We encourage you to participate in rating a fellow StartupNation community member so that our community can be the best it can be.  And, a little competition is always fun!

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Joel Welsh
chief community officer
StartupNation

Joel,

isn`t there some way to find out who rated us and why??  if we did right by them, we could continue to do it right.  but if we did wrong, we`d also know what we did to offend someone, and how to fix it.

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But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Hebrew 11:6

I `m just about done catching up with all the previous posts and getting a feel for the forum. 

Making my comments as I went along and  bammm.  My rating goes down.

Now I realize it doesnt mean everything because you can make some of the people happy some of the time but you can`t make all the people happy all of the time. But it would be nice to know whether someone didn`t agree with what you said or didnt feel your input was worthy.

proofing this reply, I think i`m making a mountain out of a mole hill.(man that doesnt look right)

I guess if someone is interested in giving you feed back they will.

mike

Thanks for your input Continental & Mike,

As you know, we launched this community initiative in beta & will be constantly assessing & evaluating what`s working great & what should be improved. Your feedback is extremely valuable. Don`t hold back!

The prevailing wisdom on the ratings is to have the especially valuable community contributors rise to recognition by the community at large. We have many ideas for how to call out those people that others feel are especially valuable. Keeping the ratings anonymous allows for people to freely rate. We realize that early on each rating will have a significant impact but over time we`re feeling that an appropriate score will emerge.

The rating system is pretty simple at the moment. Our ultimate goal is to create THE absolute best community for starting & growing your dream business. You will see the rating system evolve toward that goal.


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Joel Welsh
chief community officer
StartupNation

I`ve questioned the rating system a bit.  As this community is new, the rating really doesn`t mean a whole lot.  Some guidelines on how to rate somebody might be helpful.  The questions I keep finding myself asking are,

Should somebody get a 5 because I totally agree with what they say?
Should it be a 5 because they had enough courage to disagree with what somebody else said?
Or should it be a 1 because I disagree with them and think they have no idea what they are saying?
Should I rate them a 1 because I think they are speaking off topic?
Or should I rate them a 5 because even though they were off topic, they brought up a very valuable point about another topic?
Should they get a 1 because they are only promoting themselves and could care less about the community? (I will rate 1 for this action)

Okay, there are a lot more questions that somebody might be asking themselves when they are about to rate somebody.  So I ask this...are there any general guidelines to give somebody an appropriate rating?



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Text is so black and white...it doesn`t have as much color as the tone in somebodies voice.

I really only rate people of whom I found great insite
in the post. I would never rate a low score. What was
it that mom always said? "If you can`t say something
nice, don`t say anything at all." I know it doesn`t
always work like that, but truly, I am not interested in
causing problems with my words here. This place is
for open thought... I thought. I don`t believe rating
someone with a low ranking improves anyone`s
abilities to be better. I believe moreso that a low
ranking will likely stop that person from contributing.
Rank, no rank... It doesn`t matter to me because I am
not doing anything more than reading.

To compare, if I read a passage from a book I didn`t
agree with, it doesn`t mean the rest of the book is
unbelievable.

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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

Joel, add my name to the anti-ratings category.  I just looked and my rating dropped from 4.9 to 4.6 with two ratings just now   I only like it if I`m popular

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"Whether you think you can or you think you can`t, you`re right."
paraphrased Henry Ford

Looking at Vincent`s blurb above there gave me an idea...which may or may not have been mentioned earlier.  How about just putting something in whereby you could click "this post was helpful to me."  As people post helpful suggestions, etc., their score would go up.

A scale of 1 to 5 could be included in this, but it seems to me that if the purpose of the rating is to show who provides helpful advice en masse, just being able to note that a post by a certain individual was of use to you would work and it would solve the issue of being unfairly dingged (sp?) because someone didn`t like what you had to say.  I think it would lead to less "guarded" advising.  After all, what`s right for me may be completely wrong for someone else, but for me, that piece of advice was gold.  :)

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MeLissa
Independent Chocolatier for Dove Chocolate Discoveries http://www.ChocoRocco.com Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/ChocoRocco

trueGRITS,

someone was probably bummed that you`re leaving us for two weeks. hang in there, you rate really high with those of us who`ve been posting with you for the past couple of weeks.

rich

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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

I`m new to SuN,  Can you tell me WHERE you rate someone.  I just do not see that.  Its probably right smack in my face, but I just don`t see where to rate.