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by Jodie44 on January 21st, 2006

Jodie44

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I attempted to rate an answer but was prevented from doing so because I rated the same user about 15 hours before. What are the details of the new ratings rule(s)?

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Answers. 3 helpful answers below.

  • by Jodie44 on February 2nd, 2007

    Jodie44

    This question is pretty much obsolete now, but the history behind it may be interesting.

    If you've read my answer called, "An Answerbag History", http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/111221/249540 you know that once upon a time in the quaint little village of Answerbag 1.0, life was good. The sun almost always shone in a deep blue sky, the birds chirped merrily, and the villagers, for the most part, got along well.

    We lived a happy, peaceful existence off the beaten track. Once in a while, people stopped in on the way to and from the big city of Yahoo, but they didn't tarry long with us, the Answerbumpkins.

    The hills and dales were free of billboards, and the air was clear and clean. The children who attended Answerbag Elementary, Answerbag Junior High and Answerbag High School were intelligent and well-behaved. God only knows what happened there <snicker>

    Just one troll lived under the Answerbridge that spanned the babbling Answerbrook, and we knew who he was. He liked to torment the village idiot, who wrote something about Scientology into every answer.

    Back in those days, there were three possible ratings for answers: Useful, Somewhat Useful, and Not Useful, aka "Useless". When a Bagger rated another Bagger's answer as anything other than "Useful", he had to state why, and the system kindly published his name as the downrater. Convenient, if the downrated answer-writer wanted to express his "appreciation" to the folks who offered low opinions.

    Although one Bagger could rate an answer only once, there was no limit on the number of another Bagger's answers he could rate in one day. If he liked every one of Batgirl's 6,000 answers, he was free to uprate every one in a single session. His only limiter was Dial-Up vs. DSL. Conversely, if he disliked Batgirl's answers, he could slam them all down in one day. Since he'd be forced to comment, however, Batgirl would know who downrated. That's what led to the Ratings War.

    People dealt with downratings on their answers pretty well, and although retaliatory negative ratings posed a problem at times, Mayor Joel Downs and Constable Rich Gazan kept order in our little Answerburg --

    -- until the final months of 2005, that is. The Ratings War began and the governing bodies changed the rules to stop the ratings slaughter.

    Firebrand, in response to your answer - which asked me to reply to the question -

    Out of the shocking Answerblue, Answerbag HQ suddenly clamped down on limitless ratings. They restricted a Bagger to just five positives/five negatives per day on another individual Bagger's answers. For example, when a Bagger gave a thumbs up to five of the aforementioned Batgirl's answers on Tuesday morning, he was SOL if he read a sixth that he liked on Tuesday night. He waited until Wednesday or beyond if he wished to rate.

    As time passed, we discovered the cursed Lifetime Ratings Cap. If one user uprated, say, 300 of Batgirl's answers, that was it. No more. While Batgirl continued to write good answers, anyone who wore the ratings cap was out of the game. Unfair, of course, to Batgirl and the users who'd applauded her efforts too many times.

    When Answerbag 4.0 debuted on November 15, 2006, AB HQ did away with both the daily and the lifetime ratings cap. Now the ratings limit is set at 25 upratings over any consecutive seven days.

    With the old ratings system, answers showed no points - only percentages - based on the number of Useful, Somewhat Useful, and Useless ratings. If five users liked an answer and no one disliked it, that answer had a 100% average rating. If another user came along and awarded a "Not Useful" (50%), the answer's average was 91.66. If someone else believed it was "Somewhat Useful" (75%), that, too, was figured into the ratings average: (5 x 100)+ 50 + 75 = 625, and 625 divided by 7 = 89.29%.

    With a rating of 89.29, people got a better idea of the answer's value. The top-rated Baggers had 95% minimum average ratings and were ranked with letter designations of A++. Answerbag focused on quality, not quantity.

    With the current points system, if Bonehead writes a crappy answer, but 100 of Bonehead's buddies, all brainless Sages and Maestros, like and rate it, the crappy answer gets 600 points. Even if 100 brilliant newbies - all Pulitzer-Prize winning, professional writers who know everything about everything, downrate the crappy answer, it still ends up with 500 points. The worst part, and a big reason why points are meaningless - no one will ever know that 100 people liked the answer, and 100 people thought it sucked. Ah, well.

    Answerbag is no longer the quiet little village where quality of life is more important than population growth. The new interstate, the Johnny Depp Memorial Highway, plows through the middle of town. People move here looking for lost pills and a place to raise babies they're unsure how they acquired. They teach misspelling and bad grammar at the high school. Text Messaging is a popular class. The troll and the village idiot finally got together and spawned a whole herd of baby trollsters who run around and cause mischief. We're trying hard to stop urban blight.

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  • by Firebrand on February 2nd, 2007

    Firebrand

    That would be very useful to know Jodie I cannot comment so will at least get this out on the front page .

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  • by Clementunited on August 22nd, 2011

    Clementunited

    Each "like" you receive give you 1 point.

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