thing doenst seem to be working for me.


I do like the new way the last 24 hours page is set up where you can go directly to the page instead of going to page 1 and clicking to the page you want.

Keep up the good work And if you ever need help, let me know and I might be able to

My 2 cents Terry,

While I appreciate the new features you are trying to introduce ,I too have noticed severely reduced load times. While I think the spell-check and squelch features are great, I would gladly forfeit the ranks and ratings feature.

We have never been shy in registering our approval or disapproval of a post's worth (or even of the poster's) so I see no gain in these features if they are responsible for the horrible load and refresh times.

I am now formally agreeing with BW about the wait-delays and message stops.

I am registering my disapproval by not casting a thumbs-up vote for him.

Fuzzy(This message has been edited by Fuzzy Bear)