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Tips on using this forum..

(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?

(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.

Rating comments

5 replies [Last post]
Wed, 2007-05-16 14:34
Larry Bjorn
User offline. Last seen 12 years 4 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Feb 2004
Posts: 59
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As a general observation, many are viewing the forum discussion but far less are replying with a comment. This is not surprising as it takes effort and time to make a considerate reply. Another factor preventing people from participating is likely to be plain shyness.
To encourage greater participation, I suggest that viewers are enabled with an option to rate comments. This has been done in a forum I frequently visit and with great success. The way they do this is by following; at the end of each comment you are provided with an average viewer rating and the option to rate. The rating is universal but effective. You rate the comment on a scale of one to five, with one being ‘very poor’ and five being ‘very good’.
I find this to encourage comments as you are given more feedback on your contribution. I also find this to encourage viewing as you are given a quick and anonymous tool to support/oppose a viewpoint.
To prevent members from distorting the result, rating should only be possible when logged in and restricted to one rating per comment.

Comments?
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Replies

Sat, 2007-05-19 06:48
#1
Larry Bjorn
User offline. Last seen 12 years 4 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Feb 2004
Posts: 59
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Ashraf,

I see the merit of preventing PP forum from becoming a survey or opinion poll.

Thanks,
Larry
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Sat, 2007-05-19 05:16
#2
Ashraf Jahangeer
User offline. Last seen 8 years 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 8 May 2007
Posts: 144
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Hi Larry,

PP is a forum for sharing information and knowledge, with open ends. It is not a survey or opinion poll, for that we have another section in Voting.

You will appreciate that it is very easy to click and rate a comment than to dedicate time and energy and come up with something of value. It is for the originator to decide what he is looking for as an answer or the other partcipants who provide valuable input.

You yourself can understand that once a person disagrees with you, leave apart bringing the best out of you it may even stop anything which was to come out of you.
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Sat, 2007-05-19 04:36
#3
Larry Bjorn
User offline. Last seen 12 years 4 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Feb 2004
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What is the difference between being criticised by a comment or a rating? Being right or wrong, I want as much feedback a possible. If anything, a system like this is likely to increase the quality of comments. This also removes the need to insert comments like ‘I agree/disagree’. A rating system would enable viewers to quickly give their opinion and move on.

Regards,
Larry
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Sat, 2007-05-19 02:17
#4
Ashraf Jahangeer
User offline. Last seen 8 years 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 8 May 2007
Posts: 144
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas

I totally agree with Chris.

Regards,

Ashraf
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Thu, 2007-05-17 02:35
#5
Chris Oggham
User offline. Last seen 9 years 48 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 605
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Larry,

As you point out it takes time and effort to produce a considered reply, and if someone makes that effort and then gets a bad rating because someone else doesn’t agree with it, what happens then? The person given the bad rating is less likely to respond again especially if they are naturally shy to begin with. Continued bad ratings could lead to the person withdrawing from the forum altogether with the consequent loss of their expertise and experience.

Also where ratings like this are given, over time people tend to conform to a norm which can be implicit or explicit, but is usually a concensus of the opinions of the group, a process is known as operant conditioning. While ratings can be extremely useful in certain situations, I’m not sure that Planning Planet would benefit from such a system.

Chris Oggham
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