[Catalog-sig] Please turn off ratings

[Terry Reedy]

On 4/5/2011 8:10 PM, Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 7:00 PM, "Martin v. Löwis"<martin at v.loewis.de>  wrote:
>> Sorry, no, I don't. I hear a loud message, but not a clear one
>> (i.e. I think it comes from a vocal minority)
>
> I've given you loads of data including usage statistics, anecdotal
> data, user polling on Twitter (and I could add a link to Reddit now,

But it seems to me likely biased, so I am not convinced yet.

> but why bother). You've heard from dozens of people who're very
> invested in our community that this feature makes us look bad.
>
> You've countered it with a single user who likes the feature and
> claims of support in private email.

No, he countered with a community poll that has, as I remember, 100-200 
responders. After a contentious discussion.

> Neither of us can prove we're speaking for a larger community. You
> have root so you get to rule by fiat, and I'm going to accept it and
> shut up, but don't you dare accuse me of representing a vocal minority
> when you're representing an even smaller one.
>
> This entire process leaves a terrible taste in my mouth.

I agree, but for a quite different reason. Martin sometimes gets 
opposite demands. That is not easy to deal with. On this issue, after 
much discussion Martin took a poll and pretty fairly, in my opinion, 
followed the result.

You did not like that. You get an email that to you is spam. You do not 
like this. I would agree that you should be able to opt out of receiving 
them, if you cannot do so now.

An avalanche follows. It mostly consists of people who did not ratings 
before saying they do not like ratings now, and perhaps even less. 
Surprise. And there is some rehashing of the same old arguments.

A small number of posts give new data and arguments. I even find them a 
bit persuasive. I might have found them even more persuasive if not 
nearly lost in the rest, which had already left a bad taste in *my* mouth.

A couple of argument strike me a strange. On is the Catch-22 argument 
that ratings without comments are bad, when the person making that 
argument is the one who turned comments off. The other is the argument 
that Martin it is acting like a dictator because he rejects the demand 
that he act like a dictator by ignoring the poll.

That's how it seem from here, anyhow.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy