UPDATE: This feature has two undesirable side effects:
1) significantly increased load times for post pages
2) it puts thumbs up/down on all old posts, not just posts going forward, so not only does it add load times to those, it leaves them with conditions not known by the original commenters.
While it seems this experiment was popular, until wp.com can make it work without penalty to the blog overall speed and character, I’m going to disable it. Thanks for trying it out – Anthony
Chronically angry troll Jack Greer left some smarmy comment in the WUWT wins Bloggies Best Science Blog announcement. I didn’t see what it was, because some other moderator snipped it. I suppose Jack can’t help himself.
It did however, remind me that I’ve been meaning to get this new blog feature enabled to try out.
Now, when it comes to other commenters, if you wish, you can be Nero. You can rate comments with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. If you don’t like playing emperor, you can always imagine yourself to be Siskell or Ebert. It looks like this:
Thanks to Jack for the prodding, he’s earned the first ever “thumbs down” vote on WUWT. Congratulations Jack!
You can also thumb your nose at certain comments, but we have no way to record that.
We’ll try this for awhile, and see how it is received. It may be popular, it may not. It may just be noise. But let’s find out. I’ll heed the poll results below:
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Can you also put a sideway thumb?
I expressed my dislike for this in ‘Tips and Notes”. What next, funny faces?
OK, the heat in Brisbane must be getting to me, but science is a numbers game, how many ‘thumbs down” does it take to make a ‘snip’ ?
I guess a middle finger would be out of the question.
I know [snip]
You’ve just encouraged me to examine your website HTML and reject the most possible javascript includes in my proxy server. Too much eye candy that distracts from the content. And amazingly high school clique like.
Not to be a jackass, but this does not solve a problem I have.
No comment/question in science is good or bad. It reminds me of the sort of things they play at Real Climate or Climate Progress. If you don’t agree with people that are not thinking the way you do, you vote them down. Science does not need votes.
I am against this idea of rating other’s comments.
I like the idea of giving a comment a like or dislike mark.
I hope everyone gives this comment a thumbs up. 😉
Hmmm. Not too thrilled with these thumbs. Tend to promote groupthink too much. Prefer not to start reading a post with some judgement already rendered on it. And the comments speak for themselves, to each individual.
And after all, it already was the best science blog in the known universe.
But, I’m just one thumb down.
Interesting idea.
I just had a question. On one of your other posts http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/27/wuwt-voted-best-science-blog-in-the-2011-bloggies/
I noticed that nearly everybody had a least one Thumbs up and one Thumbs down.
Do they start off at 0/0 , or, has somebody already gone and ” Thumbs Down” every comment they didnt like?
Thanks 🙂
REPLY: They start at 0/0 somebody decided to press all the elevator buttons. -Anthony
Way too much busy work for me. I have enough trouble working this keyboard and getting my spelling right. pg
I realize that you may not have much flexibility in modifying features that WordPress offers, however I would suggest just having a “Thumbs Up” and no down. That way people can spread kudos for well-thought out posts but avoids the problems that can arise with people piling on to diss posts. It puts in practice what my mother always said about “If you can’t say something nice…”
I’m sorry, but things just got a little bit shallower. Where’s the hitcher thumb? Why in the world would anyone rate comments? If a comment is stupid, so be it. I thougt the commentary field should represent a cross-section of peoples minds and thoughts. If comments are plain evil and demeaning, well, then it´s up to the moderator to erase them. Rating comments are in the lines of grooming the opinions like they do in those one-party states, “Think and speak like us and it will serve you well”. It’s only by knowing the “enemy” tricks and tounge speech that you can learn how to argue against them.
Elevator buttons are fun!
But I agree with the above posters, although I gave them all “thumbs down” out of spite. This reminds me of LGF.
Best let the discussions ride as is without possible “cheers and jeers” from the peanut gallery. Let the comments stand on their own merit, or lack thereof.
This may prove interesting but it will take a civilized audience to make it work.
Perhaps in keeping with the Science Blog theme, one could instead have icons for the most common retorts, e.g. “strawman”, “circular”, “ad-hom”… and then a few positives, like “touché”, “well-reasoned”? Although personally, I find the voting buttons a distraction, and they are too often abused.
Now with my dead-slow dial-up connection, I can watch the comments get reloaded, followed by the entire stack slowly expanding as the “thumbs” get loaded for every comment, which takes so long I get a warning about scripts taking too long…
Yet I shall not complain, shall not suggest/demand the feature be withdrawn. I have options. Specifically I have the Adblock Plus plug-in.
1. Open blockable items
2. Right Click on “http://i.polldaddy.com/ratings/rating.js?ver=MU” and select “Block this item”
3. Filter out “http://i.polldaddy.com/ratings/*” and restrict to domain ‘wattsupwiththat-dot-com’
Done! Site is as it was before.
No complaining to the management necessary. I have simply chosen to not participate. Although, I can easily suspend that filter rule if I do choose to participate.
I freely suggest others pursue that option themselves, rather than suggest/demand this new feature be (immediately!) withdrawn when others visiting this site may find it of value.
Science cannot – by voting – be labelled as good or bad science. I enjoy and like to think of WUWT as a science blog where being rigorous and objective is more important than being liked. I would prefer not to see likes or dislikes and try to make up my own mind.
I have to say I’m against it as well. You get Trolls schooling the system with proxy IP’s
I’ll go with the flow on this. It’s fun, I’ll agree. It’s satisfying to say ban him. But does it enhance the site? Time will tell – it’s Anthony’s decision.
Only stupid comments should be thumbed down. If you thumb down “ideas” then nothing controversial will ever come out. That means no science by “popular” vote. Think of what this means for this site!
Cue second tier moderation of the left v the right and the damping down of plurality of thought and expression.
These “fingers” are such a bad idea, I’m a little amazed you would even go there. But then again, you’ve made this blog into one of the most cherished on the interwebs, so maybe you do know best.
I like it. Often I agree with a comment (or disagree) but have neither the time nor the inclination to explain why. Having the “Atta boy” option is simple and easy. And, hey, there are lots of comments which should be thrown to the lions…and now we can 😉
I think it works well at Jo Nova’s site, but there aren’t as many trolls there as here. It also has the added feature of having colour-coding and a rating.
Give it a go, but here I think it will be abused by trolls.
One of the great joys of WUWT is that you can express minority opinions without being shouted down. Thumbs up and thumbs down will inhibit people from joining in the discussion.
This is why I am all for this feature:
It keeps people (including myself) from posting a comment to show solidarity with another commenter. It can be an exercise in asninity (Bush made up words too, leave me alone) to post a comment just to reinforce the validity or ‘response worthiness’ of another’s position. This feature provides an easy way of eyeballing which noodles stick to the wall, proverbially speaking.
I think it is a bad idea. Consumes resources and can’t be relied on.
After only a few minutes playing with it to figure it out, I gave the comment at February 27, 2011 at 11:01 pm 4 thumbs up. Now that I know the way it works it could be automated.