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 by users in the fora and in Комментарии 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 Список from highest to lowest ratings, so that Ты или 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 еще content is added to a spot, the еще important it is for someone coming to that spot to be able to perform that "highest rated" sort on the content, particularly for new Фаны 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 by piece, the site becomes mostly pointless. You'd do as well sticking to a Поиск catalog like Google или Yahoo if Ты have to sift through a long Список 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 by "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 еще people rate the content on the site, those who post the content that gets good ratings will gradually earn Медали for their contributions. This is Fanpop's way of encouraging good participation in a spot. We, as users, define what is good in that Назад sentence, simply by our ratings. When we rate something highly, not only is the user who Опубликовано it that much closer to getting a medal, but еще 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 Далее submission". Without giving poor content a low rating, the user who Опубликовано the content can't get the message and will have no reason to try something different Далее time.

4) You get recognized. Fanpop keeps a tally of how many ratings you've given, listed on your Профиль page. Every time Ты rate, that number goes up, demonstrating to the Fanpop community that Ты are participating in making the site work.

What to rate
So, the Вопрос 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
* Форум threads
* Форум posts
* news
* fans

Далее 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 еще detailed explanation of reporting.

How to rate
So, you've found something that works for the spot in which it is found, Ты have a reaction to it - positive или negative - then Ты should rate it. How do Ты do that?


Each of the types of content Ты may rate - links, videos, soapbox Статьи and Обои - have a band of five stars with a legend "You rated:" above it. If you've already rated this particular content item, it will Показать the rating Ты submitted. If Ты haven't, it will Показать the circles as grey outlines, with "rate this link" superimposed.

Whether you've rated a link already или not, Ты can rate it (with one exception - see below). To rate, click on the звезда that represents the rating you'd like to give the content. The stars rank in increasing order from left to right, so if Ты wanted to rate the content three stars, you'd click the middle star, while two stars would be the секунда звезда from the left, and four stars would be the fourth звезда from the left.

What do the ratings mean, though? The five stars are explained in the link, but I'll go into еще detail here:

One звезда indicates that Ты think the content is garbage. It's offensive not because it violates any of the terms of service или is miscategorized, but because Ты feel it has no intrinsic value.
Two stars indicates that Ты think the content is blah, uninteresting, sub-standard and/or mediocre.
Three stars indicates that Ты 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 Ты think the content is great. It's superior to the usual content Ты find in the spot, and you're impressed by it. You're likely to save this content to your favorites.
Five stars indicates that Ты think the content is EXCELLENT. It's the best content it could possibly be. Not only do Ты save this content to your favorites, but Ты Комментарий favorably on the content, give Благодарности to the user who Опубликовано the content, and share the link with all your friends, all because Ты can't help it - it's that good.

Note: The only kind of link Ты cannot rate (of the four types that are possible to rate) are Ссылки that Ты Отправлено to the site yourself.

You can't rate your own content!

Such content will still Показать Ты the aggregated ratings from all the other users who've rated it, but where Ты would normally be able to rate, the five circles are grey.

Common ratings etiquette
While Ты 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 Ты are going to approach ratings and apply those criteria consistently across the site.

Second, explain ratings of a 1 или a 5. If Ты rate content a 1 или a 5, etiquette insists that Ты should always provide Комментарии explaining why it's garbage или why it's awesome, respectively. Without such feedback, the user who Опубликовано 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 или 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 Ты don't provide comments.

Recommendations for ratings
As I said, Ты may rate however Ты like. In addition to the common etiquette considerations above, I offer the following for consideration when Ты go to rate some content on Fanpop:

The one звезда and five звезда ratings represent extremes: the stuff Ты really despise, and stuff Ты Любовь so much Ты want to take it Главная to meet your mom and dad prior to taking your relationship to the Далее level. As such, I recommend that Ты use either of these ratings sparingly. If everything Ты rate is at the extremes, it makes your ratings much less meaningful than if Ты 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 или absurdly lowly rated. In such situations, the primary purpose of ratings (#1, at the вверх 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 или worse than that, and those rare cases would deserve four или two stars, respectively. One звезда and five звезда 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 Ты the aggregate rating, combining all the ratings of all the Fanpop users who've Отправлено 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 круг Чтение 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 Ты just have to see, they mean little if only one user has rated it. Ratings become еще meaningful the еще people have rated the content. So content rated 5.0 by 3 fans, while it may be fantastic, isn't necessarily so. It could easily be that the user has Друзья who rate the content artificially high. Certainly such content is likely to be less impressive than a 4.3 rated by 120 fans, which is almost certain to be very, very good. Similarly, content rated a 1.7 by 3 Фаны could be low quality, but it's less certain to be bad than content rated 2.3 by 67 fans.


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Here's Ссылки 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 Опрос Вопросы that Ты see on the site and for the Ответы Ты can pick to that question. Papa has created a link.

* 5: link

* 6: link

* 7: link

Ты may also want to see:

* link feature

* link