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[POLL] Archive Rating and Review Feedback


TidalDragon

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Hello friends! As we continue work on the official HPFT Archive, we want to know your preferences about reviews and ratings and we hope you'll express those opinions by voting in the poll above. We would also like your opinion on the ability to leave ratings without leaving a review. Questions and additional feedback are, as always, welcome by replying to this thread as well.

 

Before voting or replying however, please take time to read the explanations for each option.

 

Reviews with a "star" rating: This permits readers to not only leave  a text review on your story, but to assign it between one-half (1/2) and five (5) stars. A story's "star" rating would be visible to members and guests.

 

Reviews with likes/dislikes: This permits readers to not only leave a text review on your story, but to indicate whether they "liked" or "disliked" it. Likes and dislikes would be visible to members and guests.

 

Reviews with no rating system: This abolishes ratings and only permits text reviews to be left by readers.

 

Finally, please tell us whether you would hate, love, or be ambivalent toward giving members and guests the ability to assign a rating (star or like/dislike) without also leaving a review.

 

Thanks for your feedback!

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I don't really like the idea of the rating system at all. It's good in theory, but I'm afraid it may get abused. For example, say someone hates Dramione, then goes and either dislikes or gives a half a star to all stories that feature Dramione. It would be discouraging to the author and bring their rating down. I like the idea of just being able to review, because then if it's a flame or something inappropriate, the staff can just remove it. I know our community is very considerate and supportive, but the majority of the Internet isn't like that, and I'd hate to see people become disheartened about their writing because of internet trolls.

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I agree with Meg about the problem of negative ratings being abused. Can we have a system that has likes without dislikes? Kind of like kudos on AO3

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I agree with Meg and Sam, but I love the rating at ao3, with the option to leave an "upvote" after reading without leaving a review. It's a nice gesture and while the same option with downvotes would be discouraging it would be nice for upvotes.

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I really like Sam's idea, if that's workable.

It avoids the negative rating abuse but at the same time gives people the opportunity to express appreciation for a story without having to necessarily leave a review. (I know that when I started reading fanfic I didn't feel comfortable with writing reviews and I would've loved a way to just like a story without comment on it...)

 

But if that's not possible, then I guess no rating is better, for the reasons Meg and Sam already expressed.

 

Finally, if we do have ratings, then I would give the opportunity to use them without necessarily leaving a review, for the same reason I expressed above. Even if that makes it more abuse-risky... mmmh... I'm undecided...  ???

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I also agree with no ratings because I think it could lead to lots of feelings getting hurt.

 

A favorite/kudo system would be cool if you could do it without the negative ratings. That way if you don't like something, you don't do anything, but if you do like something you can favorite it

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Just to clarify, the ratings would be in addition to favorites - there will be favorites (and the option to receive an alert every time one of your favorite stories is updated) regardless.

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For the fear of abuse with negative reviews is why I choose the star system.  You can't down vote much when giving stars.  I think would a like option with no dislike option however.  Like we see on facebook and on Ao3. 

 

I am cool with guests leaving opinions and reviews.  There are some people who don't want an account but want to leave feedback and some want to say I like your story but don't want to write a review so I say permit guest voting.

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Several questions (I know, I always seem to have questions - can't be helped).

 

Are the dislikes/ratings attached to the user's account? Right now at HPFF, I can check out, say, MegGonagall/Unicorn_Charm Author's Page and see all 500+ (OMG - really Meg? Over 500?) reviews she's left others. Will this also be possible with dislikes/ratings, or will that be anonymous? If not visible to other users, will it be visible to admins in case of suspected abuse?

 

Will users be able to search for stories based on ratings? Like what if I want to search for Snape/Hermione tales with only 4+ stars? This would neat on one hand, but also leave plenty of room for good stories to get ignored. And it also leads to my next question ...

 

Will anything be in place to prevent sockpuppeting? In other words, authors (or their readers) making extra accounts and rating their own stories so to make them look awesome. Or in a worst-case scenario, someone trying to tear down another's story?

 

It does get messier with guests leaving ratings, and hopefully if we implement ratings/likes/dislikes, it doesn't unduly influence things like challenges.

 

Anyways, sorry for opening a can of worms.

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In response to everyone who has expressed a preference for a "like only" system similarly to AO3's kudos - that is something we are looking into and the question may be how code-intensive it is to rewrite or mod the existing system into something that supports that. It's something we've discussed, but it is unclear whether it will be possible or not at this phase.

 

We have also discussed the potential for abuse of any rating system, but as a result of those discussions, still felt it necessary and appropriate to get feedback from all of you afterward in recognition of the fact that our views, individually or collectively may not be representative of the community's views on the issue.

 

Are the dislikes/ratings attached to the user's account?...Will this also be possible with dislikes/ratings, or will that be anonymous? If not visible to other users, will it be visible to admins in case of suspected abuse?

 

Only reviews are 'trackable' to a particular users, but not ratings (regardless of which rating system is utilized). This is a deficiency in the software that, if a rating system were to be utilized, we would look into the possibility of fixing, with the understanding that it may not be possible without a professional programmer. Admins can see the ratings given by particular users in association with their reviews, though only individually and not in aggregate of all the particular person's reviews.

 

Will users be able to search for stories based on ratings?

 

This functionality is not presently available.

 

Will anything be in place to prevent sockpuppeting?...Or in a worst-case scenario, someone trying to tear down another's story?

 

Admins can see IP addresses at registration and will be extremely vigilant about possible alter accounts, etc. Likewise, reviews can be reported and deleted by admins, which includes the ability to edit/remove ratings.

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I agree with what seems like the general opinion, that I like the idea of being able to 'like' a story without the option to dislike. I think that dislikes only lead to hurt feelings the same way the discussion of karma points happened a few months ago; it seems they only serve useful when someone has hurt feelings or - in this case - negative opinions of a ship/writer.

 

I would really like the option of being able to 'like' a story that is linked to my profile (like the kudos on ao3) just for the fact that it lets the author know you enjoyed the story, even if you don't have time to write out a review.

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Looks like a lot of people have already said what I came here to say, but I'll reiterate anyway just to throw in my 2 cents as well. I would prefer just reviews, or, if possible, a "like" function similar to the kudos on Ao3. I don't like the idea of stars or dislikes, only because I don't want to find a 1-star rating or a dislike on my story with no explanation of why. That's pretty discouraging. It leaves stories a lot more vulnerable to trolls (not that anyone from HPFT is a troll, but I assume other people will visit the archive too.)

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I agree with everything that's said, I'm just wondering if there's a way to have a 0-3 type system where 0 is just the norm, and then as stars get accumulated, then your story goes up? If everyone starts at 0, then having a 0 isn't as much of a disappointment to some writers? But, then again, that could be used negatively (people always find a way), so I do like the whole reviews and then the ability to like things (liking chapters would be great, to show an author you really liked a certain chapter).

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At this point, our only options are the options Kevin has outlined. As he mentioned, allowing ratings only with a review is an option as well.

 

We share your concerns about these systems, which is part of why we wanted to open this to the community. However, I'm seeing a lot of focus on trolls in particular, and I wanted to remind everyone that admins will be addressing trolls when they occur, whatever form they take - I don't want this decision to be based purely on the occasion potential troll, anymore than we're deciding we'll allow anonymous reviews based on the possibility of trolls.

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I think the problem with ratings though is that you can't necessarily delete a specific rating (I think that's what I've understood). If there could be a way to flag low ratings, and admins could delete ratings that don't have a decent reason in the review for why the rating is so low (I can understand why OOCness and bad grammar could warrant a 6 out of 10, but if they don't explain that in the review, the rating shouldn't be kept), that might help?

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I think the problem with ratings though is that you can't necessarily delete a specific rating (I think that's what I've understood).

 

I tried to address this in one of the answers in my earlier post, but that's actually not true. The site has specific functionality that allows admins to delete reviews and prior to doing so to edit or remove ratings. Would we delete or modify every rating somebody disagrees with or police every review without a report - no. But the functionality does exist to remove or modify ratings.

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Along with what Kevin said, I'd be very uncomfortable passing judgment on what qualified as a decent reason and what qualified as a low rating. People rate things differently, and that's valid; when I rate chapters, I very rarely give out better than an 8/10, and 7/10 is typical for a chapter I enjoyed - I'm a hard grader. There are a million different reasons to rate a chapter in any given way, and while we will absolutely deal with trolls, policing ratings in the way you're describing isn't something I want administrators to have to take on for a variety of reasons. Trolls and flames are different - we absolutely will deal with them - but if a rating system is turned on, we won't be challenging people on any single rating just because the rating is low anymore than we'd challenge them on a negative review.

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I think I'm just uncomfortable with the rating system in general. I feel like it will lead to people being discouraged and hurt. I know that if I worked really hard on a chapter, or a story, and was really proud of it and then saw it had like 2 stars, dislikes, or like 4/10, I would be hurt. That might just be me being overly sensitive I guess, but it would make it harder for me to want to still continue writing.

 

Some people may not have English as their primary language, but still want to write, and they may end up getting a poor rating because of language barrier issues. Which I'm sure would be very upsetting, especially considering how brave and impressive it is that the author wrote a story not in their native tongue.

 

I think reviews are one thing, because it gives someone a chance to be constructive in saying why they may or may not have enjoyed something. A rating is so generic and leaves an author asking themselves so many questions.

 

I just know how hard everyone works here, and I'd hate to see anyone not want to write anymore because of a rating system.

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Fair warning - I'm about to voice what perhaps some will find to be an unpopular opinion (and I'm fine if folks don't like it and want to voice their opposition to it).

 

I think that we should be primarily concerned about trolls or anyone looking to take advantage of the rating/likes system. As Kevin and Branwen have pointed out, staff will be on the lookout for these types of issues. Certainly, we could also drop a PM to the staff should we run across a problem before they discover it.

 

That being said, there will always be an inherent risk of getting hurt because let's face it: we are putting our stories and ourselves out there. On the Internet. For anyone to read. On an archive that is open to the public. If avoiding anyone getting hurt is the primary concern, then we should be looking at a closed archive - the type you can only access by invitation only.

 

That's not to say I'm unsympathetic to others getting hurt or that I haven't experienced it myself.  The one-shot I wrote that I'm proudest of also is the one that gets the absolute lowest read count and reviews. And that's ok because I firmly believe it's part of the learning experience, of growing as a writer. Not everyone will like our stories - heck, not everyone likes the books that established/respected writers produce that are on the bestsellers list week after week. It's a guarantee that we will run across folks who don't like our tales and don't have a problem leaving a low rating. Take it with a grain of salt, see if there's anything to learn from it, and move on. If they're leaving nasty reviews, or continually leaving low ratings because they don't understand the concept of 'don't like - don't read', then the staff should step in.

 

Personally, I voted for the star rating. I'd also not be opposed to likes.

 

Now I can't make a post without dropping off at least one question (sorry Kevin and Branwen - it's my nature to question and poke  ::) ). With the star ratings, is it possible to give a story 0 stars or is the lowest rating a 1 star? I ask because Amazon is set so that the lowest is 1. Giving a 0 would, of course, have a worse impact on the overall average rating of a story than a 1.

 

And I lied - I just thought of another question.  :P  Can authors rate their own story? Because that would be kind of weird.

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I voted for comments only, but I wouldn't be opposed to a likes & dislikes system either.

 

I do agree with Alexis that I don't think talking about trolls is helpful - there will almost always be trolls and they will always be dealt with; I think that's pretty certain and so something we can ignore/not talk about.

 

For me, I thought mostly about the focus of the archive, and how useful things like likes/ratings would be - and, imo, I don't think ratings are very helpful. I think writing is so subjective, in terms of what people like: pairing, style, era, etc. that having a rating system doesn't really reflect the differences in opinions very clearly. Like what other people said, I think it'd be very easy for people to leave a 1/10 rating, or a 1 star rating, and not say why or comment. Or even if it was higher - 2 or 3/5, 4 or 5/10. And that isn't encouraging to people - it feels to me like grading stories, and I don't think the purpose of the archive, or fanfiction in general, is for it to be graded, even in a quasi-grade kind of way.

 

That said, a quick way for me to say I liked a story is incredibly useful. I often forget to write reviews or don't have time, because I like writing long reviews where I can talk a lot about the story in detail, so when I can't do that some small way to let the author know I liked it - that I was there, had an opinion and wanted to tell them it - is incredibly helpful. I love ao3's system of kudos for that purpose, because it's a kind of instant feedback-type thing, where there's no statement of quality or judgement on the author's ability to write Draco Malfoy exactly as I see him, or to write in a style I like, but I can comment quickly and easily without having to spend time thinking about what I wanna say when I don't have time to do it.

 

I don't know how the software would work exactly with likes/dislikes - would there be some way to make it like/love (can the labels of the things be changed or not?), or for the dislikes half to be turned off? Because either of those would, I think, eliminate the potentially negative side which people are concerned about :)

 

But personally, I'd find a like-only-with-review system frustrating, because it would, for me, take away one of the huge advantages of having a like system in the first place.

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That being said, there will always be an inherent risk of getting hurt because let's face it: we are putting our stories and ourselves out there. On the Internet. For anyone to read. On an archive that is open to the public. If avoiding anyone getting hurt is the primary concern, then we should be looking at a closed archive - the type you can only access by invitation only.

 

I don't think I'm getting across exactly what I mean. I'm more talking about people who might read a fic and be like, "Ugh. I hate Draco and he was in this for a paragraph. I'm giving this 2 stars/a dislike/3 out of 10." Probably not to that extreme, but something along those lines. I don't like the negative grading system. I just feel it would be abused, because this is the Internet and people are jerks. (Not here, obviously! ❤️) I may be a pessimist, but I tend to expect the worst out of people. And I would hate to see a good story/author get crappy ratings because people on the internet are bored and just want to grade poorly to grade poorly. It's not exactly because I just don't want anyone to have their feelings hurt. I don't want to see people hurt unnecessarily. Like I said, I always expect the worst out of people and can see a ratings system not going well. 

 

it feels to me like grading stories, and I don't think the purpose of the archive, or fanfiction in general, is for it to be graded, even in a quasi-grade kind of way.

 

^ I guess that's basically what I'm trying to say. I agree with Aph 110%

 

Now I do like the idea of a kudos-type thing, like on AO3. Then that way if someone doesn't like a story, they can either review and say why not, or do nothing.

 

It's the mamma bear in me coming out. I care about the people here and want to protect them from internet trolls lol.

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it feels to me like grading stories, and I don't think the purpose of the archive, or fanfiction in general, is for it to be graded, even in a quasi-grade kind of way.

 

^ YES. This is exactly what I was trying to put into words before. A rating is essentially a grade, and I don't think our goal as an archive is to quantify people's writing as just a number. As far as I'm concerned, it's not really possible to ascribe a simple number value to a story that someone probably spent a lot of time and hard work on. I don't just mean for people rating my own stories, but I think I'd have a hard time giving a number rating to anyone else's story as well. That's why I'm in favor of the 'likes' system - that's not really trying to quantify writing, it's just a quick way for a reader to say they enjoyed the story.

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With the star ratings, is it possible to give a story 0 stars or is the lowest rating a 1 star?

 

So...star ratings. Answering this question requires a bit of an explanation because the functionality is odd. The short answer is that you cannot give a zero (0) to anyone. The long answer is that when you are assigning a rating, you actually aren't giving stars. You're picking a number one (1) through ten (10) which corresponds to stars, with each number representing a "half star." In this way there is actually a degree of nuance to ratings that wouldn't be there if it were just options of one (1) through five (5) stars. Or you can pick "None" to avoid giving a rating.

 

Can authors rate their own story? Because that would be kind of weird.

 

We will look into this as we begin creating test accounts with member permissions, but it appears possible for admins to review and rate their own stories. If that carries over and cannot be disabled (which I seriously doubt), then we'll address it in the Archive Guidelines.

 

I don't know how the software would work exactly with likes/dislikes - would there be some way to make it like/love (can the labels of the things be changed or not?), or for the dislikes half to be turned off?

 

As stated previously, we are looking into disabling dislikes. There is at least one archive powered by the same software that has accomplished this, but again, we are not yet certain how code-intensive that would be and it may or may not be something we ourselves are capable of doing. It may also be possible to edit the site's code to replace dislikes with something else like "love" but whether it is within our capacity to make such a change without wrecking the software will be investigated.

 

Like what other people said, I think it'd be very easy for people to leave a 1/10 rating, or a 1 star rating, and not say why or comment.

 

While the will of the community is our greatest interest in this, I just want to add on this point that though we haven't conducted a statistical study on the matter, collective experience with the ratio of positive vs. negative reviews probably suggests that this is unlikely. Anecdotally, it seems to be the rare person who would just go through and give poor ratings to stories. In the case that they did, such conduct would likely be considered trolling and would be dealt with by archive staff. Though others' experiences may diverge from mine, I find it equally unlikely that people (or at the very least, enough people to make a significant impact) are going to go through and punish chapters for some of the reasons that have been listed thus far, tarnishing their "true" rating or crushing the author's spirit.

 

The last thing I would add on this score is that it is to the community's benefit if everyone considers potential positives of each system and weighs the pros and cons not just for authors, but for readers. I add this because I imagine most would agree that they'd like to post in a place where their stories will be seen and I want to remind people that structuring our archive in a way that treats authors fairly and is useful for readers at the same time is probably best for us in the long term. I would encourage people to think about their use of things like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, Goodreads, etc. in this regard. Displaying ratings is not intended to be, nor does it have to be cruel or induce despair.

 

Your thoughts and feedback are greatly appreciated and again, we are not trying to advocate for one system or another, just encouraging people to look at each system deeply from all sides as the choice made is going to be very significant to our archive and cannot easily be unwound or changed without dramatic loss of data/information.

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Okay, in terms of Pros and Cons, I think the Cons that are brought up are mostly about authors getting their feelings hurt. I feel like with likes/dislikes that would happen as well, but I do agree with the fact that taking dislikes out of the equation would work best. I think that to get around the fact that people will get hurt, having only likes could contribute to the Rotten Tomatoes/Goodreads type rating system, if we can still see the likes and sort stories by the amount of likes the stories have.

 

But, at the end of the day, anything that isn't just reviews is going to hurt someone. Whether it's because you aren't getting likes, or the ratings are lower, anything that isn't exclusively reviews is going to end up causing someone to get hurt. I personally think that if ratings or dislikes/likes are tied to reviews, anyone flaming stories can easily be dealt with. So, if dislikes can't be taken away, I think that likes/dislikes should be tied to reviews, but otherwise, I think having likes on their own would be good.

 

I also chose likes/dislikes because when I was starting in fanfiction, I didn't review, but I wished that I could somehow tell the author that I enjoyed their work. The like system could do that and further benefit the author because they know that their story is being read and enjoyed, by those who won't typically leave reviews.

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