Abuse of Star System in Certain Threads

OK Not to be a crybaby here, but it seems to me that there is some misuse and outright abuse of the star ranking system in the Faith and Spirituality board on BTS.

People (on both sides - not pointing fingers or naming names) are tending to "grade down" posts that seem to threaten their own personal beliefs, whether the post is good, bad, excellent, or indifferent.

It seems to be more of a way to smite one's enemies than actually grade the content of the thread. It seems to be about popularity and who has more allies.

I could be 'way off here, but perhaps the Faith and Spirituality forum should be one of the ones that does NOT have a star ranking system. There's enough heated disagreements there without further stirring the pot with rankings based on anger or feeling threatened by other belief systems.

It's not just there. I was in a 9/11 thread, and every post the Truther would make had 5 stars, and every post I made disagreeing, no matter how well written, or how much evidence I had in it, had 1. Although I have to admit I was more amused than anything by it.

I am amused, sort of. It's kind of sad though, that it's become a rather juvenile "if you don't agree with me, I won't be your best friend," kind of game.

Some subjects don't seem to be ready for a ranking system, and perhaps religious discussion is one of them.

I think the star system is fair as it is a testimony by ATS members to a post, wether you consider right or wrong is irrelevant, the star system shows a level of thinking that ATS is at as a collective. As forums are all different and privately owned it gives them a bit more of an identity and almost a political state.

I personally think the system is in need of scrapping, on all the boards. What cracks me up is when I see 5 stars for a one liner.

Right under the stars a 5 rating says denying ignorance. I wonder if those who do such can spell oxymoron?

One member, one rating. We are each allowed to rate a post depending on how we subjectively perceive the information held within.

I never cease to be amused at how a few little .pngs can bring out the crybaby in people. If you are finding yourself affected by something so petty, may I suggest that you turn the computer off, and perhaps go for a walk in the real world. You may feel better for it. You may even realise how insignificant the cause of your griping is.

[edit on 6/6/07 by Implosion]

Any star is a good star...the only "poor" mark is no mark. If you receive one star for a post then someone appreciated the contribution.

I've seen a number of 1 line posts that add nothing to the discussion in numerous forums that get 5 stars.
I guess friends following each other around posting at random and "starring" up their mates.
Doesnt really bother me, i just wont take any notice of the star system anymore nor will i take note of any award/winners that emerge from this system.
At first i thought it was OK and even used it on a lot of posts i thought were worthy, but whats the point if its getting abused.
Not having a shot at SO or ATS as they tried to come up with something worth while, but as with the tagging system it only takes a minority of immature individuals to ruin it for everyone.
I'll just send a u2u if i see an outstanding post from now on.

In any democratic system, there is room for abuse. The flagging system, the newly implemented star system, both are open to a degree of abuse from certain members. How do we stop it? I honestly don't think I have an answer. But if some members are going to behave immaturely and "1 star" every post by a certain member, or members of an opposing view, than that is their own problem.

I see no reason to remove it from this forum, as the problem can exist (and probably does) in any other forum on Above Top Secret.

Just remember that if someone wants to behave in this manner, they can only downgrade your stars once for each post. Hopefully there are others to offset this immature tactic that some members seemed to of resorted to.

I won't patronize you and say, "Don't sweat it" because we would not be here if that were the case. Obviously we carry a little bit of pride with our posts, and we would all love to have five stars. We can emphasize all day that one star is actually a good thing, but the competitive human nature is not going to permit that one to fly.

--

On a bit of a side note to the star system, I think most of these issues are stemming from the fact that everyone of us think we "deserve" five stars. Well, we don't. If I were to look at our whole membership, (+100,000) I can only think of a handful of members that should actually have five stars. Quite a few "three's" and "four's", then the rest are "one's" and "two's" who are working towards progressing their stature within our community.

Being dissatisfied with two or three stars is unrealistic in my opinion.

Not saying that is the case here, but I do think that is the source of most of the complaints on this system.

its not like that in the Secret Societies forum! ....... because stars not used very often there.

But no, I get what your saying, and I completely agree that it is abused, much like the flag system is. Or maybe thats my opinion does it count though?

mojo, the old right in the body of a post aimed at someone also lets them know that you think something is good.

Maybe ATS should count them and give awards on who has a thumb up on everyone else. And the good thing about the thumb is that you can't do it without your name being there. That way you'll look like an idiot to do a thumb on an inane one liner.

But I'm with the majority here, this star thing just don't matter now.

Originally posted by NGC2736
But I'm with the majority here, this star thing just don't matter now.

I don't think it is the majority. A happy customer will tell one person, every other time, about how satisfied they are with something. An upset customer will, on average, tell at least eight to ten people of how dissatisfied they are. So it's not that the majority of people here are against the star system. It's just that those that are happy with it, they feel no need to talk about it.

I thought Implosion made a very valid contribution and was going to give him a couple of stars myself, but hey ... They've vanished !!!

It must be a conspiracy... I blame the CIA

[edit on 6-6-2007 by sy.gunson]

Sy. - There are no stars in Board Info forums, such as this one, the Freshmans Forum, Introductions Forum, and a few others..


And I thought they were squares now...

I dont think you are in the majority, im sure the "Majority" of members, a class apart imo are mature enough to use the stars in the manner expected of ignorance deniers.
Your arguments against are weak and petty, and you will probably find the novelty will wind down and in the end the system will work well and be an asset to threads.
Some of the threads on ATS are huge, can you not see the benefit to newcomers who cannot possibly read every post on the site, or even thread, to be able just to pick out 5 star'ers to read??
It is a good way to get a general consensus in a thread whilst still in theory not missing many important points.

Anyone is free to use the post rating system as they please of course, but I would invite everyone to read the first sentence posted by SO in the introduction of the feature.

Quality is quality, regardless of whether we agree with a point or not.

That's something to keep in mind when rating a post.

Like I said, not whining or crying, but making an observation that some boards seem to have some abuse going on. I thought it would be worth airing the laundry as it were, because I am sure that other people feel the same way.

I saw what I considered to be abuse of the star system, thought I'd mention it, maybe it'll get across to those that are doing it, maybe not. But at least we've all had a chance to talk about how we feel about it, and that's all to the good.

I'm with Mojo, who makes good sense as usual. I guess that's why he's one of my friends.

this has been said many times (and i agree with it)
the new stars system will only faver those that have their peer backings to always give them high stars and their oponents low stars,

bring back WATs

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction

I'm with Mojo, who makes good sense as usual. I guess that's why he's one of my friends.

I'm just about to send you a u2u to tell you how good your last post was.

You are N O T your stars

s'all I got rly, I mean its the intarwebs, put on the extra layer of skin.