HOWTO: Rate GOTM threads (?)

[starlifter]

Scope: A brief "HOWTO" to make awareness for those that might not know you can rate, or not know how.

Purpose: I've noticed that in all of Civ 2 forums, there are only 2 (two!) threads which have a rating! GOTMs are a place where games/thoughts/strategy are compared & advice/opinion given. Naturally, some games/GOTMs/discussions are better than others. With a long history of 69 Civ 2 GOTMs now, I was hoping find a way that people "rated" at least some of them over the years. And one way is to look at the thread rating....



HOTWO Rate a Thread:

(View a thread & look at the top of it, on the right side)

1. Click the "Rate Thread" hyperlink.

2. A small window now appears.

3. Choose the rating you want to give (5 star=best, 1 star=worst).

4. Click the "Vote Now" button.


Screenshot #1: Voting for a thread:

Now for the mystery. What I don't know is how -- after I rate a thread for instance -- to get that rating to actually show up in the thread list (to see the rating stars in the "Rating" column)!

Screenshot #2: Why does no rating appear after voting?
(I've put this screenshot in spoiler menu, to prevent possible onscreen confusion).

Spoiler :

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Wow! I have been longing for something like this and it has been there all along or so we hope. I just rated your thread excellent. Thank you.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

starlifer,
As soon as I went back to the GOTM forum I saw the stars next to this thread so it did work for me.

 

[starlifter]

In the "How do I rate a thread?" FAQ, it does give a general hint, here. Maybe most people already know this stuff & my questions have obvious answers that I've missed, but:

from the CFC "How do I rate a thread?" FAQ:
Once enough votes have been cast for the thread rating, you may see a set of stars appear with the title of the thread in the thread listings.

The italics are mine, added to show what helps make it mysterious to me.

- Is voting relative to some forum normalizing factor (e.g., 4 votes in the Civ 1 Forum are a huge representation, compared to 4 votes in OT)?
- Or is it absolute (e.g, a 10 vote minimum in any CFC Forum?
- Or is it forum-by-forum (e.g., GOTM mod sets limit for GOTM Forum, etc.)?
- Maybe its a proportion of replies?

- Also, the "may"... does it imply that some mechanism (or local rule) could prohibit a thread's rating, despite meeting a threshhold?

- Or maybe so few threads (2 of the current 6888) have ratings:
-- 1 in GOTM, here.
-- 1 in General Discussions, here.


Maybe thread ratings are just not a feature that's used by people, in which case my vote is the only one on some threads, yet somehow it does not "count" since no ratings are displayed.

 

[starlifter]

Hurr-ahh.
The power.... of Democracy.
The power... of voting.
Power Voting... when your vote carries huge weight because others don't vote!

by Ali Ardavan:
Wow! I have been longing for something like this and it has been there all along or so we hope. I just rated your thread excellent. Thank you.

Thanks for the vote for our thread.

We 2...
We band of Power Voters....

LOL, I voted the same, and presume we were the only 2 votes, so the screenshot below seems to infer that its a proportion with a possible floor to activate the result. I think people simply have not voted much on threads. That can be good, if people who do vote in the future vote using the "range" (1 thru 5) of the voting... e.g., not just vote 4 or 5 on everything... then its hard to see what members think in a relative comparison .

Screenshot: The 3rd Civ 2 thread which has a rating.

Spoiler :

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Starlifter,
Upon further reflection, my guess is that the reason you could not see your rating was that it was your own thread. I suppose the designers of the system, wisely, ignore your opinion of a thread you start; only the opinion of others matter.

 

[starlifter]

Good point, and I'd agree if thats what they did... but I rated a lot of threads, only a 2 or 3 of which were started by me ("My thread" I guess) and none at all ever showed up afterwards as rated . I think it takes more than one vote, but just how many... or if that is a constant number (e.g., the same in GOTM as in OT Forums) I'm not sure.

 

[civdood]

Tanks I will try too. !

 

[Dong2Long]

... unbelievably helpful. Now I can do it!