This idea came to me while reading
a discussion on
codestore.net about
DominoBlogs.com, and ways that it could be better done. He suggested a number of changes, including a rating system, and Laurette Rynne, who runs DominoBlogs.com with her husband Tim, responded to all his points. Her comment about rating was
As for a peer review / rating system - we specifically didn't want to include this, as the idea is to encourage new bloggers to advertise themselves and allow new voices to be heard without judgement. We want to leave it up to individuals whether they continue reading or not.
Jake responded, reasonably enough, that "without some kind of rating system it will always only ever be one long list of blogs", but then acknowledged that
Having said that I've seen (on photoblogs.rog) that this kind of rating system can lead to a "rich getting richer" situation where only the popular blogs get a look-in and continue to get rated highly, while other unrated sites tend to stay away from the public eye.
This is where I started to think about rating systems and the problem of the rich getting richer. A very similar problem exists with many rating systems, including the US News and World rankings of colleges in the United States, which has led to a similar unreasonable focus on the top ten or so colleges and universities.
But there are some features of blogs that might allow for a different system that would both address Jake's concern about one long undifferentiated list and Laurette's concern that new voices should be heard without judgement. I posted this suggestion there, but I would like to propose it more generally, beyond just the suggestion for DominoBlogs.com.
Non-hierarchical vetting system for blogsA better system might be a less hierarchical system where people could give some approval mark ("I vouch for Codestore.net") and comments, but the only levels were Vouched For, New, Not Vouched For and Dormant. Any blog would have a sixty (or thirty or whatever) day period as "New" until they were Vouched For by at least two (or three or whatever) people. This would give a good chance to see new blogs whether or not people knew them. After that, any blog that didn't earn a certain number of approvals would be "Unvouched For", and ones that did earn a certain number would be "Vouched For". Finally, any blog which went for sixty (or forty five or whatever) days would be "Dormant".
This sort of system would avoid the hierarchy of, say, Volker Weber or Rocky Oliver's sites always showing up with super high ratings, but would provide some level of vetting to give people a chance to see new blogs, but avoid ones that generated no interest from anyone.
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Tags: Blogs Rating