Posted on: Tue, 09/09/2008 - 17:05
HHR vote policy discussion

In an effort to keep things relatively on topic and to provide a slightly more open method of discussion I am kicking off the HHR Suggestions forum with a hot topic around HHR lately: voting policy. For the initial comments made about this topic, please see the comments here.

The Argument
Should submitters who only submit links from their own sites be "punished" by the HHR community through down-voting?

Current Tech
On HHR, all logged in users are able to either vote a story up or down. In general, this is intended to show a member's personal opinion on whether they feel the story is worth reading/sharing or not.

Current Policy
Users are encouraged to submit links from any source provided it is China-related and primarily in English. Abuse and spam are not tolerated - "abuse" meaning multiple consecutive submissions from a single source and "spam" meaning promoting a product or service of some kind. Occasionally warnings are given, but more often than not if it smells of spam I butcher it. You can read the full policy here.

Possible Pitfalls
The HHR is a small community and encouraging members to submit diverse links from a variety of sources can be a challenge. When there is a benefit in it for them (through self-promotion, link backs, etc.) it creates a larger pool to "hao" from. If this is restricted it could discourage growth of the community.

However, perhaps that leniency lowers the overall quality of the site and needs to be restricted.

Let's discuss.


Posted on: Tue, 09/09/2008 - 18:04 #1

In line with a suggestion of demerzel, I've added the following "rule" to submissions:

All submissions that have yet to be promoted to the "Popular China Stories" page (aka the front page) will be given a rel="nofollow" attribute.

The intention of this change is to give further reward (in the form of "link love") to sites the community has deemed "hao". It also negates any value (other than bare exposure) that users may get for submitting multiple links to their own site(s).

In this way, I hope to encourage the following vote philosophy:

1. You like a post: vote it up. 4+ votes and it is promoted to the front page (removing the "nofollow" attribute).

2. You're neutral on a post: You don't particularly love a post, but don't dislike it either - just leave it be (you don't have to vote on every post ;-)

3. You genuinely dislike a post or feel it's content is inappropriate for HHR: vote 'er down. A vote score of -2 or less will effectively remove the post from the site.

If this seems a bit ambiguous, it's intentional. Ultimately your vote on HHR is yours and you can use it as you see fit. These are only guidelines, and loose ones at that.

There is no anonymous voting, which not only means you must be a user to vote, it also means that everyone can see how you voted. We're a small group, hopefully this will help keep things above the boards and above the belt.

Posted on: Tue, 09/09/2008 - 18:22 #2

Haven't had time to join the initial discussion, but will give a thumb up for the new rules. They are pretty much in line with how I have always used the system.

Posted on: Tue, 09/09/2008 - 21:14 #3

Sounds good to me!

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Posted on: Wed, 09/10/2008 - 00:52 #4

Obviously cannot complain on my end.

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Demerzel's China and SEO Blog

Posted on: Wed, 09/10/2008 - 20:07 #5

But like the way it's organic.

I think the ref="nofollow" on all non promoted posts is extremely valid.

Posted on: Wed, 09/10/2008 - 23:48 #6

Just created the forum, which might explain why you didn't notice it. Started to realize that the folks on HHR need an outlet outside of commenting on stories to express themselves.

Us HHRers, we tend to be a vocal bunch eh?

As for the organicness... we don't use any pesticides and our Webgnomes are 100% free range.

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