Neutral votes in Good Guy Certification Forum

[Mike Greathouse]

What is behind the posting of neutral votes for every member within The Good Guy Certification Forum by Webslave?

Rich?

 

[Sasheena]

I'm sure he'll come up with the REAL answer, but I'm just in the mood to speculate...

Nobody can claim he is biased and pushing for one person or another. Since you can only vote once, if he always casts a neutral one when he lists a person, nobody can accuse him of favoritism... and if one of the cert. holders becomes a bad guy (because sometimes this happens) he will have never "endorsed" that person as a "good guy".


Just a thought.

Or perhaps he says to himself: "I will never buy from this person, because they don't sell animals I'm even remotely interested in" and so he gives them a neutral.

I personally don't much care for the "neutral" option... to me it's important to vote for a person if I've had personal dealings with them. I believe so far only three of the individuals in the list have received votes from me... Webslave (i've bought items from him), Kathy Love (same thing) and Dennis Thomas (he's personally helped me out on a few items, being a local and all). Nobody else up there has done business with me.

Yeah I might be tempted if I saw someone go up there who was a known scammer (bearded pets), but I still probably wouldn't vote unless I had personal knowledge beyond just the BOI.

Okay, jeepers, who brought the soapbox and gave me free reign??

I'm sure Webslave has his own reasons. But I felt like adding my two cents.

 

[Mike Greathouse]

Sasheena,
The odd thing about it is this: These neutral posts weren't added as the listings were set up. A neutral post was added to every listing at 2:00 AM this morning - strange!

 

[Sasheena]

I think I misunderstood the question... you can click on the number of people who voted and SEE Who voted in the poll... that way you can see who is responsible for the neutral votes.

 

[Mike Greathouse]

Sasheena,
I understand that. I just thought it was unusual that at 2:00 in the morning, Webslave posted a neutral vote for EVERY single listing in the Good Guy Certification Forum (including the listings for his moderators).

I'm sure that something prompted this - just not sure what it could be.
I'm sure Rich will be along at some point to clarify it.

 

[WebSlave]

Well actually I hope my answer is pretty simple. As an experiment, take a look at a listing that you have not personally voted on and one that you have. Tell me the difference you see when you click on the link to look at the thread.

See? The one you have NOT voted on requires that you click on the link to display the results of the poll before you can see the overall rating results. However, on the ones you HAVE voted on, when you open up the thread, the results are shown immediately.

Now, suppose you were tasked with checking EVERY thread in that section periodically to make sure that all participants were maintaining a positive balance on the Certification Polls. What would be easiest for you to do? Especially down the road when there may be a hundred or more of these things to look through?

This was the main reason I even put the Neutral vote in the poll. It just took me till last night to finally get around to using it for what I intended. Guess I should have warned everyone......

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

What the...????

I guess I still don't understand why you felt the need to give 'neutral' feedback points to everyone on the Good-Guy Certification program, Rich. Those of us who participated in this did so because our reputations in the Reptile Community mean something to us, and a 'neutral' vote tarnishes our percentages. I have worked very hard to build and maintain an excellent reputation with my business! It seems a mockery of the entire program.

 

[WebSlave]

I guess I still don't understand why you felt the need to give 'neutral' feedback points to everyone on the Good-Guy Certification program, Rich. Those of us who participated in this did so because our reputations in the Reptile Community mean something to us, and a 'neutral' vote tarnishes our percentages. I have worked very hard to build and maintain an excellent reputation with my business! It seems a mockery of the entire program.

Oh it does NOT trash your reputation. Please look up the definition of "neutral" and tell me what you come up with.

If you want to withdraw from the program, just say so and it is done.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

geeze...

Oh it does NOT trash your reputation. Please look up the definition of "neutral" and tell me what you come up with.

Rich, I did not say it 'trashed our reputation'... I said it tarnishes our percentages, and it does just that! My rating went from 100% positive, to 96.30% with your 'neutral' vote. As far as looking up the definition of "neutral," here is a direct quote from your explanation of how the system works:

This is basically a "BOI Lite", in that a person can ONLY vote on a poll indicating that person or business being a "good guy", "bad guy", or "undecided" (for those people who want to vote but like to ride the yellow line down the middle).

So what happens when someone votes 'neutral' for the heck of it just because they felt like voting, and then later finally make a decision if it's a 'positive' or a 'negative?' As far as I can tell, they won't be able to vote again. Why not wait until you have made a decision before casting a vote? It just doesn't make sense.

If you want to withdraw from the program, just say so and it is done.

Rich, there really isn't any need to react this way just because I have questioned your reasoning and voiced my opinion. If I wanted to withdraw from the program, I would have indicated that! For Christ's sake, I have gladly contributed to Fauna recently by sponsoring 2 paid forums, donating a $100 leopard gecko to the Fauna Fund, giving you the money I got returned to me from a BOI "Bad Guy" situation, and more. How much more can I appreciate you, Rich?

 

[leaftail]

WebSlave, can you delete your vote on polls at will? I know the rest of us can't but the Admin must have a way. Perhaps you could cast your neutral votes just when you want to check the polls, then delete it again. (get your programmer to make you a macro or soemthing.) The neutral vote does affect everyone's overall rating and not every potential buyer reads the Feedback Forum to understand why.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

ok

Rich, I just read your post on the "Good Guy Certification Poll", and it explains the neutral points better. Thank you!

 

[WebSlave]

WebSlave, can you delete your vote on polls at will? I know the rest of us can't but the Admin must have a way. Perhaps you could cast your neutral votes just when you want to check the polls, then delete it again. (get your programmer to make you a macro or soemthing.) The neutral vote does affect everyone's overall rating and not every potential buyer reads the Feedback Forum to understand why.

Laura, you apparently do not understand why I did what I did. I did that so all I have to do is to click on the thread for any participating member and see immediately within the thread the results of the poll. Doing what you suggest would completely negate the purpose of what I did there.

So does anyone here NOT fully understand why I did it this way? Just to make sure, when I click on the link for a participant for the certification program, when I open up the thread, I only see the option to vote on the thread or view the results of the thread unless I have already voted on it. Therefore, for me to check all of the current 54 participating members in this program, I have to do 108 mouse clicks, two screen displays for each participant. When I have become a voter in the poll for each member, that number of clicks is cut in half, because the poll is instantly visible to me as soon as the thread opens up.

Is that NOW clear to everyone? I am sorry that some people evidently have a problem with my trying to reduce my workload a small bit and take this as an afront to their reputation. But if you have a better FEASIBLE idea, then let me know. I'm only trying to do this as best I can.....

Oh and to the couple of people who evidently posted neutral votes on my own certification poll, I guess out of spite. Gee, that hurt. Guess you sure showed me, didn't you?

The next time I come with some bright idea like this that I think may help, somebody PLEASE kick me in the head to stop me....

 

[leaftail]

Laura, you apparently do not understand why I did what I did. I did that so all I have to do is to click on the thread for any participating member and see immediately within the thread the results of the poll. Doing what you suggest would completely negate the purpose of what I did there....

Oh, honestly, Rich. I did understand about the double mouse clicks. I do understand and sympathize about your needing to decrease your workload. I do also think that you are a bit sensitive these days and tend to see criticism where none was intended. Also stupidity when it is not there.

If you really want to check peoples' votes quickly, go directly to the database and do a query. sheesh. nuff said.

 

[WebSlave]

Oh, honestly, Rich. I did understand about the double mouse clicks. I do understand and sympathize about your needing to decrease your workload. I do also think that you are a bit sensitive these days and tend to see criticism where none was intended. Also stupidity when it is not there.

Probably so. And I'll be the first to admit that I am burned down to the bare nubs lately. Sorry, but the load is just getting to me, I guess.......

 

[robin d.]

on my certification thing, i voted for myself so i would not have to go throught click this and that i can just open it and see whats up (for ease)... also i would imagine rich's neutral vote is a way to offset that

 

[Mike Greathouse]

Rich,
I have to go with the crowd here.

I understand your wanting to minimize the work required to maintain one forum out of the many that require your attention, but this one is somewhat special. I think most of the people enrolled, myself included, feel somewhat slighted by the neutral posting.

All of us have worked very hard to maintain spotless reputations within this industry. This reputation is one of the main reasons that many people have been so willing to support this site. Fauna has been instrumental in exposing the bad guys and praising the good ones within our industry.

In the textbook definition of the word, Neutral doesn't carry any negative connotations. However, within the framework of this forum that you have provided, it does effect the voting percentage. This may seem like a simple thing, but to many of us who enjoy a 100 % rating on every other site that we frequent, this appears as a black mark.

A good percentage of the people enrolled in the Fauna Good Guy Certification program have and will continue to be staunch supporters of Fauna. I feel that we have proven this support and that a little extra programming or effort is warranted in this case.

 

[WebSlave]

This is a request that I sent to my programmer dated 02/26/05:

I have been getting a pretty good response to that Certification Program I set up recently. (http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=813). But I am afraid it will get to be pretty burdensome real quickly unless I automate some of the drudgery associated with it.

What I have in mind is for the system to keep track of the ratings via a cron job every day. In it's simplest form, I would want the code to do the following:

IF (Certification Poll results VALUE(Good Guy) minus VALUE(Bad Guy) < 0) OR VALUE(Traders Ratings Feedback Score) < 0
then highlight member thread title with RED.

Heck, it sounds pretty easy when I put it in pseudo code, doesn't it?

If a different method of identifying the thread would be easier, such as some sort of icon, let me know. I am open to suggestions if you can think of a better way to do this.

Unfortunately I am not his only client and he is in a busy spell at this time. As soon as he has the time, this will be implemented. So with that in mind, you can all just live with what I have now until this is implemented, at which time I will remove the poll option for "neutral" completely. Or I will delete that option NOW for each poll, and rely on you all to check and tell me if someone has fallen below the acceptable rating to remain on the certification program.

Your choice..........

 

[Mike Greathouse]

Rich,
Thank you. You have obviously already addressed the situation.
Personally, I don't feel that this is something that has to be addressed immediately. Just knowing that a solution is in the works is good enough for me.

Thanks,

 

[WebSlave]

I just sent a reminder to my programmer. I mentioned something in it about helping to save me from the hangman's noose, or something to that effect. I never REALLY expected that neutral vote to get anyone up in arms over it.......

Sorry.....

 

[WebSlave]

After having a discussion with my programmer about this, I went ahead and just removed the neutral vote completely from those polls. It may be a while before he can get around to the hack that I want him to do, and some things (par for the course) will be problematicaly to implement. The way the polls are implemented here are not the same as the feedback score is in the traders ratings or on Ebay. A "neutral" vote is not actually neutral since it does affect the overall score. Trying to implement something that will automatically notify me when someone's score falls into the red would be made more difficult by having the neutral vote thrown into the mix.

There are other problems associated with this that are not insurmountable, but apparently more difficult then a casual examination would uncover, but this explanation will suffice, I guess, to explain why I just went ahead and removed that vote on the polls. In short, I am pushing a message board system WAY beyond what it was designed to do with the changes I want implemented,