controlling Buttons

[RL]

When there is a need for such "work arounds" I think the system needs adjusting. All respondents should have a chance to receive "tokens of appreciation or answer evaluation". Giving stars for unrelated answers may go to "the same pile" but it is as meaningful as giving a student a good mark in mathematics because her literature essay was insightful.
I think the onus is on NI to facilitate the recognition of Enthusiasts without "work arounds". After all, these people are really a valuable extension to their support team.
Cheers,
RL

[Ben]

Well put.

I will make sure this comment is passed along to the NI Web team.

Ben

[hood1]

hi all
first sorry that write thob instead of tbob. i did not noticed that. second please any person can tell me which number of star is best and which star is the worst one.
because i am quite new in this forum, i dont know the evaluation rules.
this also important, because i want to give tbob good grade in order to appreciate him.
thanks

[RL]

From the comments I read:
Extensive help with attachment is a 4 star.
Good and helpful answer is a 3 star.
Incomplete answer is a 2 star.
A 1 star is a reprimand for not reading the question properly or giving misleading information. Actually a 1 star is probably viewed as an insult.

To me you have been correct with tbob and he with you. The problem is that he is only getting partial recognition for one answer when there should be multiple 4 stars from us readers.

Cheers,
RL

[Molly K]

I wanted to thank you all, especially tbob, for helping out our new LabVIEW user and for your feedback on the ratings system.

As far as the ratings go, our current system only allows you to rate Answers -- not Questions or Comments. I can assure you that this is one of the things we have on the schedule to have changed by the end of this year.

As always, we appreciate your feedback on the forum features and functionality. Feel free to let us know what you think by posting in the "Feedback on the Developer Exchange" board.

Have a great day,
Molly K
Web Support & Operations
National Instruments

[altenbach]

Molly,
I agree that sometimes a comment is much more deserving than an original reply to receive a recognition, so stars should be allowed for those too. Many times, the first reply is just a request for clarification and the real answer comes later.

However one of the problems with the current star system is the absence of any official guidelines on what they mean.

We have for example opinions like in this quote from RL above: "From the comments I read:
Extensive help with attachment is a 4 star.
Good and helpful answer is a 3 star.
Incomplete answer is a 2 star.
A 1 star is a reprimand for not reading the question properly or giving misleading information. Actually a 1 star is probably viewed as an insult."

This is quite arbitrary, co
mpare e.g. with my post in this thread.

Why sould a single star be considered anything negative? It is still something shiny!!

I don't think negative ratings should be allowed in general and I would propose to reduce it to a simple binary system (Mis-paraphrasing Hamlet: star or no star, that is the question). If you want to support negative ratings, change it to e.g. 1-2 stars or 1-2 thumbs-down.

Another possibility would be to allow marking an answer as incorrect or misleading, an option that should be accessible e.g. only to enthusiasts.

[Ben]

I like these thoughts.

Just remeber, that some of us (like me and the other three enthusiasts I work with) are not allowed to post complete solutions. I can only post trivial examples for illustration or describe the code with words.

So...
please omit the "sample VI" as criteria for a 4 star rating.

Ben

[Molly K]

Let's discuss the objectives of the ratings system and that will help us outline the levels better:
1 - Users can place more trust in messages posted by users who have proven to be experts in the community.
2 - Users can place more trust in answers that have been rated highly by other community members.

This is what my personal interpretation of the rating levels is:
4 stars - This response exceeded my expectations. Big thanks!
3 stars - This response was very helpful and appreciated.
2 stars - While I appreciate the effort, this response wasn't very helpful.
1 star - Unfortunately, the advice given here was incorrect and I wouldn't recommend it to others.

altenbach - To respond to why I would have a 1 star rating be anythin
g less than shiny is to give users the ability to differentiate a poor message from an unrated message since the majority of the messages are unrated.

Are there other ratings objectives that you can think of?

Are there other opinions on whether the 1-star rating should be considered an insult or shiny?

Thanks,
Molly K
Web Support & Operations
National Instruments

[tbob]

I see your point about wanting to distinguish between bad advice and unrated, but I would be reluctant to give anyone a bad rating as described for 1 star. People here are using their precious time to help others for free. A negative rating would only discourage someone from participating in the future. Rather than a negative rating, a reply should be made concerning the effectiveness of the comment. I once stated something wrong and was corrected by another member via a comment. I was grateful for the correction and certainly should not deserve a negative rating for being incorrect. It happens to the best of us at times.

[RL]

Moly,

My suggestion, that some may view the 1 star as an insult, was directly based on Labviewguru's response to an apparent attack.

My novice position has forced me request help which was most graciously given by the cadre of Enthusiats. There was however some "non Enthusiast" answer that completely missed the point of the question. I was quite hasty with the 1 star then but it is possible that language familiarity was the problem.

I hope that the Star system will continue to encourage the excellent help that I have received. It is true that some answers do leave the novice to struggle, especially when novices do not understand the descriptive answers (as compared to graphic answers) but without this learning struggle t
hey will never cease to be novices.

Thanks again to all the Enthusiasts who have selflessly shared their knowledge and experience.

Raymond