-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Lucky wrote something like:
As has been discussed in numberous previous threads on this topic, even a passive rating system is very hard to implement. The computer doesn't know if you hit delete because the post was garbage or because you are running late on some project.
What's the difference? All practical measure of value is in comparison to competing objects. This _does_ mean that your "approvalness" coefficient goes up and down as your situation changes, but it doesn't mean that your rating becomes meaningless. Hm. If it happened that a bunch of prolific raters got busy, ratings across the board would go down. (Seems statistically unlikely, but still...) Then when they went back up there would be a "burst of activity" effect. :-) Possibly what I like most about ratings and micropayments is how the quantify previously unquantified human behavior. We've all seen the "burst of activity" on a mailing list or at a party, or on a stock market, right? Well that is just people's ratings all pushing each other up!
An active rating system is virtually impossible to implement, given the added workload on the readers.
Which is where the small payments to ratings producers from ratings consumers comes in. Again this is just the quantification of a phenomena that we all take for granted. (Namely, that people who produce quality ratings are producing a value and trading/contributing it to others.) ("'Just' the quantification", I said !! That might seem like a hilarious understatement someday.) Bryce -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i Comment: Auto-signed under Unix with 'BAP' Easy-PGP v1.1b2 iQB1AwUBMd8FO0jbHy8sKZitAQEBoQMAmMtQg0cTrdXpHf07p1sYVUPAnJq+Jp1v /g6CqYu/YwIRHmnHyLmCehqB74xYJ6sjOLmKaYXd12f1oFUJL9rsx2LAEiPNeAMb gSClZhpUu++CE+PfH8GlOZ1E/75ZcIx0 =V0z6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----