Thread:Talk:Article feedback/Serious thanks/reply (2)

The ratings tool is more like a survey to me. Surveys are notorious for being skewed due to many variables. Essentially, how valuable is the opinion of a particular person with regard to the content or subject being commented on? The background, identity, education level and many other characteristics of the participants must be taken into consideration before placing any merit on their opinion. The fact that the survey is voluntary in itself is a criterion which can only skew the results from the start. The group of participants will consist disproportionately of people who are opinionated leaving those without strong opinions, yet who may be able to provide valuable input, out of the results.

Create a questionnaire. Participants must have a valid email address and will be sent a code to use in order to participate. That is not a perfect scenario since people are able to create multiple email addresses and delete them in order to create even more addresses in an effort to unfairly offer their opinion on an article more than once which will skew the results. Nevertheless, at present I feel this is a reasonable way of getting feedback from "individuals" on the Net.

Make the survey easy to qualify for. Do not force a respondent to "join" or create a membership. Definitely provide space to submit comments and reasons for their assessments of an article. This will require human interpretation which is more expensive than tabulating results of mere "clicks" on a number of stars. But I see no value in the present method as it is easily corrupted.