[Announcement] Post rankings

[sanctus]

A long while back we had introduced the post ranking option (up right corner of a post) where you can vote a post up or down. In the beginning many people used it, but since there was no visible change (I tend to think at least that this is the reason), it got a bit in disuse.

 

I changed now the limits to:

[math]\pm[/math] 3 votes highly/lowly ranked post

[math]\pm[/math] 7 votes highest/lowest ranked post

 

Note that it is (obviously ;-) ) the sum of all votes which counts, eg. 3 up votes and 7 up votes plus 4 down votes give both a highly ranked post.

 

And (also obviously) you can't vote on your own posts, but you can show off by linking to a post of yours as an example (as I did) :hihi:

 

So far we have no highest ranked post but on "post ranking statistics" (link found under quick links top right corner of page orhere) you can see which posts so far are highly and lowly ranked.

 

this is an example of how a highly ranked post looks different from a neutral one (see top right corner of post).

 

I hope this, in my view, really cool feature will now be used more. And don't hesitate to ask if something is not clear.

[Pyrotex]

I used the post ranking thingie quite often -- initially.

But the trouble is, the very first time a post is ranked, either positive or negative, the post goes from "no ranking" to "neutral ranking".

In other words, a post has to be ranked TWICE (at the start) to show any movement from neutral.

And I found myself quite disappointed at this behavior. So much so, that I have since ceased to use it.

 

I highly recommend that even the FIRST ranking causes the post to clearly go into positive or negative territory.

[sanctus]

Pyro, I do not think it works the way describe, at least not exactly.

It is true that a post needs 1 vote to change from not ranked to neutral, but this is not additive (in my understanding) in the sense that with 2 more votes it would be highly ranked (and not 3 more as I understand you imply in your post).

 

And no a post needs 3 votes in the same direction to go away from neutral.

 

I highly recommend that even the FIRST ranking causes the post to clearly go into positive or negative territory.

I also wanted something like that, but so far I haven't figured out a way to add more levels than "highly ranked" and "highest ranked" and then if after a positive vote we already on the positive side, we have only one level left and then I think that the ranking makes less sense...

[Pyrotex]

And another thing.

Why are so many posts which have +2 or -2 rankings still considered "neutral"? The vast majority of posts will never get any ranking at all, right?

Okay, I went back and read Tormod's letter above, and okay, a post must have +3 or -3 to be changed from "neutral". Sorry, but in my rather small opinion, the bar should be set lower. I think there should be more categories:

+1 : positive rank

+3 : highly ranked

+5 : very highly ranked

+7 : highest ranked

 

OTOH, it's not that big a deal, I guess. I certainly won't complain if the ranking thingie is left the way it is now. Thanks, Tormod!

[Pyrotex]

Thanks Sanctus! It did not occur to me that there might be low-level coding constraints that would limit how many categories you could have.