Okay, just an idea...

laptopwriter

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The reader rates the authors 1 to 5 for various reasons. It would be nice if those reasons were legitimate but a good portion of the time they are not. I have one jackass that constantly tells me my stories don't belong in LW so he rates every one of my stories with a 1.

How about if the authors could rate the readers...

Based on their critiques, the writer could click on the comment and rate it 1 to 5. As the votes add up, that person's vote would carry the weight associated with his score. In other words, the vote of a complete jackass who would get a score, of say, 1.5 would have almost no bearing on the story he is voting on; whereby, the vote of someone who gives thoughtful and insightful comments and has a score of 4.8 would carry much more weight.

I know this is probably impossible, I just thought it was a novel idea...
 
Would seem to add fuel to the flame wars more than anything else.
 
rating system

I have the same problem too and I guess for the present it will remain the way it is unless the amazon system could be incorporated which asks for written feedback.
 
I no longer see writing as a contest...on most of mine voting and comments are turned off. I write for me. If someone else enjoys it, so be it, but I don't need to hear from them if the do.
 
I've never seen a system in which writers (of blogs or whatever) rate their commenters. But a system in which readers rate comments is pretty common, and I think it would work well here, since commenters often answer other commenters.

A good bit of work to implement that, I'd guess.
 
I was active on a now-dead website [SensibleErection.Com but don't bother looking for it except maybe in archive.org's vaults] with two rating systems ('mods'), for posts, and comments. All these ratings were either +1 or -1, and all were attached to a specific tag such as "hot pr0n" or "insightful" (+1) or "illegal pr0n" or "WTF" (-1) (and also a +1 WTF). High-scoring posts gave the poster additional posting privileges; low scores limited their postings. High and low scores for comments didn't directly affect those commenting, except that high-scorers had more prestige.

Let's adapt that for LIT. Commenters can rate and rant at posted stories and poems. Other commenters or silent readers can rate the comments, modding them up or down. Modded comments and commenters would have their own modding affected. If your comment earns a -10, then your -1 vote on the story is reduced to -1/5. And if your comment is +10, then your vote is worth +5, something like that. And attach tags: GREAT and SUCKS and IMPROBABLE and +WTF etc.
 
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On deviantArt, they have where a person can make an official critique about an artists piece of work. The artist then has the ability to assess if the critique was, or wasn't "fair."

I think this is what you are basically suggesting, thought I would point out that in such a situation, the artist requests critiques and thereby the critique can be assessed to be fair or not, while anybody can comment just like here (and those comments can be replied to).

I've always thought the concept of "fair/not fair" was a little milquetoast. There are times I thought the critique was "too fair" and not unbiased enough. Once I even saw a critique where the person making the critique negotiated payment for a good critique. That was the only example that I ever thought a critique was "not fair."
 
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The main problem is as it is with anything that has to do with voting, our good friend Anymouse.

Most members with handles don't troll all that much and you can't rate anon as a whole so your idea wouldn't do any good. Most of the culprits do not use names.

The sites answer is you have the ability to turn off anon comments. The issue with that is then you lose the positive anon feedback and there is a lot of that here.

It has been suggested many times to get rid of anonymous, to make everyone sign up. That has never been really discussed by the site and most likely would never happen anyway.

One thing that could be added is eliminate anon voting. Only users with ID's could vote. That would ditch a lot of one bombs, but again you would lose the good stuff.

The other answer and the best one is....just write and stop worrying about it. yes its unfair and annoying, but its not going to change. You can suggest all you want, you're wasting your breath.
 
The main problem is as it is with anything that has to do with voting, our good friend Anymouse.

Most members with handles don't troll all that much and you can't rate anon as a whole so your idea wouldn't do any good. Most of the culprits do not use names.

The sites answer is you have the ability to turn off anon comments. The issue with that is then you lose the positive anon feedback and there is a lot of that here.

It has been suggested many times to get rid of anonymous, to make everyone sign up. That has never been really discussed by the site and most likely would never happen anyway.

One thing that could be added is eliminate anon voting. Only users with ID's could vote. That would ditch a lot of one bombs, but again you would lose the good stuff.

The other answer and the best one is....just write and stop worrying about it. yes its unfair and annoying, but its not going to change. You can suggest all you want, you're wasting your breath.

It's true that any new feature ought to be compatible with the existing system. Rating commenters isn't very practical in a system that allows anonymous comments.

But rating the comments themselves is still practical, and it would be useful if the higher rated comments were made more prominent that lower rated ones, as is commonly done on newspaper websites.

It might also provide a useful lesson for that kind of poster who thinks "Get a brain, fucktard!" is a wise and incisive comment. Am I too optimistic in thinking that kind of comment would get a pretty low rating?
 
It's true that any new feature ought to be compatible with the existing system. Rating commenters isn't very practical in a system that allows anonymous comments.

But rating the comments themselves is still practical, and it would be useful if the higher rated comments were made more prominent that lower rated ones, as is commonly done on newspaper websites.

It might also provide a useful lesson for that kind of poster who thinks "Get a brain, fucktard!" is a wise and incisive comment. Am I too optimistic in thinking that kind of comment would get a pretty low rating?

They could set up an amazon like system where you can reference a comment and say "2 out of 3 readers found this helpful" so if a comment is a trolling pile of crap it would say "0 readers or 1 reader out of 20 found this...."

Either way I can't see the site doing any type of overhaul on this issue. First I imagine it would be a lot of work and second off.....it would be a lot of work and third.....

It is what it is best sums it up.
 
...One thing that could be added is eliminate anon voting. Only users with ID's could vote. That would ditch a lot of one bombs, but again you would lose the good stuff...

This isn't necessarily so. People who vote now and ARE logged in don't get listed. The positive attribute that you could gain from requiring all people to log in to vote would be lowering the multiple voting from one person. The reverse is also true, if I like an author, I can anonymously view their page and give them lots of 5's. Requiring people to be logged in would radically lower the number of multiple votes.

Granted, some people could still log in with multiple names, but honestly I don't see a person doing this for too long before becoming bored.

Numbers would be lower, yes, but at least they would be real numbers and not inflated biased for or against.
 
This isn't necessarily so. People who vote now and ARE logged in don't get listed. The positive attribute that you could gain from requiring all people to log in to vote would be lowering the multiple voting from one person. The reverse is also true, if I like an author, I can anonymously view their page and give them lots of 5's. Requiring people to be logged in would radically lower the number of multiple votes.

Granted, some people could still log in with multiple names, but honestly I don't see a person doing this for too long before becoming bored.

Numbers would be lower, yes, but at least they would be real numbers and not inflated biased for or against.

But there are a lot of anons who vote well and comment well, especially in categories like incest and GM where even though we are all still anon even with a name, they want that extra layer of "safety"

So that's what I meant, is that there are plenty of anon's who vote and comment positively
 
Granted, some people could still log in with multiple names, but honestly I don't see a person doing this for too long before becoming bored.

I think you seriously underestimate the tenacity of the worst of the worst, who are the majority of the problem.

Nothing you put into place is going to stop them. They'll happily sign up for 100 accounts with throwaway emails and continue to do what they do with barely a moment's pause.

LW is chock-full of people who have signed up for the exclusive purpose of continuing to spew hate at authors who have turned off anonymous feedback.

There's your canary in the coal mine.

As to the rating comments thing, as soon as people figured out their low scores were losing value because their comments were down-voted, they'd create a new account to comment with.
 
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But there are a lot of anons who vote well and comment well, especially in categories like incest and GM where even though we are all still anon even with a name, they want that extra layer of "safety"

So that's what I meant, is that there are plenty of anon's who vote and comment positively

and I am one of the posters that post positively while anonymous. Being logged in wouldn't post who voted well or not, just as it is now. It would simply reduce multiple votes for that logged in name.

Note: I am not saying anon comments should be done away with. I recognize that people commenting, either way, sometimes want anonymity.
Just saying that voting shouldn't be anon.

OR, just as an writer can chose if anon comments can be posted, they should be able to choose if anon votes count.

back on topic-ish, I think a writer should be able to click "this comment was fair"/"this comment wasn't fair" whether the common-tator is logged in or not.
"Voting" on how well a comment is said will only put fuel on any fire.
 
...LW is chock-full of people who ...

Am I the only one to think my initials (LW) shouldn't be used to describe a category??
:p

In the same light, I want some fellow named "Will" to jump and ask "Why does everyone want to shoot me!?!" every time I hear in a movie "Fire at will!"
(If I could find a way to work that into a comedic story I would have loooong ago (yes, I think about stuff like that all the time))

I swear, the first couple times I saw people talking about "LW" I was thinking they were trying to obliquely refer to me!! : pouty face :
 
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'Fraid you're out of luck. That convention was in place long before I started here, and I doubt it's going away.
 
back on topic-ish, I think a writer should be able to click "this comment was fair"/"this comment wasn't fair" whether the common-tator is logged in or not.

They can do that now (and do) by posting a comment.

The discussion is nice, but you all do realize it's floating out into a void, don't you?
 
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and I am one of the posters that post positively while anonymous. Being logged in wouldn't post who voted well or not, just as it is now. It would simply reduce multiple votes for that logged in name.

Note: I am not saying anon comments should be done away with. I recognize that people commenting, either way, sometimes want anonymity.
Just saying that voting shouldn't be anon.

OR, just as an writer can chose if anon comments can be posted, they should be able to choose if anon votes count.

back on topic-ish, I think a writer should be able to click "this comment was fair"/"this comment wasn't fair" whether the common-tator is logged in or not.
"Voting" on how well a comment is said will only put fuel on any fire.

Good idea with the is/is not fair....

But then the tide shifts to authors who think even "It was excellent except for a couple of typos" will be clicking unfair to anything that doesn't say they are the greatest author to ever grace the pages of LIt and there are more than a few of those here.

I think its up to the reader to decide if a comment is fair or not, but again we will have rabid fans nay saying any comment not 100% glowing.

Anytime the human element is involved there will be issues no matter what.
 
They can do that now (and do) but posting a comment.

The discussion is nice, but you all do realize it's floating out into a void, don't you?

The point the OP is talking about, obliquely, is giving feedback on feedback (without needing to comment).

I feel the same way on deviantArt where every time I post something, I (sometimes) get a ton of comments (especially if I don't log in for weeks) and then have either one of two options: ignore the comment (which doesn't sit well with me) or write out a thousand times (hyperbole, but it feels like it) "thanks"

Commenting here on your own story buffs up your comment count. Am I the only one who sees it this way?
 
The point the OP is talking about, obliquely, is giving feedback on feedback (without needing to comment).

I feel the same way on deviantArt where every time I post something, I (sometimes) get a ton of comments (especially if I don't log in for weeks) and then have either one of two options: ignore the comment (which doesn't sit well with me) or write out a thousand times (hyperbole, but it feels like it) "thanks"

Commenting here on your own story buffs up your comment count. Am I the only one who sees it this way?

No, I see it that way. I recently found a story that had 40+ comments and 10 of them were the author responding to every slightly negative remark. In addition to that person giving the trolls enjoyment each comment registers the story high on the feedback forum and gets the story more attention so I see it as "padding" although I am sure most authors don't have that intention.
 
The point the OP is talking about, obliquely, is giving feedback on feedback (without needing to comment).

I feel the same way on deviantArt where every time I post something, I (sometimes) get a ton of comments (especially if I don't log in for weeks) and then have either one of two options: ignore the comment (which doesn't sit well with me) or write out a thousand times (hyperbole, but it feels like it) "thanks"

Commenting here on your own story buffs up your comment count. Am I the only one who sees it this way?

Afraid what I see is suggestions for nice to have but really refined frills when the Web site won't even maintain the basics. So, it's nice for you'all to fantasize. Hope you realize that's all it is, though.
 
and I am one of the posters that post positively while anonymous. Being logged in wouldn't post who voted well or not, just as it is now. It would simply reduce multiple votes for that logged in name.

Some of my best (= most constructive) comments are anonymous. I've always resisted the temptation to turn them off because of that--even though the very worst ones are anonymous too.
 
The reader rates the authors 1 to 5 for various reasons. It would be nice if those reasons were legitimate but a good portion of the time they are not. I have one jackass that constantly tells me my stories don't belong in LW so he rates every one of my stories with a 1.

How about if the authors could rate the readers...

Based on their critiques, the writer could click on the comment and rate it 1 to 5. As the votes add up, that person's vote would carry the weight associated with his score. In other words, the vote of a complete jackass who would get a score, of say, 1.5 would have almost no bearing on the story he is voting on; whereby, the vote of someone who gives thoughtful and insightful comments and has a score of 4.8 would carry much more weight.

I know this is probably impossible, I just thought it was a novel idea...

I like the idea of being able to upvote/downvote comments for its own sake (assuming it's not too easy for the trolls to exploit it) but coupling it to story scores would be difficult - how do you deal with the 90% of voters who don't comment?

If you do require registration to vote, one option is to adjust weights based on a voter's overall voting record. So if somebody almost always votes 1s, you'd give their votes a very low weight, but if they vote more of a spread then their vote might become more influential.

(Like LC says, this is unlikely to be implemented, but I like messing around with stuff like this even if it isn't going to go anywhere.)
 
Afraid what I see is suggestions for nice to have but really refined frills when the Web site won't even maintain the basics. So, it's nice for you'all to fantasize. Hope you realize that's all it is, though.

Granted.

They said the same thing to Chris Columbus (the explorer not the director). "Why bother going out and trying to find a different way? It's pointless. You're only going to fall off the edge of the earth and die."

I'm not crazy about useless acts of effort, but sometimes, you just gotta in spite of all good logic otherwise.
 
Granted.

They said the same thing to Chris Columbus (the explorer not the director). "Why bother going out and trying to find a different way? It's pointless. You're only going to fall off the edge of the earth and die."

I'm not crazy about useless acts of effort, but sometimes, you just gotta in spite of all good logic otherwise.

If nothing else its an interesting discussion albeit one nothing with come from.

My personal "waste of time" is trying to come up with a contest sweep that is as fair to stories with a lot of votes as it is to the ones with very few votes. Nothing really seems to make sense though and aga9in its a waste, but a good discussion.
 
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