This section of my guide for Fanpop users details the ratings system and was last edited on 26 May 2008.
As with any web site, Fanpop is only as good as its content. Some content - what I think of as the soul of the site - is generated Von users in the fora and in Kommentare on the rest of the content and cannot be rated. But the rest of the content - the body of the site - has a ratings system. The whole principle of the ratings system is a democratic one: if enough people vote, the really qualified items rise to the top. That's why everything that can be rated can be sorted in a Liste from highest to lowest ratings, so that Du oder anyone else can see the good stuff first.
The importance of rating
Rating is voluntary. However, there are four reasons to rate content:
1) Rated content makes Fanpop work. Fanpop is organized around spots, and spots can contain a lot of content related to the spot's topic. Every spot has the ability to sort its content in a number of ways, including "highest rated". As Mehr content is added to a spot, the Mehr important it is for someone coming to that spot to be able to perform that "highest rated" sort on the content, particularly for new Fans just starting out to discover a new topic. If there's no way to distinguish between all the content in a spot without looking at it all piece Von piece, the site becomes mostly pointless. You'd do as well sticking to a Suchen catalog like Google oder Yahoo if Du have to sift through a long Liste to find the good stuff. Ratings are integral to the value of the site.
2) Bad content get suppressed. This is the flip side of the coin; since good content gets promoted, bad content drops further and further down the lists sorted Von "highest rated". This saves people from seeing something really awful right off the bat, and reduces the chance that a new user checking out a spot for the first time will turn away from the spot in disgust because of a few experiences with bad content.
3) Users get recognized. As Mehr people rate the content on the site, those who post the content that gets good ratings will gradually earn Medaillen for their contributions. This is Fanpop's way of encouraging good participation in a spot. We, as users, define what is good in that Zurück sentence, simply Von our ratings. When we rate something highly, not only is the user who gepostet it that much closer to getting a medal, but Mehr importantly, that user knows that someone on the site appreciated what they've posted.
Similarly, those who post content that gets bad ratings can use those ratings as a guideline for their future submissions: "people didn't like that, so let's try something different with the Weiter submission". Without giving poor content a low rating, the user who gepostet the content can't get the message and will have no reason to try something different Weiter time.
4) You get recognized. Fanpop keeps a tally of how many ratings you've given, listed on your Profil page. Every time Du rate, that number goes up, demonstrating to the Fanpop community that Du are participating in making the site work.
What to rate
So, the Frage may come: what should one rate? Well, first of all, there are certain types of content that can be rated on Fanpop (others cannot). The following types of content can be rated:
* links
* videos
* soapbox articles
* images
The following cannot be rated:
* spots
* picks
* Forum threads
* Forum posts
* news
* fans
Weiter one should consider what sorts of things to rate. Usually, one rates on the quality of the content alone. This is fine as long as the content works in the spot in which it is found. If there is a problem - a non aesthetic problem - with the content, it almost certainly should be reported, and not rated. See the link for my Mehr detailed explanation of reporting.
How to rate
So, you've found something that works for the spot in which it is found, Du have a reaction to it - positive oder negative - then Du should rate it. How do Du do that?
Each of the types of content Du may rate - links, videos, soapbox Artikel and Bilder - have a band of five stars with a legend "You rated:" above it. If you've already rated this particular content item, it will Zeigen the rating Du submitted. If Du haven't, it will Zeigen the circles as grey outlines, with "rate this link" superimposed.
Whether you've rated a link already oder not, Du can rate it (with one exception - see below). To rate, click on the star, sterne that represents the rating you'd like to give the content. The stars rank in increasing order from left to right, so if Du wanted to rate the content three stars, you'd click the middle star, while two stars would be the Sekunde star, sterne from the left, and four stars would be the fourth star, sterne from the left.
What do the ratings mean, though? The five stars are explained in the link, but I'll go into Mehr detail here:
One star, sterne indicates that Du think the content is garbage. It's offensive not because it violates any of the terms of service oder is miscategorized, but because Du feel it has no intrinsic value.
Two stars indicates that Du think the content is blah, uninteresting, sub-standard and/or mediocre.
Three stars indicates that Du think that the content is OK. This covers a broad range from "I think it's appropriate to the spot, pretty standard content" to "I think it's pretty good".
Four stars indicates that Du think the content is great. It's superior to the usual content Du find in the spot, and you're impressed Von it. You're likely to save this content to your favorites.
Five stars indicates that Du think the content is EXCELLENT. It's the best content it could possibly be. Not only do Du save this content to your favorites, but Du Kommentar favorably on the content, give Requisiten to the user who gepostet the content, and share the link with all your friends, all because Du can't help it - it's that good.
Note: The only kind of link Du cannot rate (of the four types that are possible to rate) are Links that Du Abgeschickt to the site yourself. Such content will still Zeigen Du the aggregated ratings from all the other users who've rated it, but where Du would normally be able to rate, the five circles are grey.
Common ratings etiquette
While Du are not required to do anything with regards to rating, there are a couple of basic etiquette points to consider when rating.
First, be consistent. Determine how Du are going to approach ratings and apply those criteria consistently across the site.
Second, explain ratings of a 1 oder a 5. If Du rate content a 1 oder a 5, etiquette insists that Du should always provide Kommentare explaining why it's garbage oder why it's awesome, respectively. Without such feedback, the user who gepostet it (as well as other Fanpop users looking at the same content) won't know what it is about the content that they should avoid oder try to recreate in future postings. Then they have to guess, and when users have to guess what to do to please you, they're very likely to get it wrong. It becomes like rolling the dice and hoping for double sixes: extreme ratings result in blind gambling if Du don't provide comments.
Recommendations for ratings
As I said, Du may rate however Du like. In addition to the common etiquette considerations above, I offer the following for consideration when Du go to rate some content on Fanpop:
The one star, sterne and five star, sterne ratings represent extremes: the stuff Du really despise, and stuff Du Liebe so much Du want to take it Home to meet your mom and dad prior to taking your relationship to the Weiter level. As such, I recommend that Du use either of these ratings sparingly. If everything Du rate is at the extremes, it makes your ratings much less meaningful than if Du were to rate only a few items at the extreme. Worse still, if many users rate at the extremes (not just you), there can be a situation where most content is either absurdly highly rated oder absurdly lowly rated. In such situations, the primary purpose of ratings (#1, at the oben, nach oben of this article) is defeated. Ratings aren't worth spit if crap content, so-so content, and pretty fair content are all rated one star, nor are they worth much if good content, really great content, and the absolute best content ever are all rated five stars.
I encourage you, when rating, to consider ratings as part of a curve, like so:
This is a graph that represents how many of each type of rating is given. Simply stated, most content is likely to deserve three stars. Some content will be significantly better oder worse than that, and those rare cases would deserve four oder two stars, respectively. One star, sterne and five star, sterne ratings for content should be really exceptional. Rating with such an approach increases the likelihood that the really, really good content will have the higher ratings, and the really, really bad content will drop to the bottom of the ratings rankings.
How to read ratings
Each type of content that can have a rating shows Du the aggregate rating, combining all the ratings of all the Fanpop users who've Abgeschickt a rating for that content. This number is shown in the green circle, ranging from 1.0 (all raters think it's garbage) to 5.0 (all raters think it's the best thing they've seen). If no one has rated the content, it will appear as a grey kreis Lesen 0.0.
But the other thing to keep in mind is the number of users who have rated the content. While a 1.0 may indicate the dross of the site and a 5.0 may mean something that Du just have to see, they mean little if only one user has rated it. Ratings become Mehr meaningful the Mehr people have rated the content. So content rated 5.0 Von 3 fans, while it may be fantastic, isn't necessarily so. It could easily be that the user has Friends who rate the content artificially high. Certainly such content is likely to be less impressive than a 4.3 rated Von 120 fans, which is almost certain to be very, very good. Similarly, content rated a 1.7 Von 3 Fans could be low quality, but it's less certain to be bad than content rated 2.3 Von 67 fans.
*******************************
Here's Links to other parts of the guide for your quick reference:
* link
* 1: link
* 2: link.
* 3: link
* 4: Picks: this is the generic name both for the Umfrage Fragen that Du see on the site and for the Antwort Du can pick to that question. Papa has created a link.
* 5: link
* 6: link
* 7: link
Du may also want to see:
* link feature
* link
As with any web site, Fanpop is only as good as its content. Some content - what I think of as the soul of the site - is generated Von users in the fora and in Kommentare on the rest of the content and cannot be rated. But the rest of the content - the body of the site - has a ratings system. The whole principle of the ratings system is a democratic one: if enough people vote, the really qualified items rise to the top. That's why everything that can be rated can be sorted in a Liste from highest to lowest ratings, so that Du oder anyone else can see the good stuff first.
The importance of rating
Rating is voluntary. However, there are four reasons to rate content:
1) Rated content makes Fanpop work. Fanpop is organized around spots, and spots can contain a lot of content related to the spot's topic. Every spot has the ability to sort its content in a number of ways, including "highest rated". As Mehr content is added to a spot, the Mehr important it is for someone coming to that spot to be able to perform that "highest rated" sort on the content, particularly for new Fans just starting out to discover a new topic. If there's no way to distinguish between all the content in a spot without looking at it all piece Von piece, the site becomes mostly pointless. You'd do as well sticking to a Suchen catalog like Google oder Yahoo if Du have to sift through a long Liste to find the good stuff. Ratings are integral to the value of the site.
2) Bad content get suppressed. This is the flip side of the coin; since good content gets promoted, bad content drops further and further down the lists sorted Von "highest rated". This saves people from seeing something really awful right off the bat, and reduces the chance that a new user checking out a spot for the first time will turn away from the spot in disgust because of a few experiences with bad content.
3) Users get recognized. As Mehr people rate the content on the site, those who post the content that gets good ratings will gradually earn Medaillen for their contributions. This is Fanpop's way of encouraging good participation in a spot. We, as users, define what is good in that Zurück sentence, simply Von our ratings. When we rate something highly, not only is the user who gepostet it that much closer to getting a medal, but Mehr importantly, that user knows that someone on the site appreciated what they've posted.
Similarly, those who post content that gets bad ratings can use those ratings as a guideline for their future submissions: "people didn't like that, so let's try something different with the Weiter submission". Without giving poor content a low rating, the user who gepostet the content can't get the message and will have no reason to try something different Weiter time.
4) You get recognized. Fanpop keeps a tally of how many ratings you've given, listed on your Profil page. Every time Du rate, that number goes up, demonstrating to the Fanpop community that Du are participating in making the site work.
What to rate
So, the Frage may come: what should one rate? Well, first of all, there are certain types of content that can be rated on Fanpop (others cannot). The following types of content can be rated:
* links
* videos
* soapbox articles
* images
The following cannot be rated:
* spots
* picks
* Forum threads
* Forum posts
* news
* fans
Weiter one should consider what sorts of things to rate. Usually, one rates on the quality of the content alone. This is fine as long as the content works in the spot in which it is found. If there is a problem - a non aesthetic problem - with the content, it almost certainly should be reported, and not rated. See the link for my Mehr detailed explanation of reporting.
How to rate
So, you've found something that works for the spot in which it is found, Du have a reaction to it - positive oder negative - then Du should rate it. How do Du do that?
Each of the types of content Du may rate - links, videos, soapbox Artikel and Bilder - have a band of five stars with a legend "You rated:" above it. If you've already rated this particular content item, it will Zeigen the rating Du submitted. If Du haven't, it will Zeigen the circles as grey outlines, with "rate this link" superimposed.
Whether you've rated a link already oder not, Du can rate it (with one exception - see below). To rate, click on the star, sterne that represents the rating you'd like to give the content. The stars rank in increasing order from left to right, so if Du wanted to rate the content three stars, you'd click the middle star, while two stars would be the Sekunde star, sterne from the left, and four stars would be the fourth star, sterne from the left.
What do the ratings mean, though? The five stars are explained in the link, but I'll go into Mehr detail here:
One star, sterne indicates that Du think the content is garbage. It's offensive not because it violates any of the terms of service oder is miscategorized, but because Du feel it has no intrinsic value.
Two stars indicates that Du think the content is blah, uninteresting, sub-standard and/or mediocre.
Three stars indicates that Du think that the content is OK. This covers a broad range from "I think it's appropriate to the spot, pretty standard content" to "I think it's pretty good".
Four stars indicates that Du think the content is great. It's superior to the usual content Du find in the spot, and you're impressed Von it. You're likely to save this content to your favorites.
Five stars indicates that Du think the content is EXCELLENT. It's the best content it could possibly be. Not only do Du save this content to your favorites, but Du Kommentar favorably on the content, give Requisiten to the user who gepostet the content, and share the link with all your friends, all because Du can't help it - it's that good.
Note: The only kind of link Du cannot rate (of the four types that are possible to rate) are Links that Du Abgeschickt to the site yourself. Such content will still Zeigen Du the aggregated ratings from all the other users who've rated it, but where Du would normally be able to rate, the five circles are grey.
Common ratings etiquette
While Du are not required to do anything with regards to rating, there are a couple of basic etiquette points to consider when rating.
First, be consistent. Determine how Du are going to approach ratings and apply those criteria consistently across the site.
Second, explain ratings of a 1 oder a 5. If Du rate content a 1 oder a 5, etiquette insists that Du should always provide Kommentare explaining why it's garbage oder why it's awesome, respectively. Without such feedback, the user who gepostet it (as well as other Fanpop users looking at the same content) won't know what it is about the content that they should avoid oder try to recreate in future postings. Then they have to guess, and when users have to guess what to do to please you, they're very likely to get it wrong. It becomes like rolling the dice and hoping for double sixes: extreme ratings result in blind gambling if Du don't provide comments.
Recommendations for ratings
As I said, Du may rate however Du like. In addition to the common etiquette considerations above, I offer the following for consideration when Du go to rate some content on Fanpop:
The one star, sterne and five star, sterne ratings represent extremes: the stuff Du really despise, and stuff Du Liebe so much Du want to take it Home to meet your mom and dad prior to taking your relationship to the Weiter level. As such, I recommend that Du use either of these ratings sparingly. If everything Du rate is at the extremes, it makes your ratings much less meaningful than if Du were to rate only a few items at the extreme. Worse still, if many users rate at the extremes (not just you), there can be a situation where most content is either absurdly highly rated oder absurdly lowly rated. In such situations, the primary purpose of ratings (#1, at the oben, nach oben of this article) is defeated. Ratings aren't worth spit if crap content, so-so content, and pretty fair content are all rated one star, nor are they worth much if good content, really great content, and the absolute best content ever are all rated five stars.
I encourage you, when rating, to consider ratings as part of a curve, like so:
This is a graph that represents how many of each type of rating is given. Simply stated, most content is likely to deserve three stars. Some content will be significantly better oder worse than that, and those rare cases would deserve four oder two stars, respectively. One star, sterne and five star, sterne ratings for content should be really exceptional. Rating with such an approach increases the likelihood that the really, really good content will have the higher ratings, and the really, really bad content will drop to the bottom of the ratings rankings.
How to read ratings
Each type of content that can have a rating shows Du the aggregate rating, combining all the ratings of all the Fanpop users who've Abgeschickt a rating for that content. This number is shown in the green circle, ranging from 1.0 (all raters think it's garbage) to 5.0 (all raters think it's the best thing they've seen). If no one has rated the content, it will appear as a grey kreis Lesen 0.0.
But the other thing to keep in mind is the number of users who have rated the content. While a 1.0 may indicate the dross of the site and a 5.0 may mean something that Du just have to see, they mean little if only one user has rated it. Ratings become Mehr meaningful the Mehr people have rated the content. So content rated 5.0 Von 3 fans, while it may be fantastic, isn't necessarily so. It could easily be that the user has Friends who rate the content artificially high. Certainly such content is likely to be less impressive than a 4.3 rated Von 120 fans, which is almost certain to be very, very good. Similarly, content rated a 1.7 Von 3 Fans could be low quality, but it's less certain to be bad than content rated 2.3 Von 67 fans.
*******************************
Here's Links to other parts of the guide for your quick reference:
* link
* 1: link
* 2: link.
* 3: link
* 4: Picks: this is the generic name both for the Umfrage Fragen that Du see on the site and for the Antwort Du can pick to that question. Papa has created a link.
* 5: link
* 6: link
* 7: link
Du may also want to see:
* link feature
* link
So we, as users, take a lot from Fanpop every day. We watch videos, we take quiz's, share awesome links, etc. We all have gained something from Fanpop, whether it be a funny video, oder a cool new website. So I was thinking that perhaps maybe once a month, if even that, a mass majority (as many users we can get) would all add one thing. Whether it be a video, a quiz, a soapbox, oder even just a link, we would all be giving back. I was thinking that it could be the first of every month. Maybe even a time could be assigned to that date, which would allow other users to get to know each other and thread the community together. Perhaps at Four PM EST, we would all add something to Fanpop. I know many of Du add items everyday but this would let less-contributing users thoughts be heard. These users could become hooked on Fanpop and then that's +1 Mehr dedicated fan. I don't know if this would take off, but if it does, it could be great. Please just leave a comment.