There we go again. Some of you might have noticed that we've been fiddling quite a bit with the site.
One of the modules we've been using on this site for about two years now is called "Fivestar" - a module that allows for very simple rating of certain types of content without requiring the page to be refreshed after. It's a great module and we love it.
However, about a month ago, this same module caused a fatal error on the site - resulting in its demise. The site was down for a few hours while Fanaile Essence worked to get this site back online. In the end, all she was able to do was to uninstall the module and delete it completely. Her method worked, getting the site back online. But sadly, she was unable to save all of the current ratings that many of the blog posts had already accumulated.
Since then, Fanaile has been working to find a similar module that would allow for the same ease of rating content (without breaking the site) but would also allow for us to answer the dozens of requests we've received on creating a new, more guided system of rating blogs. The most common requests were for us to implement a system on which members could rate blog entries based on several criteria, and then have the average of those ratings be shown on the blog entry itself.
Well, as of right now we are proud to announce that we have finally accomplished this task. You'll now see the new links posted near the bottom of each blog entry's teaser on any given page - "Add Review". These "reviews" work exactly as the comments did before. However, now when you go to write your comment, you will see an easy form to enter your rating just above the comment box.
Additionally, your "review" will be posted on the blog entry itself, with your average rating showing - so think carefully before you rate! Anyone wishing to know how you rated for each of the criteria may do so by clicking on the "read more" link at the bottom of your review.
The criteria for this new rating method are as follows:
Content: - Rating the content of the blog itself. What does the blog say? Is it inspiring? Thought provoking? Does the topic belong here on Progressive U?
Flow: - How well does the blog entry flow? Are the paragraphs broken up nicely? Is it easy to read?
Writing - How well was the blog entry written? Are there a lot of spelling and grammar errors (a few typos are forgiveable!!!) Does the author demonstrate (overall) a good writing style?
Progressive Value - What is the level of progressive value portrayed in this blog entry (as defined by us)? Does it fall within one of the five listed values?
Overall - After contemplating each of the previous four criteria, what would you rate this blog entry overall?
Our hope with this new method is to annihilate unfair raters - those people who would rate a very good blog entry as a one star simply because they disagree with the content. We're also hoping to lessen the number of comments that seem to center solely on a person's writing and grammar rather than on discussing the ideas put forth by the blog entry. Now there is a place to enter your feelings on both without wasting space writing endless comments that do not contribute to the discussion.
With this set up, for now, you can only rate a blog entry if you leave a comment. We are in the midst of discussing how this will effect the points for the next Blogging For Progress scholarship contest and whether or not this is something that should change. There have been several complaints before about blog entries being given very poor ratings with no real explanation as to how they could improve. Our hope is that this will help alleviate some of those problems. Remember, your comments will now display to the world how you've rated each blog entry - so rate fairly.
a lot :]
“You cannot wean away an addict from the drug. It is not possible for me to walk away from Ranjha. If it is our destiny to be together then who, other than God, can change it?”
she's a spaceman, no walker, dreamer...maybe
I'm just glad the rating system is back! Now I can accrue some loverly stars again and show others their blogs are awesome besides just commenting.
Yay, new system!
Nifty.
And smileys are fully back, too! I think we're missing a few, but it beats the text things.
I like the new rating system and I like the smileys.
But the comment viewing options I don't like. Even with the option, "Threaded List - Expanded" the longer comments are half-way collapsed and when you click the "More" button to look at the rest of the post, all the formatting is messed up.
Can we have a "Fully Expanded" Option?
The long comments thing is part of the rating system, Naomi is working on that.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
The bad news is - it doesn't look like I'll be able to fix it...
The good news is - it's already been fixed for the site upgrade we're getting ready for if you wanna go to the test site and check it out :)
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
So, I decided to go out there into the site and try out the new stuff. I like the new rating system because it is more meaningful than the old one (weird how that old one just all of a sudden made the site crash, too...).
But there are little things that bother me slightly. First, I second what jackbenimble said: the comments with ratings in them are always collapsed, and then there is formatting craziness when you expand them. I'm also finding that I'm always having one particular formatting oddity: paragraph breaks are no longer automatically added in by pressing "enter" (at least not for posting comments; I haven't tried it on blog posts yet). I have to manually add the HTML tag "< br >" to make a paragraph break.
Lastly, the new system doesn't let me know how many total/new comments a post has- only how many ratings it has. I can't tell if a blog has 100 comments if none of those comments have ratings with them unless I click on the blog's link and check for myself.
...I hope you can decipher my layman's babble about all this. Overall, new system is much more meaningful, it just understandably needs some technical adjustments.
The problems with the comments themselves are fixed in the upgrade. We just can't figure out how to retroactively make the needed changes to the current version of the site, and it might be a little while before we can upgrade.
Thanks for the note about the old/new comments, though. I hadn't noticed, because I don't look at the teaser views for blogs very often... I only look at the tracking page, which does tell me how many new and total comments there are.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
weird how that old one just all of a sudden made the site crash, too...
The engine the site uses works off a module system. It's basically like a giant, virtual Lego set. The engine then looks for updates to the various modules (or provides a way to manually check for updates). If the module got updated, it's possible something from the update broke it with the site.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge