I skimmed through the suggestions and didn't see this, so if I missed it I'm sorry. Since I've been on postloop there is one thing I have been wanting to do. I've been wanting to give the forums I am on a rating as well. I know you can always give a suggestion etc on the forum itself, but there are forum owners who would take it extremely personal and may give you a low rating for it. So I was thinking a rating system like what the owners get, one where we can be anonymous and give tips etc. I would say the ratings really shouldn't effect the owners much if at all far as having their forums on postloop, have it be more of a helpful tool to them. Otherwise you may get trolling by people who got low ratings from the owners. I think this will be a helpful thing for both owners of forums and the posters, because the posters can get their ideas out without fear of being punished for them and the forum owners get opinions/suggestions. Edit: Since it seems people like to read just the first post of this I will add things for the benefit of those who don't wish to know all I said in the thread -.- Basically, as I said it could turn into a trolling thing so I said it could be private. It wouldn't affect forum owners, it wouldn't even affect how users see the forum. It would just be something users can do to give their own feedback on the forum for the forum owner to see, it would be anonymous reviews so you won't get punished. After all there was talk of people saying 'well if a forum owner gives a low rating then the poster will give a low rating back' but they don't realize, forum owners can easily do the same thing! Not everyone has the morals it takes to get criticism without retaliating against the critic. Its like the situation where a person gets told they do something wrong and the person go 'Oh yeah well you're stupid!' its going to happen no matter who is doing it. If you ruffle a forum owners feathers they could easily go blasting their workers in the ratings, yet I don't think people really think of that.
I can see some benefits, although small, to this. It was kind of sort of suggested quite some time ago - http://www.postloop.com/support/index.php?threads/forum-review-section.266/ I'll make note of it, but I've got a number of other planned features that would come ahead of it.
I wouldn't expect you to find that one. It would take a lot of digging. I should also add, that I did consider this more heavily in the past. I avoided it because of one large fear. My fear is that reviews would turn into "Join this forum, they give out high ratings!", and that is absolutely not something I want, because it would be detrimental to the rating system.
Yeah I could definitely see that being something you don't want.What if the ratings and notes were only for the forum owners to see? And if they get more then one take the average of the numbers to show with the forum, but not the actual notes? That way you can avoid the high rating review problem for the most part.
Ryan why don't you have it set so when posting reviews for the forum itself (if you do implement) this idea, that the moderators/administrators manually approve those ratings? So the spam which you say "We give out high ratings, join this forum" does not happen?
Because it is the forum owners who would want those kind of reviews displayed. It attracts writers to their forums.
One of the biggest failures on Ebay's feedback (some would consider Ebay the orignal feedback system) was what became known as "Retaliatory Feedback" and what I'd fear most if Ryan made posters able to rate forums is that we'd quickly find that if a forum owner gave a low rate to a poster, then the poster would retaliate with a low rating for the forum owner. Now, what if the poster really deserved the low rate, that doesn't mean the forum owner deserved it too? How are you going to sort out that bucket of fun Ryan? Seems to me to be more drama than it's worth.
Thats why I mentioned that it wouldn't affect forum owners, it doesn't even have to be seen by other posters. It could just be for the forum owners knowledge. I know it could turn into a trolling thing, I mentioned that in my first post.
If all you wish to do is send the owner a private message...well, you can already do that. It's not coined "feedback or review", but there is a way to send any owner a message without anybody else seeing.
That doesn't stop them from giving you a bad rating though, I got a 2 rating from a person because I didn't agree with them telling me to plaguarize. If there are owners that do that there will be owners that will give you bad ratings for giving feedback on their forum they don't like. The reason I am suggesting what I am is its a way to do it anonymously, so you don't fear punishment for voicing your opinion.
Maybe if we rate forums, it works how a site owner rates posters, it's Anonymous. But it affects how the site displays in listings, higher rated forums are at the top and the poster in that forum must make 10+ posts before being able to rate it.
I want to modify the suggestion a little, since us the site owners do like feedback on user experience. You can still have the rating system but a feedback system with it will be more helpful to webmasters. Say like a few questions, some can be ratings and some text boxes to send to the webmaster. How easy was it to navigate the site? Where the site color scheme easy on the eyes? How would you rate the overall layout of the site? If you can suggest any enhancement or anything you would like to change about the site what would it be? These are the things we would like to know about, just a plain rating is not going to do this for us. Also you can probably do the same for the posters How long where the post? - 10 words 1 star, 25 words 2 star, 50 words 3 star, etc. What would you rate the quality of the post? How easy was it to understand this user? If you can suggest anything to this poster what would it be?
Most forums have a feedback section for users to make suggestions. I think adding it to the Postloop side of things waters down what Postloop is about. The rating system for users means something. It can effect when/if and how much they get paid. What would be the incentive for forum owners to listen to users? Plus you might get into this, tit for tat system when a user rates a forum low. Also I have said it before, length does not mean quality. I have seen 200 word posts that were rubbish, and one liners that were perfect. If posters have to make lengthy posts to get a good rating all the time, then you will get forced answers/posts that are not natural. On another note, I think a big misconception is that once a writer is accepted, they think they have to/should join every forum and post as much as that forum will allow. Now I will say I have made this error, but now I realize that some forums are just not for me. And other forums I can not post everyday on. The point being, if a forum does not suit you then do not post on it. So I do not think your suggestion would add value, but it is ultimately up to Ryan. These are just my thoughts. I think Postloop works pretty good the way it is.
Personally, I'd prefer my Postloopers to give me any criticism about the forums in private, if at all, and keep their public posts on the topic of the forum. That's just me though.
