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

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

What to rate
So, the question 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
* forum threads
* forum posts
* news
* fans

suivant 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 plus detailed explanation of reporting.

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


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

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

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

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

Note: The only kind of link toi cannot rate (of the four types that are possible to rate) are liens that toi soumis to the site yourself.

You can't rate your own content!

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

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

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

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

The one étoile, star and five étoile, star ratings represent extremes: the stuff toi really despise, and stuff toi l’amour so much toi want to take it accueil to meet your mom and dad prior to taking your relationship to the suivant level. As such, I recommend that toi use either of these ratings sparingly. If everything toi rate is at the extremes, it makes your ratings much less meaningful than if toi 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 ou absurdly lowly rated. In such situations, the primary purpose of ratings (#1, at the haut, retour au début 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 ou worse than that, and those rare cases would deserve four ou two stars, respectively. One étoile, star and five étoile, star 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 toi the aggregate rating, combining all the ratings of all the fanpop users who've soumis 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 cercle lire 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 toi just have to see, they mean little if only one user has rated it. Ratings become plus meaningful the plus people have rated the content. So content rated 5.0 par 3 fans, while it may be fantastic, isn't necessarily so. It could easily be that the user has Friends who rate the content artificially high. Certainly such content is likely to be less impressive than a 4.3 rated par 120 fans, which is almost certain to be very, very good. Similarly, content rated a 1.7 par 3 fans could be low quality, but it's less certain to be bad than content rated 2.3 par 67 fans.


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Here's liens 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 vote questions that toi see on the site and for the réponses toi can pick to that question. Papa has created a link.

* 5: link

* 6: link

* 7: link

toi may also want to see:

* link feature

* link