Rating a member

John, I STILL cannot find this ...

I think we all understand that what 1*, 2* and so forth mean. What is unclear, especially to newcomers, is the averaging. For example, if someone has 3*s given by one person and along come a half a dozen people and give that person 1* each, you have just dropped their rating ... 9 stars divided by 7 people = 1.29 so the poor person goes from a 3* rating to a 1* rating!

Do you understand what I'm saying?

 

Darn it, I just lost my reply, so here goes again.

I now understand the bit about giving people more stars than they already have to bring their rating up. However, I still do not understand the bit about the averaging. Seeing it written black on white makes one fearful of wanting to do someone a favour and ending up by doing the opposite!

I understand you LofL - just hope someone else does too and can explain it (again)

 

I think it is done to confuse us all.I have just checked my profile and I have 2 stars with 7 votes which comes out at 1.81,and I am still no nearer,so that makes 3 of us...Wonder what percentage that is ...no don't go there

Kandy

 

This means that 7 people have rated you, and that each of these 7 has given you 1, 2 or 3 stars which makes an average of 1.81. This is rounded up to 2 stars.
If someone gave you 5 stars this would bring your average up to 2.2, which would still be rounded down to 2.
The way to approach it is to look at the ratings drop- down menu. It says 1* lowest rating, 5* highest rating, so you would give someone 1 or 2 stars if they had not been very helpful, and 4 or 5 if they had been very or extra helpful!
There isn't any explanation of how you actually go about rating someone that I can find, just the bit in FAQ telling us that we can rate each other, but not how. :(

 

I opted out because its daft and means nothing at all. Even dafter is the ranking system whereby you can become a Gardening Guru just by playing word games and guessing the contents of someone's shed. Must be really misleading for newcomers if they expect a "Gardening Expert" to actually be an expert on gardens. After a while you suss out who the real experts are and whose advice you can trust. (Fran, Liz, Pete, Strongy, Wildflower et al)

Sorry - grumpy moment but needed saying.

 

Liz, I've put in a member's request that this be clarified in the How to section. I now understand it ... but that doesn't mean I like it, especially when you think that if you have 5*s, a bunch of folk could come along giving you 1* and quickly drop your rating. It should also be stated that rating a member who already has a maximum rating would lose that rating so don't rate a person with 5*!


The option is to opt out as grumpy moment has chosen to do.

 

I also think it's ridiculous that you can only rate five people. That was fine when there were 100 members, but now that there's near-on 2,500 it seems ludicrous. Maybe rating should be abolished!

 

LOL.I didn't know you could only rate 5 people :( I had better watch how I vote as I have already used up one of my voting lives :confused:

Kandy

 

... I've used up two ... :eek:

 

And if you rate a member, then want to up it, you can't. I agree - I don't like it. But as I can't offer a better way of doing it, I've kept quiet. The point about the member status is valid too - but again, I haven't got any better ideas, unless only answers gien on gardening-related topics counted, and even then, what if what you say is wrong??? I don't know the answer - sorry! :rolleyes:

 

I've been reading some of the comments here more thoroughly, and am more and more convinced that the ratings and status should be scrapped. The number of postings should be a reasonably god guide to how interested a member is in the topic, even if not of their accuracy.
I found out about only being able to rate a member once when I wanted to up a rating I'd made - and couldn't. Different people would have different ideas of what rating should be awarded - so that 1 person would give a rating of 3 stars, feeling they were giving avery high rating, when another would give 5 stars because a person had given them 1 useful answer. It's too subjective.

But I still don't have a better solution - sorry!!

 

I've got the answer....

 

oh yeah??????

 

So, what is it? Do we want to know?

 

You can rate more than 5 people- you can rate as many as you like.
I agree with Denbrobium now, I think. The whole system is too prone to misinterpretation and subjective as she says. It has already been used by trolls to annoy people, and it now seems a lot of people are having problems with it
I think the best thing to do is to vote with our preferences as Hornbeam suggests, and several of those of us who were trolled have already done, and not permit ratings.
I have now done this to the system as far as I am concerned. I've been looking for an excuse to use that smiley.