There are more and more people here on a regular basis that are upset over their articles being tagged and rated poorly. How can you blame them? When someone puts time and effort into a piece to share with the community and all of a sudden it is either removed or it is given "the one" by someone for no reasons other than hate, jealousy and malice it inhibits future creative activity by that author and the community at large suffers.
One idea is that there might be a rule that either only a person's connections should be allowed to flag and rate articles or a subset of that group could be created that would be allowed to flag and rate. Of course, the author would also be able to flag his/her own article when publishing if the content warrants.
I suppose there would be arguments that if there were a box featured to check in connections for "This person can rate and flag my articles" there would be people that would check no boxes. This could be easily rectified. There would also be a scale, say people with 25-100 connections would have to choose X number of flaggers and raters. People with 100-200 connections would have to choose a higher number and so on.
The rating system is ideally supposed to show the value of that article to the community based on some kind of literary standards. Right now people are getting, for the most part, either a one or a ten. There is very little in between so I also think that there should be a standard by which ratings are derived. When rating an article some considerations that would give the rating more validity could be a rating based on such things as interesting content, sophistication, grammar and punctuation, etc. There are real writers here that would like to have their works critiqued in such a way. The point system would also be revised to reflect that the more raters and flaggers you have, the more points you would accumulate and the raters taking the time to critique in this way could also be given more points. This would also mean that there would be a box created to be checked for whether you wanted to be an anonymous or known rater. Anonymous raters of the person's connections would not be eligible for extra points. This way, although there is still room for some anononymity, there is also more chance that by process of elimination, the raters and flaggers that are giving bad ratings and flagging for no reason would be more visible, thus greatly cutting down on the ability to rate and flag at random and for reasons of malice.
Many of the "articles" are not articles at all, but just questions, emails, or games. For these there would be no rating at all. These are not literary works and would not fall into the standards for ratings. Although a person will get credit for the post and the comments, surely there is no real literary value, and thus no rating is necessary. Implementing such a policy would, I believe, cut down on people posting just to accumulate points and it would raise the bar for the entire site.
There are many variations of this basic idea that might be more viable. For instance, we could keep the rating and flagging open to everyone and still implement the anonymous and non-anonymous rule along with the rule that there would be no ratings for "non-articles." Certainly, this is a rough draft of what might actually be done, but I would like to open the idea up for everyone's input.
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Comments: 41
Thanks for the all your good suggestions Sue and have a great day.
Well technically, a recipe is a non-article, Shannon, unless the recipe is your own recipe that you have made up. Personally, I love recipes, but to give recipes that are handed down or copy and pastes the same status as a story or a poem or an essay that is the original work of a writer on this site is really not only unfair, but I believe it is not rateable as a literary work. This is just my opinion.
Hi Debbie, thank you, and yes I understand that most articles are posted to groups and to do it the way I outlined would require major software engineering changes, although articles could still be published to groups if Gather were will willing to make the changes. I am not sure, however, that they have the desire to take on such a costly undertaking. Thanks for asking. I am "hanging in there," as they say.
Audrey, that is exactly what I had planned this to be, a good start. Thanks for recognizing my intention. This is supposed to be a site where writers can improve their skills. If people were rating according to a standard it would help writers, like myself, who wish to be critiqued by others to help them better their skills. There is more of this that I shall address in my anwers to Lori C. below.
Lori, right now I really pay no attention to the ratings, however those interested in points will be more concerned since, although no one knows how much, they do have an impact on the points. As I said, if I were to write seriously on here I would be interested for the reasons I cited above to Audrey. Yes, because the ratings are given and based mostly on whether someone likes you or not, of course peole are sensitive. A ten is like saying I love you and a one is like saying I hate you. That is not the purpose of a rating system on a site like this.
Randy, Nana, and Eyvonne, in my opinion, that is a band-aid approach. Although it is a somewhat better system than we currently have, it will still not stop people from leaving ones where they are undeserved, especially on articles whcih have heavy commentary since you will not have even a clue from whence they have come. I do not see it as a deterrent for drive bys. Instead, the same people will be called drive ins. After you see it implemented for awhile, I believe you would only be slightly less dissatisfied than you are now.
Thank you all for commenting and for caring about the site and how it can be improved. I find this a much better forum to get things accomplished than the usual complaining and ranting with no suggestions for a solution.
Kathleen, I don't know that there would be a way to define a trouble maker enough to ban them from articles. There may be a few obvious people, but this is an ongoing problem so I don't know that it could be done this way. Maybe someone else has a suggestion as to how this might be implemented. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
Lydia, I will join the group and post it there. Thank you for asking.
You MUST be pretty new since I have never come across a comment or article from you before this. It's always refreshing to meet a new member that cares about things like standards! Welcome to Gather!
Certain sections do have to do with writers, and improving their skills, but most of what I see on here is just blogging; a run down of 'this was my day'. Try to mention grammar or spelling on any of that, and you will be run out of Dodge in a heartbeat. Many, if not most, of these 'writers' are not looking for suggestions for improvement, they're looking for affirmation. In fact, I only provide genuine critique if very specifically requested. Otherwise, I get called out as a party pooper or grammar nazi.
There are other whole groups dedicated to photography and other art. Again, not writers. And yes, there are the endless games and questions, although sometimes they do lead to lively discussions and interesting articles. Here's a question. Suppose someone posts a writing exercise: "Write 500 words on how your pet would vote in the next election". Is the creativity of the exercise question as valuable as the responses?
Perhaps an idea would be that the creator of an offering must check off one or more categories when posting: Fun and Games, Recipes, Art, Writing for Critique, etc., to help the reader better understand the creator's expectations. The value of everything posted remains the same, in keeping with Gather's stated purpose of the site, but the meaning of the ratings would be more valuable to the creator's in various groups. Every recipe I see gets a 10 (unless it includes brussel sprouts, which is an automatic 1). Creative writing actually gets judged on standards (I like the rating criteria mentioned above), and it should be stated as part of that 'category'. Even within the art group, I'd feel totally crappy giving a 3 to somebody's vacation photos or their kid's Easter outfit. So separate out 'just sharing' from 'judge my creativity' art, and rate it like writing.
The unstated purpose of this site is really market share, and getting eyeballs on advertising. Offering you a stipend to provide content to get more eyeballs on the advertisements that provide the real dollars is a way to keep you here, instead of just blogging out in cyberspace for free.
If you really are looking to connect with other like-minded writers, and want real feedback, there are plenty of groups here for that. If the ratings mean that much, find those groups and only post there. And if someone is getting points for posting junk, so what. The dollars don't come out of my pocket, and don't affect the number of points I can earn myself. Heck, the points I get for posting this big long response are the same points I would have gotten if I had said 'Nice job!' and moved on to the next article.
Most imprtantly, remember that this is not a literary site, and content is not judged for literary value. It's a community gathering spot, and, for the most part (contests excepted), the ratings don't matter to anyone but the creator of the input.
Of course, if you have read any of my prior comments on others' articles when they complain about problems, I most always remind them of the "unstated purpose of the site."
Nonetheless, there are people that are dissatisfied with the status quo. The article was meant, not to make statements about what should definitely be done, but to generate thoughtful insight from members on what we can do to improve the rating and flagging systems here since these are major problems that people contend with on a regular basis.
Incidentally, I have read the "About" page as have so many others that have commented. The growth and success of any community, be it online or in life, can only improve and grow if its members discuss its problems and seek solutions that benefit those communities at large. Without articles like this and comments from members who care about this community, the "About" page will become a stagnant piece of history.
I just saw this. I don't think they have a set number. Also, since people just flag at randomg and lie about why, Gather will see that people are flagging you out of sheer idiocy and maybe they will be the ones kicked out instead. It takes time and MONEY for them to go through and see if flagged articles are validly flagged so when they see enough of their employees' time wasted doing this for unnecessarily flagged articles, they will have to determine if the random flaggers are worth their time.
It would be nice if the heads of Gather could do something about it so that points could be distributed more democratically.
You raised a very good point about points for articles vs photos. For example, I wrote an article about women in ministry ( a subject that affects all of us) and yet got no more points than did a posting about a used women's shoe. Imagine -- in my article I had to research the Bible and a concordance whereas the other poster merely took a picture. Yet we both got the same amount of points! For all I know she probably got more points later on.
It used to be an old truism that friends return favors that are done for them. So far, I have given thousands of points to others including people with whom I am not connected. Yet, few points have been returned to me including from friends who are fellow group members.
The best thing to do is to eliminate anonymous point giving. This way everybody can see where your points are going. It would definitely prove that there is a forum slant towards suburbia and its trivial issues as oppose to concrete matters of significant consequences. I hope that doesn't sound too harsh but it is the truth.
It would also be nice if the Gather leaders would address some of these issues openly.
If you don't like something don't read it DUH!!!!!!!!
I think the endless question, poll & games can be a bit maddening, espically when combined with the inbox messages telling you that the writer has posted an article.
I've posted a few photos and like to get good feedback. But, mostly I get 10's. Well, with the exception of when I gave someone an 8 rating. They deleted their photo and rated mine 8.
Doesn't the whole rating system lose it's credibility at that point?
And then there's the whole "stat prostitute" thing. Some one with 5,000 friends looks at one of my pictures wants to be my friend? Uh, yeah...
Anyway, I like the overall concept of the site, but I don't think I'll be rating anything and probably won't have many friends... Kinda like real life, eh?
but if the work is good youll see
always left a 10 from me