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:
Actually that is a photo of Emperor Johnycashimus, an obscure ruler who resigned to pursue a singing career.
I like the option of the thumbs but less “in your face”.
The color format of the presentation “jumps off the page” in contrast to the black and white..
Can you hide the thumbs behind a button ?
Then I can ignore it unless I want to express myself, quietly.
When the tally is in my visual field I automatically read it even when I don’t want to.
Hiding it behind a button will fix that.
PS… Congratulations !
It is open to misuse by AGW alarmists and other opponents of the blog and its success.
Well, unlike some sites that have the “thumbs” feature, this doesn’t subtract one from the other leaving just a net balance.
This is a good thing.
For those who don’t like it , don’t do it. For those who do , thumbs up to you.
Not a big fan of the thumbs. I read WUWT for the posts by Anthony and the others. If I disagree with a post, I feel obliged to explain why. If I disagree with a comment I feel obliged to explain why. A content-free mechanism like “thumbs” drains content and elevates the opinions of the ignorant to the same status as those of the informed (and empowers trolls, as we’ve seen on innumerable other websites).
Keep’em, don’t keep’em, whatever. But I won’t be using or paying any attention to them.
Sorry Anthony, this one gets the thumbs down
EO
Wait, there is something wrong with the system, I just rated myself up!
I do not think this is a good idea. It is likely to discourage some people from posting here, and that is almost always a bad thing. A trivialising distraction, in my far from humble opinion.
No, I can’t say I care for this. Some people read the comments and hate or like them without much reason. It’s like my father-in-law. “That’s stupid!” he’ll growl about something, but when pushed for a reason he just grunts. Up until now, readers like that have been more or less silent. Now, however, it will give them the chance to register a negative response without having to “show their work,” so to speak.
On the other side, agreement has always been expressed verbally here, and even if it’s just something like, “Good point, Willis,” it means more than a little icon.
The more I try to express my dislike, the less I find I am unable to. However, if I were to use the “thumbs up/down” thing, I wouldn’t have even managed to articulate this much. Make it go away. It feels like a social network.
What are you doing now: “I’ve just made a sandwich — nom, nom, nom.”
I dislike clutter (one of the good things about this site usually) and prefer people to articulate why they agree or disagree with a post – voting is anti-science and relatively easy to game.
Have taken kadaka’s useful advice and blocked them.
Jeff Alberts says: February 27, 2011 at 10:37 pm
‘I guess a middle finger would be out of the question.’
Galileo beat you to it and ‘a posteriori’ left his digit for the following generations of scientists. 😉
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/17/galileo_and_the_scientific_pose_of_the_left_108934.html
Link c/- a link from WUWT Tips n Notes or Pajamas Media
I’m in two minds about the ‘thumbs’, on one hand, assuming they work the same as the ones on JoNova’s site, comments with too many ‘down thumbs’ get hidden not deleted, I’m happy given that it gives us a way to fold the more egregious trolls out of sight.
On the other hand if too many ‘down thumbs’ cause comments to be deleted then I would have to be against their use.
Above all the science should speak for itself.
One advantage of rating is that it allows the postings to be ordered, newest, oldest, best ranked, as on the Daily Telegraph website.
Comment ratings are critically valuable. There are frequently hundreds of comments on some topics. I rarely have the time or desire to read through them all. With ratings I can skim through and find some of the most valuable posts.
It is also often the case that I don’t make a comment because I figure too few people will see it at the bottom of hundreds of comments. If I thought I might get a high rating and be noticed by more people, I would be more likely to comment.
If you really want commenting to work well though, you need to have a more sophisticated system like Slashdot where there is more selectivity of moderators. Unfortunately Slashdot allows down mods which are sometimes used to bury climate skeptic comments.
Another great feature would be to bring a few of the best comments to the top. That would be a huge motivator to encourage quality comments. But for good discussion, be sure to bring comments from both sides to the top.
I voted ‘dislike’ because in my experience, it exacerbates the ‘team sport’ mentality. Rather than vote for a comment based on its accuracy, persuasiveness or humour, people tend to rate up comments that say what they want to hear and rate down those that don’t or come from someone they dislike. It’s unscientific IMHO and while it would be nice to think we can all rise above it, the debate on AGW offers little evidence for that on either side.
In our quest for the truth and accuracy on climate science, and other topics, we might as well be accurate as well on the history of the thumbs up and down.
I think that you will find that during the roman emperor days, there was no such thing as thumbs up, thumbs down. It was more a thumb extended, or thumb hidden.
“To close down the thumb (premere) was a sign of approbation: to extend it (vertere, convertere, polex infestus) a sign of disapprobation.”
http://bernd.wechner.info/Hitchhiking/Thumb/
Since my ego is going to be craving “thumbs up” ratings, I’ll be that much more careful in crafting my comments. The rating system won’t alter my viewpoint, just my expression of it.
In reality, this feature has little, if any, value, but that’s fine. For those to whom it gives pleasure, so much the better. It may give incentive to read more thoroughly other’s comments to be fair, even if it does invite mindless clicking.
I must be behind the curve, since the votes are trailing off at this point. Seems you have to post early if you need a fix for volume of votes. That’s ok though, because I love having a forum that allows me to speak freely (as long as it’s reasonable), something not enjoyed at the forum-who-must-not-be-mentioned.
Right or wrong. This shows that our host and moderators care about us. That’s why I like this place. Thank you, Anthony and all.
I voted against the thumbs feature.
I think comments in works should be the way to express views.
WUWT is mostly an educational site. The thumbs feature has the appearance of a competition of popularity seeking. An idea that no one likes is just as educational as one everybody likes. I think The thumbs feature detract from the open educational aspect of WUWT.
Beta testing the thumbs feature is a good way to see if it supports the education at WUWT or not.
John
There is one tiny, slight problem with using thumbs up/down – it’s a myth. The QI Book of General Ignorance has this to say:
How did Roman Emperors order the death of a gladiator?
Thumbs up. Neither Roman spectators calling for the death of a gladiator, nor Roman Emperors authorising one, ever gave a thumbs down. In fact, the Romans didn’t use a ‘thumbs down’ sign at all. If death was desired, the thumb was stuck up — like a drawn sword. For a loser’s life to be spared, the thumb was tucked away inside the closed fist — as with a sheathed weapon. This is expressed in Latin as pollice compresso favor iudicabatur, ‘goodwill is decided by the thumb being kept in’.
Before Ridley Scott agreed to direct Gladiator, Hollywood executives showed him the painting Pollice Verso by the nineteenth-century artist Jean-Leon Gerome. In the painting, a Roman gladiator waits while the emperor stretches his thumb down to give the death sentence. Scott was captivated by the image, and decided on the spot that he must direct the film. Little did Scott know that the source of his inspiration was utterly wrong. The painting is single-handedly is responsible for one of the greatest fallacies of the last two centuries, namely that ‘thumbs down’ indicated death.
Historians agree that Gerome wrongly assumed that the Latin pollice verso – ‘turned thumb’ — meant ‘turned down’ when in fact it meant ‘turned up’. If further proof were needed, in 1997 a Roman medallion of the second or third century AD was discovered in southern France. It shows two gladiators at the end of a battle and a gladiator referee pressing his thumb against a closed fist. The inscription reads ‘Those standing should be released.’
The use of thumb signs can still be dangerously ambiguous in the modern world. In the Middle East, South America and Russia, a ‘thumbs up’ is considered to be a very rude insult, comparable to the Western V-sign. This has been problematic in Iraq, where American soldiers are unsure whether locals are welcoming them or about to blow them up.
…
Ridley Scott was eventually told about the ‘thumbs down’ fallacy but felt obliged to have Commodus to give the ‘thumbs up’ when sparing Maximus, in order ‘not to confuse the audience’.
I voted in the poll (yes), and then read the comments – and changed my mind. Perhaps the post should advise readers to consider the comments before voting?
Most definitely like Jeff Albert’s suggestion of the 3rd option of the middle finger 🙂
Jeff Alberts says: February 27, 2011 at 10:37 pm
‘I guess a middle finger would be out of the question.’
I said “yes” initially to the poll because I liked it at Jo Nova’s, it helped me to find my way around a less-visited site.
But following this thread right down, I find myself agreeing with the “no” comments more and more. I find it does not save me time here, to get to the meat of the issue with 200 comments.
One deft sentence can do better than 50 thumbs, I now think.
seems a bit twitty also may attract trolls competing for record thumbs down which wuwt certainly doesn’t need. So thumbs down from me.
Any measuring of a consensus of opinion gives weight to the illusion that a consensus of opinion is worth noting.
My $0.02? Ditch the thumbs, Anthony. We don’t need consensus in science and we don’t need consensus on comments.