Some blog naval gazing in this post. Probably of most interest to other blog owners rather than non-blogging readers, so eject now if this isn’t your thing.
The plugin being using for the MySQL queries provided in this post is Gamerz Wordpress Post Rating plugin. This plugin provides most, if not all, of this data without the need to query the database directly as I’m showing here. Those who want the queries to do it directly will find them below. The lifting is done.
Using data from votes made on Hmm posts, I’ve been going through the data looking at trends and trying to figure out what kinds of posts readers do and don’t like. The ratings, although they can be easily manipulated, provide some information.
Breakdown of the current ratings received
select
count(rating_rating
) from wp_ratings group by rating_rating;
5 (grade A) - 1023 / 1870 = 54.7%
4 (grade B) - 239 / 1870 = 23.3%
3 (grade C) - 142 / 1870 = 7.6%
————— = 1404 / 1870 = 75%
2 (grade D) - 100 / 1870 = 5.3%
1 (grade F) - 366 / 1870 = 19.6%
—————- = 466 / 1870 = 24.9%
Other than to thank readers for their votes in the first section of the (1, 2, 3) A, B, and C grades I’m not going to focus very much on that area in this post. Instead I’m focusing on are the readers who voted the lowest two: (2 & 1) or D and F respectively. Looking for areas of improvement.
About 1 in 5 votes received to date have said the following about the post:
1 star - "F = please no more posts like these"
I was curious what posts these were, particularly what types, that had the most number of ‘1′ votes. MySQL query to the rescue:
select
count(rating_rating
) as a, rating_rating, rating_posttitle from wp_ratings where rating_rating=
1 group by rating_posttitle order by a DESC limit
10;
The first thing I did was check each of these 10 posts to make sure that linkrot hadn’t set in:
- The M&M post had a redirect in place, but people could still get there.
- The "See how you will look…" post link was removed awhile back because the service was removed. I hunted around for another link/service that would do the same thing, found one and updated the post with a footnote. Maybe that will draw less fire going forward. Otherwise, the post is bare bones and agree that I could have written more. I may bulk this one up with the new service link.
- In "Nintendogs don’t grow old, die or poop?" my tone is dismissive to younger gamers and it makes sense why they give me so much flack in the comment area and presumably they voted this down.
- "Mice on drugs" link was broken. I’m guessing some (most?) of these votes are for the lack of substance with the broken link and thus not being able to get the joke. Fixed.
- People strongly disagree with my new Journey album review grade of D+ and it’s reflected in both the comments and votes in the review. The album sold fairly well and Pineda has a fan following. I will always wish Journey my best, regardless of who is singing for them, but there is nothing in my review I’d change, including the grade. I’ve tried to get into this album several times and can’t.
- The five 1/5 ratings for "Create your own street and other signs online" post don’t seem right to me. I think this is one of the more useful posts at Hmm. Despite several links being broken, there are dozens of generators one can use to make cool signs and buttons. I refer to this post myself. The traffic to this post suggests that these 5 voters are wrong. The average rating is 3.25 out of 5, which still seems low to me, but hey it is what it is.
- The Icon Buffet thing still strikes me as being funny and ironic. Josh Williams and the people who left comments — all paying VIPs interestingly — disagree. I think my favorite part might be where they call it ‘my’ blog and then shut down comments on a post criticizing their service. Wouldn’t change anything with this post either. I understand why it got a few negative votes, but I think the post itself and resulting comments are gold.
- I don’t get why people would vote down the "1000+ free audiobooks post" so maybe somebody can help me with this one in the comments area. Feedback on this one was positive but avg rating is 2.9 out of 5. Don’t get it.
- The "Get hypnotized" post is another skinny on the bones type post. I don’t care for these type of posts either, but avg rating is 3.33 out of 5 which isn’t as bad as one might think.
Let’s compare this to list of the other extreme: most posts with a rating of ‘5′ out of 5:
Interesting that the top 2 posts in each list are for the same two posts.
- "Create yourself as an M&M" post has had 42 of 366 total votes (1/1) and 152 of 1023 total votes (5/5). That’s 11.5% vs 14.9%. Voting in extremes very close from a percentage basis.
- "See how you will look in 10-40 years" post had 27 out of 366 total votes (1/1) and 28 out of 1023 total votes (5/5). In this case 7.4% vs. 2.7%. A higher percentage of votes disliked this post.
The "Nintendogs don’t grow old, die or poop?" post — #3 in the most disliked post at Hmm to date (avg 2.78 out of 5 rating) — has had 175 comments made on it, most of which were very negative toward me for daring to question a game that has dogs that are quasi-real.
Conversely, the post with the most comments of any post at Hmm (close to breaking the 1,000 comments mark) is on the same subject, "First Look at Nintendogs: Daschund and Friends" is #7 on the most liked posts to date at Hmm list receiving 17 extreme like votes.
I’ve only written about this Nintendogs game directly in five posts, all in 2005 and the two shown above have had staying power that continues to this day. Maybe I should write more posts about Nintendogs? Probably not, as it was a game which I didn’t much care for and only played a couple times. This makes me go hmm big time.
Most votes are made *anonymously
I wasn’t that surprised that most votes to date have been made are by readers who are not logged in.
This could mean that they are at a different computer where they’ve left a comment in the past, didn’t accept the cookie, or they have never made comments before. The cookie is harmless, folks, it just remembers the info you used in the comment form so you don’t have to type it again. Check it out, if you like.
Oh, and no, I’m not stuffing the ballot box:
select
count(rating_rating
) as a, rating_username from wp_ratings group by rating_username order by a DESC limit
20;
Only 13 of the 1870 votes were made by me and yes that’s all the posts I’ve rated and no they weren’t all ‘5′. Why would I rate something I’ve written? When I felt a post was really good or really bad — the extremes — I’ve made a vote. It might be a bit cheesy to rate your own work, but as you can see I haven’t abused the privilege. I rated an old post a ‘1′ earlier today in fact.
Voting the extremes
This got me thinking how many others are like me with their voting online. Do you rate the extremes or nothing at all? If I think something is just middle of the road, I probably didn’t stick around long enough to rate it, much less leave a comment.
If you are logged in and rate a post your name will be attributed to your vote and I’ll know how you voted on the post. If this wasn’t clear before now, then it should be now. I have no plans to make the individual rating information publically available to others at this time, but would like to explore the option of giving readers the ability to access their own rating information and again, optionally share it publically if they wanted to do so. It might be a good way for folks to mark their favorite (or least favorite) posts around the site and share them with other readers.
I am, however, considering releasing more global data like is in this post when there is enough data to make it worthwhile. While I think nearly 2,000 votes is a good start and several new votes are coming in every day when it’s compared to the overall number of posts (almost 5,000 as of this writing) it’s not even an average of one vote every other post.
Please vote on Hmm posts after you read them including this one
Here’s how you can help shape the types of post published at Hmm. Please take a second after reading and vote on the quality of post. The rating used to be at the top of the post and wasn’t very UI friendly. Why would somebody scroll back up to rate? My bad there, it’s been moved to the bottom of the post to the right and looks like this:
What makes a post good quality is subjective and up to you. For me a good quality post is something that does the following:
- fresh content, perspective and/or voice
- keeps me engaged and interested throughout the whole post
- has working source links. If I have to go digging around for links to verify context, the post author dropped the ball.
- would like to read more posts like this
The star rating works as follows, just to recap:
- 5 stars - A grade = great post, please post more like this
- 4 stars - B grade = good post, I like it
- 3 stars - C grade = average post
- 2 stars - D grade = not among your best stuff
- 1 star — F grade = please no more posts like this
When you hover over the stars you’ll see these ratings re-explained.
Now don’t worry, I’m not going to be mad/hurt/insert ___ emotion at an reader for voting ‘1′ on posts that they truly don’t think are good quality. I’m also not expecting people to give me the mad props ‘5′ grade if the post isn’t good quality. I would respectfully ask that you be honest. Please don’t sully the ratings up with bogus ratings because that would just make the data worthless.
It’s one of those honor bar type things. Just read it and go with your gut as to if it’s the type of post you like to read.
For those curious if I were to rate this post, I’d give it a 4. I think there is some useful info here for blog owners to compare among their own reading rating data. However, if I didn’t have a blog and ignored the warning in the opening paragraph, I might rate it a 1 or 2. Not planning to rate this though, leaving the rating score fate up to you.
Staying the course
Overall I’m pleased that 3/4th of the ratings on posts being made here so far have been rated at least 3/5. There are some areas for improvement, particularly in delivering posts with more meat on them. I’m paying attention.
If you’ve watched posts over 2008 you’ll note the quantity of posts has dropped off noticeably because it takes longer to write meatier posts than quick, fluffy posts that don’t have much longevity.
As always thank you for reading and if you voted on this post or others, thank you for that too.
Suggested retail: $59.99 game only 
Suggested retail: $49.99 game only 
Suggested retail: $59.99 game only 
Suggested retail: $59.99 game only 
Suggested retail: $59.99 with guitar
Suggested retail: $59.99 game only 
Suggested retail: $59.99 game only 
