June 20, 2006
-
COMMUNITY RATINGS
Some of you have asked, “How do we know that everyone will be honest about their Site Ratings?” The answer is: with the help of you and the Xanga community, soon we’ll be able to use our Community Ratings program to safeguard against dishonest self-ratings! Just click on the “Ratings” link at the top of any page to rate a Site or Post. Our computers will take all those Ratings and calculate what the consensus Community Rating is (thanks to Patrick!). If you tend to give Ratings that are accurate, our calculations will take that into account. Or if you just throw EX’s on every site as a joke, we’ll factor that in too.
Today is phase one of our long-promised Community Rating program: we’ll be collecting Ratings data over the next few days! The Community Ratings won’t go into effect, until we’ve had a few days to see how it’s going. I’m sure you guys have some questions on how it will all work, so here are some quick thoughts:
- Are you curious what people are rating you? Me too! After collecting data for a day or so, we will show you a Ratings Chart for every page.
- When we show you the Ratings Chart, we’ll also let you know what your Community Rating is looking like. Your Community Rating won’t go into effect right away – we want some time to get feedback from you on what you think of the Rating.
- Ratings are anonymous. If you give someone a Rating, they won’t know it’s from you. But remember: you’re still accountable! If you don’t rate someone fairly, your ratings will quickly count for almost nothing.
Ok that’s it for now. If you have a few, please rate the site of your Subs and Friends! Thanks… and as always, let us know what you think!
Comments (43)
First?
Interesting
cool.
Dude, I want a Scarlett Letter! Can I have one of those!
This is so neat, being able to narc on other sites! If I don’t agree with someone else’s morality, just give them the old X rating!
To hell with freedom of expression! That is soooo out of date!!!
Just once in my life I wanted to be the first to comment john. Now my life is complete.
Anyway, I’m really not sure about this idea.
frankly i am bored.
please entertain me.
please!
the end.
I don’t really have a need for the ratings, but maybe other users do.
Will do…
It seems to me that the potential problem is the differing opinions on what deserves to be rated what. For example, some people are extremely uptight about a lot of stuff and for them it takes virtually nothing for them to say that something should be rated D or EX, while others are far more liberal about such things and would rate just about everything as lower than D. Where would you find a neutral opinon? Does a neutral opinion even exist? Also, even if you simply establish an average opinion which seems a reasonable solution, you then have to decide in every instance of an opinion that differs whether they are lying or simply or a different honest opinion.
G-d be with you,
Corwin
good and bad. hope people do not abuse this
boy, I feel like I’m back in school…oh yeah, that’s right, 1/2 of xanga is still in school!
One of my concerns is that this rating system is being held to US standards rather than Global, which Xanga is. Europeans are much more relaxed about the human body that in the U.S. I mean look at what a stir Janet’s nipple caused at the Super Bowl….please.
I like that we can set what level we want to see, so it’s personal. If I want to see “Ex” or “D” rated stuff, I can if I want to (hypothetically speaking). Pete
eh…. i’m still not feeling this whole rating system.. i think i’m just going to spend my time leaving comments instead
Are you curious what people are rating you? Me too! After collecting data for a day or so, we will show you a Ratings Chart for every page. How many A’s are you getting? How many B’s? The Rating
please finish your sentence.
If you don’t rate someone fairly, your ratings will quickly count for almost nothing.
“fair” meaning you must have the same opinion as the general public does, because the popular crowd is always correct and anyone who disagrees is obviously wrong and should be penalized. makes sense.
Cheers!
hI
I’d really rather you’d fixed that ‘credit card verification’ problem with the first stage before you rolled out the second, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that.
And do you really think the people who are going to abuse this system are going to do it during the trial period?
Curious . . . how’bout folks who do not rate their own site, and no one else rates it for’m either . . . how will these sites be rated, if at all?
We’ll see how it goes…
Where in the rating scale does “Not Rated” fall? The same as “all can view this” or “Explicit”? Do I gain the “points” of impact a rating I might give based on someone at Xanga reviewing my rating, or does the software try to determine how well I am rating based on some algorithm?
someone already said, and i agree…
everyone defines things differently.
for instance?
look at the uproar over the davinci code.
: ) just my two cents.
Great Idea! Thanks, guys.
Sounds like a playground for haters to give ratings that are not accurate just to be mean.
But then there are always some people out there with those intentions.
hmm I’m not sure how I feel about cross-rating users, since more than half of them are viewable to the public anyway… if someone’s site was clearly an EX and they put it as A, then maybe just having a link to click for xanga staff to re-rate it themself or something
ALL THESE NEW FEATURES SEEM TO BE A WAY TO REGULATE THE FREE SPEECH OF XANGANS. HAS OUTSIDE PRESSURE FROM LAWMAKERS OR ANGRY PARENTS CAUSED ALL THESE CHANGES?
~CONCERNED XANGAN
I think this is a great feature! It will prevent younger xangans from stumbling into potentially damaging sites. Thanks for all your hard work!
i’m gonna give TheTheologiansCafe a bad rating because he smells funny, but then he’s wutuwaitn4′s father and i can’t blame him for smelling funny. Afterall wuwu does write entrys about poop and whatnot.
Good, I hope the ratings system will remind people that not everyone wants to stumble upon sites with trash language or pics. Monitoring the credibility of someone’s ratings sounds interesting but fair–hey, if one’s not giving legitimate ratings, then they shouldn’t count for much.
“Does God pervert justice, Or does the Almighty pervert what is right?” (Job 8:3)
I wish that people would SHUT UP with the free speech thing and censorship already. They can purchase their own domain and spout off all that they want there. They agreed to following the “terms of service” when they signed up. Flipping idiots.
As for the system, mark me down under cynical.
hmm. i think your site should be “ex” rated because it shows ice cream on the ground. In my religion, that of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, ice cream on the ground is the ultimate sacriledge. you will spend eternity in a firey, alfredo-sauced gehenna.
well, not really, I’m catholic, but do you see my point?
John, I think this is as good a place to contact you as any.
Though I love Xanga, and I am perfectly fine with the banner ads non-premium users must put up with, it is frustrating that the banner format is so large and obnoxious.
I would be interested in having an option to select the shape/size/location of the ads. Obviously, it has to be seen, but maybe it could be a bit more minimal.
Thank you for your time and efforts,
supremespleen
P.S.
Perhaps the banner on the sign in page would be a much better size. A small xanga banner on the left for easy access to the front page, then the add on the left.
Hey, I have a question, What does it mean when I get a line in my footprints that says “Satellite Provider” in it?
Thanks
People are just going to be the assholes that they always have been and decide to jokingly give someone a bad rating when they are barely a “b”.
Just sayin’.
People really have their panties in a knot about this, and I can’t see why. Obviously there’s a difference between an X and an A.
But seriously, what kind of idiot posts x-rated stuff on xanga? That’s more of a myspace (high schooler) thing to do. Sheesh. One would think that Xanga is a slightly more intelligent community than that. But, okay.
The ratings thing is a good idea. Not nearly as much fun as footprints, but it’ll do.
wht the hell
So, basically, it’s kinda like feedback ratings on e-Bay? Sounds good. – JN.14:27 Rom.5:8
this.is.so.retarded.
HELP ME GOD.
it all depends …
I am curious- what about the eventuality that someone starts a “xanga war”? That is, someone and a lot of their friends- say, thirty or more people- get mad at another person, and every single person bombards their site with an M or EX rating even though the material is not even M? That way, those few who did post a valid rating would be overridden by the “warring faction”?
It sounds like in those (hopefully rare) cases the system could be abused. Is there any safeguard for this?
-Patrick
Interesting.
As one who has vociferously opposed the ratings madness from the beginning, I have to admit that your system seems likely to work. I’d never thought of the averaging + weighting combination, and taken together, those dealies appear to give us insurance except the sort of “abuse” — harmless and flippant though it was — I myself committed when I gave your own site a bad mark for having “illegal” content; specifically, I opposed your opposition to freedom of speech, which is in the Constitution, which is the law of the land.
I just checked the link up top, and see that you got one rating each for things other than “A.” Fair enough. My vote didn’t mean anything, nor should it have meant anything.
But here is a serious question: assuming there’s no way for me to retract the flippancy, and assuming (it’s the truth) that I have given no OTHER flippant ratings, how much of a penalty do I pay in terms of not having my voice count?
And let me add, I just gave an A rating to a site that is written by an adult who is not afraid to address mature things in a mature way, and that includes mild expressions and graphic depictions that SOME people (perhaps a lot of people) might strongly object to.
Oh.My.God. Maybe that’s worse — in terms of what it signifies — that my kiddingly giving you a D or an EX, I can’t remember what I did with you.
But the A rating I just handed out probably will be in a minority. If I had to guess what other people might average, I might guess a B average.
Problem is, I sincerely feel strongly that she’s worth an A. I have the sincere belief that kids can handle maturer themes than MANY PEOPLE give them credit for being able to handle.
Now I don’t mind being in the minority. But I DO mind the implication here that my ratings will not count for less because I’m in favor of more liberality in how one rates a site.
I’ve said before that this whole idea stinks and is ridiculous.
However, I’ve also said that I’ve mellowed a bit in the sense that you will probably wind up with ratings that are reasonably accurate, and I guess the whole idea is to help the parents police what their kids read.
I’ve always said you’re well-intentioned. I still say you are wrong. And I still resent that you won’t consider my ratings at the same strength you consider the ratings given by folks who are closer to mainstream in their thinking. But you WILL come up with fair ratings. I’ll give you that much.
“against” not “except.” Line 4 above.
“ratings WILL count,” to replace “ratings will not count,” four paragraphs from bottom.
Oh, by the way, it would be nice if you answered me. I know you answer questions. Please answer mine. How much of a penalty do I pay for one flippant rating, plus a tendency to be more liberal than the average rater?