Voting - perhaps not?
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Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects" - pass on by if you're not in a mood for rambling discontent.... Among other things, it was fun and genuinely motivating while writing this article to "go for a five", and the first five reviewers agreed I'd done it, much to my delight. Then there was a four, which I can understand (you can't please everybody in every way all the time). Now someone just voted me a one and walked away without a word of comment. Here's the thing: with six votes, the average score was about 4.85 - how many votes would I need to recover from that seventh "poor" vote (regardless of merit)? A total of 33 votes, with everyone from now on voting me a five out of five. More likely I'll be struck by lightning. I don't expect more than ten votes in the entire lifetime of this article. Anonymous voting works well if you're reading, not so well if you're writing. If someone votes you down, you REALLY want to know why, since it wasn't a tossed-off Digg comment, it was a significant chunk of your life - and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. About a hundred hours of work through four major drafts, code that's decently pretty and surprisingly simple in places, ideas that I thought people could build on... not that big an effort by CodeProject standards, but at least it's well enough done? Nope, apparently some think it's really just crap. Why? Don't know. The argument has been made, quite earnestly, that CodeProject votes aren't terribly meaningful. This argument doesn't entirely convince. Can you honestly say you aren't influenced by the score before reading an article? My feeling is low-rated articles often aren't even opened from search results. So in the end, sadder but a little wiser maybe, I'd be happy to tackle a fourth article for CodeProject if I could ask for the voting buttons to be entirely removed. For feedback, comments and a popularity rating are more than good enough. I'm "voting" for that no-vote option here, wondering if anyone else agrees that purely destructive anonymous criticism should not be played up as a side-effect of easy judgement? [end of rambling discontent]
I certainly understand how you feel - early low votes are discouraging, and makes you question if its worth the effort. Personally, I have decided that it is worth the effort. And as annoying as a vote-with-no-comment can be, over time it won't matter - see my response here to someone else who feels like you do. Also, I believe that the article rating does help in determining its usefulness - again, over time. I do not write for the 1-voters on CP - I write for myself, and other people who are trying to make CP better.
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I certainly understand how you feel - early low votes are discouraging, and makes you question if its worth the effort. Personally, I have decided that it is worth the effort. And as annoying as a vote-with-no-comment can be, over time it won't matter - see my response here to someone else who feels like you do. Also, I believe that the article rating does help in determining its usefulness - again, over time. I do not write for the 1-voters on CP - I write for myself, and other people who are trying to make CP better.
If I had your Azimov-category output, I'd probably have your attitude too:) Still, thanks for the pep talk, it helped a bit. I can only write one or two articles per year and so they mean more to me than they probably should. The last article I wrote was fairly rated, hence false expectations. Still, five fives, a four, and a ONE? Feels like "Great, great, great, great, great, nice, B****R OFF YOU MORON..." to tell the truth. Talk about whiplash. Ali's article that you mentioned is in much the same state. Oh well, by June I'll feel better. Needless to say, I won't be going into politics.
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Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects" - pass on by if you're not in a mood for rambling discontent.... Among other things, it was fun and genuinely motivating while writing this article to "go for a five", and the first five reviewers agreed I'd done it, much to my delight. Then there was a four, which I can understand (you can't please everybody in every way all the time). Now someone just voted me a one and walked away without a word of comment. Here's the thing: with six votes, the average score was about 4.85 - how many votes would I need to recover from that seventh "poor" vote (regardless of merit)? A total of 33 votes, with everyone from now on voting me a five out of five. More likely I'll be struck by lightning. I don't expect more than ten votes in the entire lifetime of this article. Anonymous voting works well if you're reading, not so well if you're writing. If someone votes you down, you REALLY want to know why, since it wasn't a tossed-off Digg comment, it was a significant chunk of your life - and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. About a hundred hours of work through four major drafts, code that's decently pretty and surprisingly simple in places, ideas that I thought people could build on... not that big an effort by CodeProject standards, but at least it's well enough done? Nope, apparently some think it's really just crap. Why? Don't know. The argument has been made, quite earnestly, that CodeProject votes aren't terribly meaningful. This argument doesn't entirely convince. Can you honestly say you aren't influenced by the score before reading an article? My feeling is low-rated articles often aren't even opened from search results. So in the end, sadder but a little wiser maybe, I'd be happy to tackle a fourth article for CodeProject if I could ask for the voting buttons to be entirely removed. For feedback, comments and a popularity rating are more than good enough. I'm "voting" for that no-vote option here, wondering if anyone else agrees that purely destructive anonymous criticism should not be played up as a side-effect of easy judgement? [end of rambling discontent]
I think there are only two things I can say of value here: 1. Over time the rating of an article levels out to a reasonably good approximation of its value. Please be patient. I know it sucks sometimes though. 2. Not all votes are equal. Votes from Silver, Gold and Platinum members all count for more (in increasing order) than those from other members. A 1 vote from a drive-by will quickly be repaired by a 4 or 5 from a solid member.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects" - pass on by if you're not in a mood for rambling discontent.... Among other things, it was fun and genuinely motivating while writing this article to "go for a five", and the first five reviewers agreed I'd done it, much to my delight. Then there was a four, which I can understand (you can't please everybody in every way all the time). Now someone just voted me a one and walked away without a word of comment. Here's the thing: with six votes, the average score was about 4.85 - how many votes would I need to recover from that seventh "poor" vote (regardless of merit)? A total of 33 votes, with everyone from now on voting me a five out of five. More likely I'll be struck by lightning. I don't expect more than ten votes in the entire lifetime of this article. Anonymous voting works well if you're reading, not so well if you're writing. If someone votes you down, you REALLY want to know why, since it wasn't a tossed-off Digg comment, it was a significant chunk of your life - and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. About a hundred hours of work through four major drafts, code that's decently pretty and surprisingly simple in places, ideas that I thought people could build on... not that big an effort by CodeProject standards, but at least it's well enough done? Nope, apparently some think it's really just crap. Why? Don't know. The argument has been made, quite earnestly, that CodeProject votes aren't terribly meaningful. This argument doesn't entirely convince. Can you honestly say you aren't influenced by the score before reading an article? My feeling is low-rated articles often aren't even opened from search results. So in the end, sadder but a little wiser maybe, I'd be happy to tackle a fourth article for CodeProject if I could ask for the voting buttons to be entirely removed. For feedback, comments and a popularity rating are more than good enough. I'm "voting" for that no-vote option here, wondering if anyone else agrees that purely destructive anonymous criticism should not be played up as a side-effect of easy judgement? [end of rambling discontent]
Don't be fooled by rating. The amount of e-mail feedback I get from 4.0 (or even 3.9) articles (I have 2 such) tells me that people can read & think. Your article will find it's reader regardless of the rating. Right now I have 4 articles being written, and it is interesting to me to meet the challenges of programming and describing the whole thing in the article, not the rating I'll get :-) P.S. The most successful article here - ToDoList - has a rating of 4.75. Not 5, not 4.9...
------------------------- Don't worry, be happy :o)
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I think there are only two things I can say of value here: 1. Over time the rating of an article levels out to a reasonably good approximation of its value. Please be patient. I know it sucks sometimes though. 2. Not all votes are equal. Votes from Silver, Gold and Platinum members all count for more (in increasing order) than those from other members. A 1 vote from a drive-by will quickly be repaired by a 4 or 5 from a solid member.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Don't be fooled by rating. The amount of e-mail feedback I get from 4.0 (or even 3.9) articles (I have 2 such) tells me that people can read & think. Your article will find it's reader regardless of the rating. Right now I have 4 articles being written, and it is interesting to me to meet the challenges of programming and describing the whole thing in the article, not the rating I'll get :-) P.S. The most successful article here - ToDoList - has a rating of 4.75. Not 5, not 4.9...
------------------------- Don't worry, be happy :o)
I agree Dmitry, all good points. But I think I'd be happier without any rating at all, is all I'm saying in the end. That way we wouldn't have to think thoughts like "don't be fooled by the rating" and "regardless of the rating" and "even 3.9" (I've done worse, by the way, with my first article, but in my case the rating was deserved). Failing that: In statistics (personally I'm allergic to it), when there's obvious and strong noise in a smallish sample it's a common practice to throw out the few highest and lowest data points to compensate. Some rare people will give you a 5 just for showing up. Others, if God appeared before them in person and made them pretty they might consider handing out a 3.
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Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects" - pass on by if you're not in a mood for rambling discontent.... Among other things, it was fun and genuinely motivating while writing this article to "go for a five", and the first five reviewers agreed I'd done it, much to my delight. Then there was a four, which I can understand (you can't please everybody in every way all the time). Now someone just voted me a one and walked away without a word of comment. Here's the thing: with six votes, the average score was about 4.85 - how many votes would I need to recover from that seventh "poor" vote (regardless of merit)? A total of 33 votes, with everyone from now on voting me a five out of five. More likely I'll be struck by lightning. I don't expect more than ten votes in the entire lifetime of this article. Anonymous voting works well if you're reading, not so well if you're writing. If someone votes you down, you REALLY want to know why, since it wasn't a tossed-off Digg comment, it was a significant chunk of your life - and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. About a hundred hours of work through four major drafts, code that's decently pretty and surprisingly simple in places, ideas that I thought people could build on... not that big an effort by CodeProject standards, but at least it's well enough done? Nope, apparently some think it's really just crap. Why? Don't know. The argument has been made, quite earnestly, that CodeProject votes aren't terribly meaningful. This argument doesn't entirely convince. Can you honestly say you aren't influenced by the score before reading an article? My feeling is low-rated articles often aren't even opened from search results. So in the end, sadder but a little wiser maybe, I'd be happy to tackle a fourth article for CodeProject if I could ask for the voting buttons to be entirely removed. For feedback, comments and a popularity rating are more than good enough. I'm "voting" for that no-vote option here, wondering if anyone else agrees that purely destructive anonymous criticism should not be played up as a side-effect of easy judgement? [end of rambling discontent]
From the point of view of a writer I can certainly understand that you are put off by low votes. From the perspective of a reader the vote does guide me as to whether the article is worth reading or not. Now, if an article has few votes I tend to ignore the actual vote as it is too early to say. Once it has about 5 to 10 votes I start to pay more attention. If it has over 25 votes I take the value as being a fairly accurate estimate of the articles worth. So, what is the vote worth to me, as a reader? 4.0 to 5.0: I count that as a must read. 3.0 to 4.0: It is worthwhile reading, but I expect the odd gap here or there. 2.5 to 3.0: It may contain useful information but will most likely require supplimental reading to get what I want. 2.0 to 2.5: It possibly has what I want but will be so poorly written that it will require major effort to get to it. 1.0 to 2.0: The article will be so badly written that it isn't worth the effort to even try and read it.
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Introduction to AJAX (2nd May), SQL Server 2005 - XML and XML Query Plans, Mock Objects, SQL Server Reporting Services... Never write for other people. Write for yourself, because you have a passion for it. -- Marc Clifton My website
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Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects" - pass on by if you're not in a mood for rambling discontent.... Among other things, it was fun and genuinely motivating while writing this article to "go for a five", and the first five reviewers agreed I'd done it, much to my delight. Then there was a four, which I can understand (you can't please everybody in every way all the time). Now someone just voted me a one and walked away without a word of comment. Here's the thing: with six votes, the average score was about 4.85 - how many votes would I need to recover from that seventh "poor" vote (regardless of merit)? A total of 33 votes, with everyone from now on voting me a five out of five. More likely I'll be struck by lightning. I don't expect more than ten votes in the entire lifetime of this article. Anonymous voting works well if you're reading, not so well if you're writing. If someone votes you down, you REALLY want to know why, since it wasn't a tossed-off Digg comment, it was a significant chunk of your life - and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. About a hundred hours of work through four major drafts, code that's decently pretty and surprisingly simple in places, ideas that I thought people could build on... not that big an effort by CodeProject standards, but at least it's well enough done? Nope, apparently some think it's really just crap. Why? Don't know. The argument has been made, quite earnestly, that CodeProject votes aren't terribly meaningful. This argument doesn't entirely convince. Can you honestly say you aren't influenced by the score before reading an article? My feeling is low-rated articles often aren't even opened from search results. So in the end, sadder but a little wiser maybe, I'd be happy to tackle a fourth article for CodeProject if I could ask for the voting buttons to be entirely removed. For feedback, comments and a popularity rating are more than good enough. I'm "voting" for that no-vote option here, wondering if anyone else agrees that purely destructive anonymous criticism should not be played up as a side-effect of easy judgement? [end of rambling discontent]
kenearle wrote:
Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects"
I just looked at your profile. I don't see any articles there. Did you post under a different username?
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Introduction to AJAX (2nd May), SQL Server 2005 - XML and XML Query Plans, Mock Objects, SQL Server Reporting Services... Never write for other people. Write for yourself, because you have a passion for it. -- Marc Clifton My website
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From the point of view of a writer I can certainly understand that you are put off by low votes. From the perspective of a reader the vote does guide me as to whether the article is worth reading or not. Now, if an article has few votes I tend to ignore the actual vote as it is too early to say. Once it has about 5 to 10 votes I start to pay more attention. If it has over 25 votes I take the value as being a fairly accurate estimate of the articles worth. So, what is the vote worth to me, as a reader? 4.0 to 5.0: I count that as a must read. 3.0 to 4.0: It is worthwhile reading, but I expect the odd gap here or there. 2.5 to 3.0: It may contain useful information but will most likely require supplimental reading to get what I want. 2.0 to 2.5: It possibly has what I want but will be so poorly written that it will require major effort to get to it. 1.0 to 2.0: The article will be so badly written that it isn't worth the effort to even try and read it.
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Introduction to AJAX (2nd May), SQL Server 2005 - XML and XML Query Plans, Mock Objects, SQL Server Reporting Services... Never write for other people. Write for yourself, because you have a passion for it. -- Marc Clifton My website
Colin, I've bookmarked your post. It is a real Reader's Guide to CodeProject! :-)
------------------------- Don't worry, be happy :o)
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kenearle wrote:
Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects"
I just looked at your profile. I don't see any articles there. Did you post under a different username?
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Introduction to AJAX (2nd May), SQL Server 2005 - XML and XML Query Plans, Mock Objects, SQL Server Reporting Services... Never write for other people. Write for yourself, because you have a passion for it. -- Marc Clifton My website
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From the point of view of a writer I can certainly understand that you are put off by low votes. From the perspective of a reader the vote does guide me as to whether the article is worth reading or not. Now, if an article has few votes I tend to ignore the actual vote as it is too early to say. Once it has about 5 to 10 votes I start to pay more attention. If it has over 25 votes I take the value as being a fairly accurate estimate of the articles worth. So, what is the vote worth to me, as a reader? 4.0 to 5.0: I count that as a must read. 3.0 to 4.0: It is worthwhile reading, but I expect the odd gap here or there. 2.5 to 3.0: It may contain useful information but will most likely require supplimental reading to get what I want. 2.0 to 2.5: It possibly has what I want but will be so poorly written that it will require major effort to get to it. 1.0 to 2.0: The article will be so badly written that it isn't worth the effort to even try and read it.
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Introduction to AJAX (2nd May), SQL Server 2005 - XML and XML Query Plans, Mock Objects, SQL Server Reporting Services... Never write for other people. Write for yourself, because you have a passion for it. -- Marc Clifton My website
Nice guide, thanks. I will pound your criteria into my head. Ouch ouch ouch..... One final thought, then I'm outa here before I'm called 'the vote guy': most people don't vote. Not even one in a thousand it seems. Odd, that, are we all such a shy passive bunch?
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Some thoughts in my head after watching the early responses to my "Custom ToolTips for MFC Projects" - pass on by if you're not in a mood for rambling discontent.... Among other things, it was fun and genuinely motivating while writing this article to "go for a five", and the first five reviewers agreed I'd done it, much to my delight. Then there was a four, which I can understand (you can't please everybody in every way all the time). Now someone just voted me a one and walked away without a word of comment. Here's the thing: with six votes, the average score was about 4.85 - how many votes would I need to recover from that seventh "poor" vote (regardless of merit)? A total of 33 votes, with everyone from now on voting me a five out of five. More likely I'll be struck by lightning. I don't expect more than ten votes in the entire lifetime of this article. Anonymous voting works well if you're reading, not so well if you're writing. If someone votes you down, you REALLY want to know why, since it wasn't a tossed-off Digg comment, it was a significant chunk of your life - and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. About a hundred hours of work through four major drafts, code that's decently pretty and surprisingly simple in places, ideas that I thought people could build on... not that big an effort by CodeProject standards, but at least it's well enough done? Nope, apparently some think it's really just crap. Why? Don't know. The argument has been made, quite earnestly, that CodeProject votes aren't terribly meaningful. This argument doesn't entirely convince. Can you honestly say you aren't influenced by the score before reading an article? My feeling is low-rated articles often aren't even opened from search results. So in the end, sadder but a little wiser maybe, I'd be happy to tackle a fourth article for CodeProject if I could ask for the voting buttons to be entirely removed. For feedback, comments and a popularity rating are more than good enough. I'm "voting" for that no-vote option here, wondering if anyone else agrees that purely destructive anonymous criticism should not be played up as a side-effect of easy judgement? [end of rambling discontent]
The voting system has been fundamentally broken since it was first initiated and has been complained about on a regular basis with no action taken despite many good suggestions. As the system stands now if you have anything over a 4 it's about the best you can hope for. However that being said I just noticed that Chris has added weighting to the votes which is a good improvement so some action has been taken obviously, I retract what I said above :), however I really like Colin's statement that when an article has few votes you can't go by the score, that should be pursued as a feature: perhaps an article with less than 10 votes doesn't show it's score until the 11th onward or something. I also think it would useful if people were more strongly encouraged to leave a comment if they vote significantly different than the current average.
"110%" - it's the new 70%
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The voting system has been fundamentally broken since it was first initiated and has been complained about on a regular basis with no action taken despite many good suggestions. As the system stands now if you have anything over a 4 it's about the best you can hope for. However that being said I just noticed that Chris has added weighting to the votes which is a good improvement so some action has been taken obviously, I retract what I said above :), however I really like Colin's statement that when an article has few votes you can't go by the score, that should be pursued as a feature: perhaps an article with less than 10 votes doesn't show it's score until the 11th onward or something. I also think it would useful if people were more strongly encouraged to leave a comment if they vote significantly different than the current average.
"110%" - it's the new 70%
We've had many suggestions on the voting system but very few that are practical. Weighted votes have been with us for years and tend to even out an article's rating over time faster than straight votes. The other suggestions we've had are: - Showing a histogram (Like it, and am looking into incorporating it) - Allowing members to change votes (this is being added) - Forcing a comment (means we just get "asdf" comments) - Restricting votes to N per day (people just create fake accounts) - Displaying a list of who voted (this will just cause voting wars) We also disallow votes from those not logged in, and disallow multiple votes from the same IP to make it harder for people to create fake accounts. I'm open to more suggestions.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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We've had many suggestions on the voting system but very few that are practical. Weighted votes have been with us for years and tend to even out an article's rating over time faster than straight votes. The other suggestions we've had are: - Showing a histogram (Like it, and am looking into incorporating it) - Allowing members to change votes (this is being added) - Forcing a comment (means we just get "asdf" comments) - Restricting votes to N per day (people just create fake accounts) - Displaying a list of who voted (this will just cause voting wars) We also disallow votes from those not logged in, and disallow multiple votes from the same IP to make it harder for people to create fake accounts. I'm open to more suggestions.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Hi Chris you must have missed my almost immediate edit on my message. I made two suggestions: don't show the score until a certain number of votes have been made, i.e. not until the 11th vote or something. This calms the author and doesn't skew the initial results. The second is that any votes that are extremely off the current average should have a *Suggestion* pop up that they make a comment of why they voted that way.
"110%" - it's the new 70%
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Hi Chris you must have missed my almost immediate edit on my message. I made two suggestions: don't show the score until a certain number of votes have been made, i.e. not until the 11th vote or something. This calms the author and doesn't skew the initial results. The second is that any votes that are extremely off the current average should have a *Suggestion* pop up that they make a comment of why they voted that way.
"110%" - it's the new 70%
John Cardinal wrote:
Hi Chris you must have missed my almost immediate edit on my message. I made two suggestions: don't show the score until a certain number of votes have been made, i.e. not until the 11th vote or something. This calms the author and doesn't skew the initial results.
If doing this it should be X votes or Y days so that an article that gets very few votes will eventually show a score.
-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?
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Hi Chris you must have missed my almost immediate edit on my message. I made two suggestions: don't show the score until a certain number of votes have been made, i.e. not until the 11th vote or something. This calms the author and doesn't skew the initial results. The second is that any votes that are extremely off the current average should have a *Suggestion* pop up that they make a comment of why they voted that way.
"110%" - it's the new 70%
Anything that forces a suggestion will often result in either asdf or something that will get filtered out by our obscenity filter. I've also toyed with the idea of using statistics to weed out poor votes but it's a tricky one. Let's say you have someone who creates 5 fake accounts and votes 5 5's. Someone else comes along and gives a more accurate "1". Statistically the 1 vote should be removed.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Anything that forces a suggestion will often result in either asdf or something that will get filtered out by our obscenity filter. I've also toyed with the idea of using statistics to weed out poor votes but it's a tricky one. Let's say you have someone who creates 5 fake accounts and votes 5 5's. Someone else comes along and gives a more accurate "1". Statistically the 1 vote should be removed.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
Anything that forces a suggestion will often result in either asdf or something that will get filtered out by our obscenity filter.
Exactly. Which is why I capitalized and put asterisks around the word *Suggests* as in a wild vote deserves a popup suggesting the user make a comment, not forcing them to make a comment. :)
"110%" - it's the new 70%
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Anything that forces a suggestion will often result in either asdf or something that will get filtered out by our obscenity filter. I've also toyed with the idea of using statistics to weed out poor votes but it's a tricky one. Let's say you have someone who creates 5 fake accounts and votes 5 5's. Someone else comes along and gives a more accurate "1". Statistically the 1 vote should be removed.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
Statistically the 1 vote should be removed.
If someone's using fake accounts to skew the score, the stats are gonna be screwed up no matter what you do. IMHO, a histogram is still the best bet for making the score more meaningful. You're actually presenting more information. If someone's gaming the system, well, the results are gonna be wrong regardless, but if you see an article with 2 1s and 5 5s and a weighted average of 3, you'll at least have a better clue of what's really going on...
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It appears that everybody is under the impression that I approve of the documentation. You probably also blame Ken Burns for supporting slavery.
--Raymond Chen on MSDN
